Welcome to your IBM i update for December 2025, your monthly digest into what’s happening within the IBM i community.
In this festive edition, we round-up the latest on Project Bob and at the end of 2025, provide a timely reminder on why IBM i is better than the other enterprise ecosystems.
You can watch the video above or read the blog post below…
An Update on Project Bob
If you’ve been following previous updates, you’ll already know about Project Bob.
But there has been a little movement in this space so, a quick update on what we’ve learned from the latest hands-on previews and IBM’s own commentary from earlier this month.
First, some insight from Gregory Simmons who was granted early access…
Now, one of the first observations was that Bob isn’t being delivered as a simple VS Code extension.
Instead, IBM has taken a fork of VS Code, which gives them far more control over how Bob behaves and evolves.
That’s a subtle but important shift from the Watson coding assistant, because it removes some of the limitations IBM has had with that earlier tooling.
From an early user perspective, Gregory explained that Bob can already pull in existing VS Code settings and extensions, which should help reduce friction for teams moving across and it feels like IBM is being very deliberate about not forcing developers to start from scratch.
Another new insight is how Bob handles coding standards and conventions. So, rather than hard-coding rules, Bob uses Markdown-based style guides that teams can define themselves.
That gives organisations a way to codify “how we do things here” and have Bob reinforce it consistently.
This could be particularly useful in mixed-experience teams.
There are also early signs of Bob beginning to understand application context, not just individual files.
In the preview, Bob was able to detect missing objects and even suggest placeholders, which hints at where things are heading once deeper IBM i integration arrives.
So, positive signs that suggest Bob may be closer than we think.
For the full article please see the post here on the IT Jungle
What exactly to expect from Project Bob?
Within another article, Alex Woddie spoke with IBM i’s Chief Architect Steve Will on what exactly to expect.
Now, in summary, what I read was that it’s clear that Bob is being designed to support the entire development lifecycle, not just to write code faster.
The emphasis on Bob is to help developers understand existing applications, explain legacy logic, refactor safely, and support modernisation – and this is good as it’s here in which many IBM i teams struggle today.
What’s particularly noteworthy is the expectation around iMode.
While Bob today is still limited in how deeply it can see into IBM i systems, iMode is expected to unlock native access to RPG, CL, database objects, and application structures.
That’s where Bob moves from “useful” to potentially transformational.
IBM has also confirmed that Bob is intended to supersede Watson Code Assist over time.
That signals a consolidation of IBM’s AI tooling around a platform-specific assistant, rather than generic AI being retrofitted onto IBM i.
Overall, the direction feels very deliberate.
This isn’t about chasing hype, it’s about building something that actually understands how IBM i environments really work and how it can make itself useful, throughout the development lifecycle.
Again, here’s the link to the the full article.
Why is the IBM i such a strong platform?
Alongside all the excitement around new tooling like Project Bob, at this festive time of year, it’s also worth stepping back and remembering why IBM i continues to be such a strong platform in the first place.
In his latest Mark’s Musings post on LinkedIn, Mark McDonnell makes the point that many of the negative perceptions around IBM i come from people who’ve never actually worked with it.
If your experience is limited to other platforms, it’s easy to assume IBM i is outdated, when in reality, it’s just designed very differently.
So in his article, Mark provided some timely reminders of what makes this platform great and I through, as it’s the holiday season, I’d share a summary with you…
One of the first things Mark highlights is integration. It’s baked in – on IBM i, the operating system, database, security, and workload management are all part of the dough that rise together to make our daily bread.
Now, all bread metaphors beside, this level of integration removes a lot of complexity that other ‘crusty’ platforms push back onto the application or infrastructure teams.
He also talks about reliability and availability, which is something long-time IBM i customers take almost for granted.
Businesses running IBM i systems often measure downtime in minutes per year, not hours or days, and that stability is incredibly valuable for core systems that the business depends on every single day.
Security is another big differentiator. IBM i’s object-level security and default lockdown model mean that many vulnerabilities seen elsewhere simply don’t exist in the same way. When security is baked into the platform rather than layered on later, it significantly reduces operational risk.
Finally, Mark touches on performance and efficiency.
IBM i is designed to handle high-volume transactional workloads extremely well, without needing armies of servers or complex tuning.
That efficiency is a big reason why many businesses quietly continue running IBM i, even while experimenting with other platforms around the edges.
Taken together, it’s a strong reminder that IBM i isn’t “surviving despite modern technology” – it’s still thriving because of its architecture.
And tools like Project Bob are really about making those strengths easier to access for today’s developers, not replacing them.
A timely reminder at this festive time that we work on the best platform on the planet – joy to the world!
Here’s the link to his LinkedIn post. I encourage you all to give Marks article a read in full, it’s a great winter warmer!
And that’s it for this edition of the IBM i Update and indeed for the update in 2025 – I do hope you’ve enjoyed all the articles from this year and look forward to providing more pertinent postings in 2026.
For more like this and previous episodes, please see our blog on the proximity website and on Linkedin too, but for now, a very Merry Christmas from me and all at Proximity, your application support, maintenance and development partners that are in your corner.
All the best for the holidays,
If you missed it, catch up on our November IBM i update. We’ve also got a summary of all the IBM i Updates published last year here.
Follow this link to access all the IBM i Update’s in one place.
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