On the 28th of December 2022, John Rockwell (Owner of ALL400S) published a post on LinkedIn about the number of Fortune 500 companies using IBM i. That number has drastically fallen over the last few years. Here is the context of the post:

When I first started doing the ALL400s Company List 6 years ago there were over 400 Fortune 500 companies using the platform. This is probably the first year that number will drop below 100. I've found some who are still on it but at the rate I'm finding them it's not looking good.

I've attached a list of the ones I've found to this post so you can see who's still using it. (As the number goes down we lose bragging rights.)

Link of the post here

This post got me thinking about the future of the platform and my future as a developer focused on the i. Instead of focusing on just my thoughts and coming to any conclusion, I decided to reach out to someone who has been working in the i industry for decades and knows every in and out of its market and use. Here is an edited form of our conversation. In this conversation GT is me and MH is him.

GT - I just came across this post so as a developer who is leaning more towards IBMi is there anything to be worried about?

MH- I saw that post too and I am not overly concerned. People have predicted the demise of the AS/400 practically since the day it was announced. Yet decades later, it remains the core business processing platform for companies of all shapes and sizes, and industries. Tons of software companies continue to invest in the platform, confident that it will be around for decades more. Yes, of course, RPG and COBOL are older programming languages, but there is almost half of a century of domain knowledge about the business processes for which they were built. It would be VERY difficult and slow to move off of those (we call that “sticky software”. So even if the whole world said “I want to leave the i” tomorrow, it would take an incredible expense and time, and functionality would not be advanced.

GT - Thank you for the assuring words, I wondered why companies continue to invest in IBM i at this time if there is no long future.

MH – I worry most about the client executives that don’t hear the IBM side of the story, and only hear from salespeople calling IBM “old” - that misunderstanding has cost many companies dearly. There are so many stories of failed attempts to leave the platform! Companies had wasted millions of dollars when all the customer needed was a modern web GUI or a decent set of APIs.

GT- Yes, I have heard those stories too. I think once shops start hiring modern language developers to train their existing staff in the new technologies, they would benefit a lot and wouldn’t have to worry about the legacy being obsolete. They could really transform their entire IBM i environment to the leading edge. I feel like writing a blog on this topic.

MH - But remember, even the legacy code is not obsolete, it’s what most of planet Earth’s computers run on still. The hype of the latest languages and tools is one thing, but having something paid for, built, running in production, and working year after year, is critical for the ongoing success of an organization. IBM i users are able to enjoy right now software that is reliable, secure, performant, and relatively inexpensive to run.

GT - I get your point and legacy = obsolete is not my opinion but a general mindset I have seen which I know is not true.

MH - It is an important conversation because, in my experience, businesses typically underestimate the value of the code they have. The best way forward is to blend the new code with what already exists. When addressing any new problem, companies need to look at which technology is the best fit to provide a solution. That requires that the IBM i professionals understand what the new technology can do. I think merging that valuable core code base with modern languages and CI/CD tooling is better. That way, all these organizations get to use the new technology, the new staffing, and the new languages but be building instead of re-building.

The crux of the conversation is the IBM i is a great platform that is here to stay for decades. That means that IBM i users need to start grooming the next generation of developers – developers that will be most comfortable working with the latest languages and tools (see https://octoverse.github.com/2022/top-programming-languages. There really isn’t anything you can do on other platforms that you cannot do on the IBM i.

I personally use Node.js, git, GitHub, Jenkins, vs code, and javascript extensively with IBM i creating solutions that benefit customers greatly.

IBM also has a page to track and document some of the open-source work its supports and releases. Here