This month we visited the i-Power event in Milton Keynes and amongst the workshops and presentations, we learn more on the BOB premium edition for i and explore what it offers beyond the standard edition…

And don’t worry, there’s a COMMON Europe Special Episode coming soon…

iPower 2026 Conference in Milton Keynes June 2026

Now, at the beginning of June, i visited the i-Power event in Milton Keynes. It was a two day event with the first day being dedicated to workshops… and it’s with the workshops that we’ll start as there were many.

For the Update, I tend to focus on one particular session to give you a perspective on what’s included.

And for this episode, I’ll feature the IBM AI session which discussed BOB and WatsonX Orchestrate.

The all-day session was hosted by IBM’s very own Andrew Laidlaw.

The workshop was split into two halves, with the morning session focusing on IBM Bob.

IBM Bob workshop

Our very own Dylan (or Bob Dylan as he’s now called) was there, and he joined the session that included installation and set-up, plus a hands-on workshop including guided examples of RPG coding, refactoring and documentation, plus the opportunity to play with it further to create your own code.

In the days following the workshop, we took BOB for a spin ourselves, and you can read all about our initial thoughts here: AI for IBM i Development: Our Hands-On Review of IBM Bob

Agentic AI with watsonx Orchestrate with Andrew Laidlaw

The feedback from the morning session was extremely positive, and the packed room was eager to get back to it in the afternoon, where Andrew provided an insight into Agentic AI using IBM’s own Orchestrate platform, where they used the tool to generate new agents and automation to perform specific, unique business tasks.

Fresh from the workshop, I took the opportunity to debrief with Andrew to discuss the session and the pathway for modernisation and AI on IBM i. 

I opened with a question on AI and asked if he felt that AI gives the IBM i Community a new way to modernise systems without having to replace them? 

Andrew made the point that AI gives IBM i customers a new route to modernisation without necessarily replacing the systems they have spent decades building.

Tools such as IBM Bob can help teams better understand and document their existing code, while also supporting future planning, new functionality and integration with both IBM i native tools and external systems.

Rather than forcing organisations to start again, AI can help them unlock more value from the systems they already rely on.

You can watch the full interview here.

iPower Gala Dinner – Networking, Socialising, and Celebrating

After a full day of workshops, sessions and conversations, the gala dinner gave everyone a chance to relax, catch up and enjoy the social side of the i Power event.

These events are always about much more than the technical content.

They are about bringing the IBM i community together, giving people time to talk properly, share ideas, compare experiences and build relationships that often continue long after the conference has finished.

It was also a great reminder of what makes this community so special.

Around the room, you had developers, vendors, IBM champions, partners, customers and long-standing friends of the platform all sharing the same space.

Good food, good conversation and a few laughs along the way.

After a day spent looking at the future of IBM i, AI and modernisation, the evening was a chance to celebrate the people who continue to make this platform so important.

iPower Keynote with Scott Forstie – Using AI to combat IBM i key challenges

The following morning, Scott Forstie took to the stage for the keynote and opened with a simple but important message.

Your IBM i runs everything, and Bob is there to help you run faster.

That set the tone for the session, because this was not presented as just another AI experiment. It was positioned as a practical response to the very real pressure IBM i teams are under today.

Those pressures will sound familiar to many organisations:

• Critical systems are often supported by a shrinking pool of experienced people.
• Too much knowledge still sits in people’s heads rather than in documentation.
• New developers can take months to become productive on older codebases, while every change request carries a level of business continuity risk.

At the same time, modernisation pressure is growing, maintenance backlogs are getting larger, and teams are being asked to do more with the same resources, or in some cases, fewer.

The keynote then moved into how IBM Bob can help address those challenges with Andrew Laidlaw addressing the congregation.

The core message was that Bob supports productivity and modernisation across six key areas: understanding, explaining, refactoring, generating, transforming and testing.

In practical terms, that means helping new team members understand complex applications more quickly, generating documentation and diagrams, standardising code, accelerating new feature delivery, supporting modernisation from older RPG to more modern approaches, and reducing defect risk through generated tests.

What I thought was particularly interesting was that Bob was not positioned purely as a coding assistant.

The keynote described Bob as an AI-powered development partner across the whole IBM i software development lifecycle.

That means it has relevance not only for developers, but also for DevOps teams, business architects and CTOs:

• For developers, it supports planning, coding, debugging, compiling, documenting, testing and understanding.
• For DevOps, it can support deployment, CI/CD, testing and reviews.
• For architects, it can help extract business logic, identify system dependencies and support documentation.
• For CTOs, the focus is on reducing technical debt, improving workforce stability, lowering operational risk and speeding up innovation.

There was also a strong emphasis on the developer ecosystem around IBM i. The keynote referenced the Open VSX registry and showed how IBM i tooling is increasingly available through VS Code compatible editors.

That matters because it reinforces the direction of travel. IBM i development is continuing to move into more modern development environments, while still retaining the strengths of the platform.

Another important theme was context. Generic AI tools can be useful, but they can also guess when they do not understand the platform properly.

The message from the keynote was that Bob is being shaped to understand IBM i more deeply, using IBM i documentation, Redbooks and platform specific knowledge to provide more accurate and useful responses.

That is a major point for this community, because IBM i development is not generic development. It has its own language, patterns, tooling, database, operating environment and history. More on this later…

The keynote also included feedback from IBM i developers who have already used Bob. The examples focused on modernisation, design documentation, onboarding and test case creation.

One of the strongest themes was that Bob can help capture and share knowledge from large and complex applications, including programs with tens of thousands of lines of code.

That has obvious value when organisations are trying to onboard new developers or reduce dependency on a small number of senior people.

I will come on to the IBM Bob Premium Package for i shortly, because that deserves its own section.

But the wider message from the keynote was clear.

IBM is positioning Bob as a way to preserve critical business logic, reduce risk in change cycles, scale senior knowledge across teams, help new developers ramp faster, and shift IBM i teams from maintenance towards modernisation and innovation.

For me, the important point is that this is not about replacing IBM i developers.

It is about giving them better tools. Bob is being presented as a way to make existing teams more productive, help businesses understand the applications they already rely on, and support a more confident approach to modernisation.

IBM Bob Premium Package for i Overview

Now, Bob has been busy beavering away, swatting up on IBM i.

And as such, on June 24th, the Bob Premium Package for i was released to the IBM i Community. But what’s it all about and what makes it different from the standard package?

Well, in simple terms, it takes the foundation of IBM Bob and tailors it for IBM i.

The Bob Premium Package for i adds direct IBM i connectivity, RPG-focused skills, curated IBM i documentation, expert RPG code generation with IBM i nuanced refactoring, curated technical documentation and unit test generation.

That matters because it shows IBM is not approaching AI-assisted development on IBM i with a one-size-fits-all mindset.

Instead, Bob Premium Package for i appears designed as a platform-aware assistant that understands the realities of IBM i development, from RPG application structures through to the modernisation pressures many organisations are now facing.

Its another sign that IBM sees AI-assisted development not as a replacement for IBM i expertise, but as a way to help preserve, accelerate and extend it.

What separates the Bob Premium Package for i from IBM Bob?

The important distinction is that IBM Bob and the Bob Premium Package for i are not really competing versions of the same idea. It’s just that the premium package for i is a version of BOB especially made for the IBM i.

Think of Bob as a car… normal cars do a splendid job on the road, but when you head for the hills, you need a an off-roader, otherwise you’ll get stuck in the mud.

Yes, the Premium package for i is the car equivalent of a RangeRover.

So, while IBM Bob is the broader AI development partner… the Bob Premium Package for i builds on that foundation but takes it ‘higher’ in the mountainous world of IBM i.

Ok, so what separates it?

Well, the most important detail is that Bob Premium Package for i adds IBM i-native context – grounding the responses in IBM i application logic and native platform practices.

It adds direct connectivity, instead of relying on disconnected copy and paste.

The premium package for i will make use of the development partitions you have on your Power server, making the development and support of your environment familiar to your current practices, enabling read, write, compile, run SQL and test actions too.

It applied specialised skills, curated modes, prompts and workflows for specific RPG, SQL and DDS tasks… to help, understand, explain, refactor, generate, transform, test, compile and manage data too.

And it provides a unified workflow including old RPG to modern RPG routines, business rule extraction from monolithic programs, and DDS to DDL conversion… plus mode-specific commands focused on particular IBM i tasks.

And it’s these four points that explain why the Premium Package for i is different from normal Bob: it is intended to move AI assistance closer to the actual IBM i development workflow.

And why does this matter to IBM i Teams? Well, for IBM i teams, the value of Bob is practical.

It could help new developers understand older applications faster.

It could help experienced developers capture knowledge that may currently live only in their heads.

It could support safer change by improving understanding, documentation and test coverage

And it could help teams spend less time deciphering legacy code and more time modernising the systems the business already depends on.

That is the real opportunity.

Not AI as a novelty, but AI as a way to reduce operational risk, improve knowledge transfer and give IBM i teams more confidence when working with complex, business-critical applications.

So, the Bob Premium Package for i as the more complete version for real IBM i development work. It adds direct IBM i connectivity, a unified developer workflow, specialised IBM i skills and workflows, fewer tokens, better results, and an integrated user experience.

So, while standard IBM Bob already supports IBM i modernisation tasks, the Bob Premium Package for i is designed to take that further by adding native IBM i connectivity, IBM i-specific modes, curated skills, source member access, compile/test capabilities and guided workflows for real IBM i modernisation activity.

Comparison: IBM Bob vs Bob Premium Package for i

Ok, a briefest of deep-dives this table highlights where the difference really sits:

Standard IBM Bob gives development teams a general AI partner across the software development lifecycle. It can help with understanding, generating, refactoring, documenting and automating development tasks across enterprise software projects.

The Bob Premium Package for i adds a more specific IBM i lens. It is aimed at teams working with code and the live IBM i application environments. That changes the value proposition from general AI assistance to something more closely aligned with the way IBM i teams actually work – on the box itself.

So, the biggest shift is context. With direct IBM i connectivity and IBM i-specific capabilities, Bob can move away from disconnected copy-and-paste usage and closer to real application development.

For organisations running business-critical IBM i systems, this is where the announcement becomes significant.

The goal is not just faster code generation. It is safer change, better documentation, improved knowledge transfer and a more practical route to modernisation without losing the business logic that already works.

Great! But this stuff isn’t free… well, after the free trial anyway.

IBM Bob Premium Package for i Pricing

In terms of costs, the IBM BOB Premium Package for i is positioned above the base plans.

So first, a customer would need to choose the appropriate plan for them. In this, Bob allows you to have a free trial with 40 Bobcoins… I’ll get to those in a minute.

Once they’ve been consumed or a month has elapsed, you have a choice of three tiers.

First, Pro at $20 per month is a continuation of the 40 Bobcoin model, so if you’re an occasional coder, a solo developer or a small shop, this may be the tier for you.

Next is Pro+, this provides 160 Bobcoins and may be the sweet spot for most IBM i shops while Ultra is $200 per user per month and provides 500 Bobcoins, the tier for heavy coding and modernisation.

Now after that, i’d probably recommend that the IBM i shop purchase the Premium Package for i. This is an additional $20 per month but does contain all the nuanced IBM i niceties.

IBM Bob: What are Bobcoins?

So, what are Bobcoins? Bobcoins are essentially usage credits.

Instead of just paying for the tool, you’re paying for the amount of AI work you actually use.

Small tasks cost very little, but bigger jobs like code refactoring or modernisation use more coins. It’s a simple model, but it does mean AI becomes something you actively manage, not just switch on.

So, Bobcoins act as a simplified way to measure AI consumption:

• Small tasks: 0.1–0.5 coins
• Code modernisation: 2–5 coins
• Complex workflows: higher usage

This effectively turns AI into a metered resource, rather than a fixed-cost tool.

Should you choose IBM Bob Premium Package for i?

So, the IBM Bob Premium Package for i is not being positioned as another generic AI coding assistant.

IBM makes it clear that they see a real opportunity in helping IBM i teams understand, document, modernise and safely evolve the systems their businesses already depend on.

So, it’s not just that it can generate code, but that it can work with IBM i-specific context, documentation and system knowledge to produce more relevant answers.

And that matters because hallucination and generic AI output are obvious concerns for anyone working on business-critical systems. IBM are positioning Bob as a colleague you can trust.

IBM Bob won’t remove the need for IBM i expertise

The key point here is that AI is a powerful tool, a trusted colleague even. But it is not the whole story. Used on its own, IBM Bob can generate code, explain logic and speed up repetitive tasks.

But without experienced people managing and guiding the work, there is still a risk of missing what really matters.

The best results come when AI works as part of the team.

Let Bob help with the repetitive work:

• Documentation
• First pass analysis
• Routine development tasks.

Then let the developers and business experts apply the judgment, experience and understanding needed to make the right decisions.

For IBM i, this is not about replacing developers. It is about giving teams better tools so they can modernise with more confidence.

So, in closing, I’d say that it’s important to remember that IBM Bob will not remove the need for IBM i expertise; instead, it’ll amplify it.

Once development becomes metered and scalable, the real question becomes, who’s managing it, controlling it, and making sure it delivers value?

And for IBM, that’s where the real opportunity sits.

But for now, that’s it for this June 2026 Update.

I’m Andrew Nicholson, and we’re Proximity, your application support, maintenance and development partners that are in your corner.

If you missed it, catch up on our May IBM i update, or access all the IBM i Updates in one place.

Alternatively, if you’d like to receive the latest IBM i Update hot off the press to your inbox, subscribe to the IBM i Update on LinkedIn.

The post IBM i Update: June 2026 – IBM Bob Premium Package for i appeared first on Proximity.

Recently, some of our IBM i development team attended the iPower conference, hosted by i-UG, where they had the opportunity to experience IBM Bob, an AI-powered software development assistant tailored specifically for the IBM i ecosystem.

Following the workshops, our developers, Darren and Dylan, took IBM Bob out for a spin in a real-world trial environment. 

We sat down to discuss our findings, what we learned, and how IBM i users can responsibly start experimenting with AI.

Read on below for our hands-on review of IBM Bob.

Where IBM Bob shines: System context and modernisation

Generic AI coding assistants like ChatGPT are great for general-purpose code, but they fall short when it comes to the highly specialised nuances of the IBM i language base. 

That is where IBM Bob brings a significant shift to the IBM i community.

As Bob has been developed by IBM, and specifically for the IBM i, it is deeply integrated into the IBM i file system (IFS), so it not only knows where to look, but it also knows what to look for. 

It understands system dependencies, library structures, and the context of your specific environment. 

During our trial, we discovered three key areas where Bob could add immense value to an IBM i development team:

1. Code conversion and modernisation: One of the first tasks we threw at it was converting legacy RPG III code into modern RPG ILE. Bob handled this with, quite frankly, impressive accuracy, making it a potentially powerful tool for IBM i modernisation projects.
2. Legacy documentation: If you have business-critical programs that haven’t been touched in 15 years, Bob is incredibly useful for parsing the logic. It can review a legacy program, identify the other programs it calls, list the physical or logical files it interacts with, and generate comprehensive documentation to help developers understand what the system is doing. 
3. SQL optimisation: When asked to look at our database interactions, Bob accurately suggested improvements to optimise our SQL statements. It predicted a 50% to 60% performance improvement, and when we ran the update, the benchmark numbers proved it right!

It is worth noting that Bob could, for instance, be used in conjunction with Fresche’s X-Analysis suite for application documentation. 

Alternatively, Fresche has added AI capability natively into X-Analysis, which is a new development to the already impressive X-Analysis tool. 

The challenges: Pushing the boundaries of generative code

It wasn’t all seamless, however. 

When we pushed Bob past analysis and optimisation into completely writing or modifying complex chunks of execution code, we did manage to break it.

Using these AI capabilities requires “Bob Coins” (the platform’s token system). 

When Bob got things wrong, we had to prompt it to fix its own errors, which quickly burned through our token allocation. 

We even jokingly asked it for our Bob Coins back, but unfortunately, the AI couldn’t help us there!

For this reason, we don’t see it completely writing new code from scratch just yet, though we are highly anticipating the new Premium version to see how these capabilities mature.

A roadmap for IBM i teams: How to get started

If your organisation is looking to trial IBM Bob or similar generative AI tools on the IBM i, we highly recommend a cautious, phased approach:

• Start with read-only permissions: Do not give an AI tool write access to your code repositories or production environments right from the start. Start by configuring its permissions to ‘read-only’.
• Focus on analysis first: Use the tool to analyse your codebase, map out workflows, and document business logic. Let it show you how it understands your files and system structure before you let it modify them.
• Build team experience: Allow your developers to build familiarity with the IDE extension (it runs comfortably inside VS Code for i) in a safe sandbox environment before integrating it into active development workflows.

Accelerate your IBM i modernisation with Proximity

AI tools like IBM Bob are shifting the landscape of what’s possible, but maximising their value still requires seasoned IBM i expertise. 

We’ve been using various AI tools within our IBM i support and development team for the past year-or-so. 

The challenges we identified with Bob are not unique and should be a cautionary tale for any IBM i shop considering using AI within their toolset.

AI shouldn’t be used as the only or main tool for IBM i projects. 

It should be seen as a tool to speed up the process. You simply can’t escape the fact that without a skilled IBM i development resource.

Tools such as IBM Bob, no matter how good they are, could get you into a lot of trouble, and fast.

Whether you are looking to modernise legacy RPG code, document decades of technical debt, or simply need expert support to keep your core systems running at peak performance, Proximity is here to help.

Ready to transform your green screens or optimise your IBM i applications?

To learn how our development and support services can future-proof your business, contact Proximity today

The post AI for IBM i Development: Our Hands-On Review of IBM Bob appeared first on Proximity.

In this episode of the IBM i update, we ask whether IBM i is the perfect platform for native agentic AI? How MCP will be the bridge between your data and AI automation. Ask when IBM i skills become a resilience risk and the latest on the events circuit too…

You can watch the video above or read the blog post below…

IBM Announces IBM Bob Premium

First, we start with BOB, and IBM announced this month that the Bob Premium Package for i is planned for general availability on 24 June 2026.

But what is the Premium Package?

In simple terms, it takes the foundation of IBM Bob and tailors it for IBM i.

The Bob Premium Package for i adds direct IBM i connectivity, RPG-focused skills, curated IBM i documentation, code generation, refactoring, technical documentation and unit test generation.

That matters because it shows IBM is not approaching AI-assisted development on IBM i with a one-size-fits-all mindset.

Instead, Bob Premium Package for i appears designed as a platform-aware assistant that understands the realities of IBM i development, from RPG application structures through to the modernisation pressures many organisations are now facing.

Its another sign that IBM sees AI-assisted development not as a replacement for IBM i expertise, but as a way to help preserve, accelerate and extend it.

Common Norge in Oslo

Now, at the start of the month, I enjoyed the pleasure of attending the COMMON Norge Professional Day in Oslo.

This event brought together the IBM Power community for a packed agenda centred on Power11, AI and the evolving role of IBM Power in enterprise technology.

Hosted at the IBM Client Centre, which was just a nice walk along the riverbank from my hotel in the centre, the event combined strategic sessions from IBM experts with practical technical content for the wider Power and IBM i community.

The day opened with a focus on Agentic AI, exploring how organisations can move beyond isolated AI projects and begin turning artificial intelligence into operational and commercial value.

This theme continued throughout the agenda, with sessions showing how IBM Power is being positioned as a secure, resilient and increasingly AI-ready platform for mission-critical workloads.

I enjoyed meeting new contacts, and the food and company were excellent. Now, I wish I could report more, but unfortunately, the majority of the presentations were in Norwegian – thankfully for me, the slides were mostly in English, so I was able to follow along.

There was one presentation in English, however, and that was mine!

Yes, for the first time, I presented an IBM i Update live.

Here I covered a few pertinent articles from recent updates, including project BOB, what AI means for IBM i developers and analysing the results of the IBM i Marketplace Survey.

My summary? Well, what stood out most was the direction of travel. IBM Power is no longer being discussed purely in terms of stability and reliability, although those qualities remain essential. Increasingly, the conversation is about how the platform can underpin AI, automation, modernisation and secure enterprise innovation.

My thanks to Erik Aasland and the Common Norge team for their invitation and hospitality.

Is IBM i the perfect agentic AI operating system?

Now, while IBM i was not designed for the AI era, many of the design decisions that made it successful may now make it ideal for enterprise AI. So, could IBM i be the perfect agentic operating system?

Well, this was a prevailing theme that ran through the PowerUp event in New Orleans at the end of April.

That IBM may be repositioning IBM i entirely – not just to survive the AI era, but to lead in it.

And that’s because of the intrinsic nature of the architecture of IBM i that provides the foundation layers the AI needs to operate effectively…

Now, this starts with data.

And unlike many open systems environments, where organisations often have to stitch together databases, data lakes, middleware, security layers and governance tools, IBM i already has its core business data tightly integrated into the platform through its integrated Db2.

And this matters! Because AI is only useful when it can access trusted, meaningful, well-governed data.

For IBM i customers, the data often already sits alongside the business logic, security model and operational processes that give it context. That makes IBM i a strong candidate for AI use cases such as:

• Querying live operational data
• Generating business insight
• Supporting decision-making
• Monitoring transactions
• Helping users understand trends and exceptions

The point is not just that IBM i has data. It has business-critical data with context.

In addition, Enterprise AI cannot simply be allowed to wander through business systems unrestricted.

There has to be security in place to help protect the system and data integrity, without being overtly complex, to set up and manage and of course, this is where IBM i has a natural strength.

Security and identity are not bolted on as an afterthought.

They are part of the platform’s design, and that gives IBM i a credible foundation for AI that is not just clever, but controlled.

AI needs to know:

• Who is asking the question
• What that person or agent is allowed to access
• Which actions are permitted
• Which data should remain protected
• How authority is controlled

For agentic AI, this is vital. If an AI assistant or agent is going to interact with live business systems, it must operate within a controlled authority model.

IBM i already has strong native concepts around users, object authority, adopted authority, auditing, access control and system-level governance.

Then there’s access and identity. You see, agentic AI needs to know who is asking, what they are allowed to see, and what actions they can perform.

IBM i already has strong user profiles, authority models and access controls to manage trust, permissions and accountability across the platform.

Now, AI agents are not just chatbots; they may need to run tasks, monitor activity and trigger processes.

IBM i already has native capabilities around job scheduling, batch processing, job queues, message queues and operational state.

These are the kinds of platform-level capabilities that AI agents need if they are going to become useful inside real enterprise environments.

Or, In other words, IBM i already understands how to run business processes reliably. This is a major advantage when you start thinking about AI agents that need to support operations rather than just produce text.

AI agents need to understand:

• What task are they performing
• When should it run
• What happened previously
• What state is the process in
• Whether something is completed, failed, or requires attention

IBM i has always been trusted for transactional workloads. Orders, invoices, stock movements, financial postings, warehouse updates and customer records need to be processed accurately and reliably.

For AI, this is critical.

If AI is going to make recommendations, explain what happened, support users, or eventually trigger actions, then businesses need confidence that the underlying platform can maintain integrity.

That means:

• Transactions must be reliable
• Changes must be traceable
• Activity must be auditable
• Compliance requirements must be supported
• Business-critical processes must not be compromised

IBM i’s strength here is that auditability and transactional integrity are deeply embedded in the platform. This makes it far better suited to serious enterprise AI than environments where governance has to be created after the fact.

If AI is going to support or take action in enterprise environments, businesses need traceability and IBM i already has strong auditing, logging and compliance capabilities built into the platform.

The final point is operational visibility.

AI becomes much more useful when it can understand not just the data, but the wider operating environment. IBM i can expose a huge amount of system information through logs, messages, jobs, queues, SQL Services, performance data and operational monitoring.

This is where IBM i Services and SQL Services become particularly important. They provide a structured way to access system information, which can then be used by AI tools, assistants or agents.

That opens the door to AI use cases such as:

• Summarising system health
• Identifying abnormal activity
• Explaining job failures
• Helping support teams triage incidents
• Reviewing performance trends
• Surfacing risks before they come out

So, what does this mean?

Well, simply speaking, Enterprise AI needs more than a large language model. It needs a trusted operating environment around it.

It needs integrated data, security, identity, scheduling, transaction integrity, auditability and operational visibility.

And these seven foundations are not new concepts on IBM i.

They are part of the platform’s design. And that is what makes IBM’s positioning so interesting.

While many organisations are trying to assemble these capabilities across multiple tools and platforms, IBM i customers may already have much of the required foundation in place.

How MCP is the bridge between IBM i and agentic AI

Now, while the foundational aspect is all there within IBM i, we’ll still need to connect and interact with external systems, tools and data sources.

That’s where MCP (or Model Context Protocol) comes in.

You see, MCP acts as the bridge between IBM i and Agentic AI… Because AI is only useful when it can work with real business context, across the enterprise.

So, your IBM i will already contain huge amounts of trusted operational data within the Db2. However, other operational data, services and processes may be within external systems – perhaps stored within SQL.

MCP gives AI agents a way to access that information in a structured, controlled and useful way.

That means an AI model could, for example, connect to IBM i data, query sales information, review operational trends, inspect system status, or help produce reports based on live enterprise data.

Jesse Gorzinski demonstrated this idea at POWERUp, showing how an IBM i-based MCP server could connect an AI model to sales data in Db2 for i and then generate a PowerPoint presentation from the insights it found.

The important point is that this is not about wrapping a chatbot around an old system.

As Adam Shedivy explained at POWERUp, the opportunity is to build agents that participate in the operating model itself: agents that can reason, decide and act over business processes in a controlled way.

And this is where IBM i becomes especially compelling.

Because the platform already has the core capabilities agentic AI needs: identity, security, scheduling, state management, auditability and access to trusted data.

MCP does not replace those strengths. It exposes them to AI in a more modern and standardised way.

That is why MCP could become such an important part of the IBM i AI story. It provides the connective tissue between AI models and the live enterprise systems where real business happens.

In other words, MCP may be the mechanism that allows IBM i to become not just AI-enabled, but genuinely agentic-ready.

The IBM i skills gap could be your biggest resilience risk

IBM i has always had a strong reputation for resilience.

For many organisations, that resilience conversation has traditionally focused on infrastructure: hardware reliability, backups, high availability, disaster recovery, replication, role swaps, cyber recovery and data protection. All of that matters.

But there is another form of resilience that is becoming just as important: application resilience.

That same argument applies just as strongly to the applications running on IBM i. Because for many businesses, the real risk is not simply whether the IBM i platform is available.

It is whether the business has the right people, knowledge and support model in place to keep the applications running, changing and recovering when needed.

One of the most important observations in Ash Giddings’ article is that deep IBM i knowledge is often concentrated in a small number of individuals.

These are the people who understand the nuances of the environment, the dependencies between applications, and the practical steps required when something unusual happens.

I’m sure that this will sound familiar to many IBM i customers:

• They know which jobs need to run in which order.
• They know which programmes were changed for a specific customer requirement ten years ago.
• They know which interfaces are business-critical, even if they are not well documented.
• They know what to check when a warehouse process, invoicing run or EDI flow fails.
• That knowledge is incredibly valuable.

But if it exists only in people’s heads, it is also a risk.

When those individuals retire, move roles, reduce hours, go on holiday or are unavailable during an incident, the business can quickly discover that its application resilience is weaker than expected.

High availability can help keep systems running. Disaster recovery can help restore or switch environments. Infrastructure resilience is essential.

But application continuity depends on more than the machine being available.

A business also needs to know:

• Who understands the application landscape
• How core processes work
• Where the customisations are
• What dependencies exist between systems
• How incidents are triaged and resolved
• How changes are tested and promoted
• How support is provided when the internal expert is unavailable

This is where application managed services become part of the resilience conversation.

The objective is not simply to outsource support. It is to reduce dependency on individual knowledge and build a more sustainable operating model around the application estate.

Many IBM i applications have been developed and refined over decades. That is often a strength. These systems reflect the business in detail and support processes that generic software would struggle to replicate.

But over time, documentation can drift. Development standards can change. Interfaces can multiply. Batch processes can become harder to understand.

Business logic can become embedded in code, procedures and operational routines that are not always visible to new team members.

A good application managed service should help turn that tribal knowledge into managed knowledge.

That means building an understanding of:

• The application structure
• Core business processes
• Key programmes and data flows
• Batch schedules and dependencies
• Interfaces to third-party systems
• Known issues and recurring incidents
• Change and release processes
• Business-critical periods and operational priorities

This is not a one-off exercise. It should be part of an ongoing service model, where knowledge is continually captured, refined and shared across a wider team.

That is what reduces resilience risk.

A more mature approach would ask:

• Are key applications documented?
• Are critical processes understood by more than one person?
• Are interfaces mapped?
• Are batch schedules and dependencies visible?
• Are support procedures repeatable?
• Are changes tested and promoted in a controlled way?
• Are external specialists familiar with the environment before an incident occurs?
• Is there a plan for retirements, absence or skills loss?

These questions are not always comfortable, but they are necessary.

And the time to act is before the skills walk out the door.  Many organisations only address IBM i skills risk when it becomes urgent.

• A key developer retires.
• A support analyst leaves.
• A critical incident exposes a knowledge gap.
• A project stalls because nobody fully understands an area of the system. A business change becomes risky because the application impact is unclear.

And by then, the business is already on the back foot.

A better approach is to treat application knowledge transfer as a planned resilience activity.

That can include discovery, documentation, shadowing, support onboarding, code analysis, process mapping and gradual transition into a managed service model.

The aim is not to replace internal teams. In many cases, the best model is a blended one: internal business knowledge supported by external IBM i specialists who provide depth, cover and continuity.

That gives the organisation more confidence and avoids the classic risk of relying on one or two people to carry an entire application estate.

IBM i remains one of the most resilient enterprise platforms available.

But platform resilience is only part of the story.

If the applications running on IBM i are critical to the business, then the skills, knowledge and support model around those applications must be treated as part of the resilience strategy too.

High availability protects the environment. 

Disaster recovery protects the recovery path. And Application managed services protect the knowledge, support and continuity around the business logic itself.

That distinction matters.

Because when IBM i skills become scarce, the risk is not just technical.

It’s operational, it’s commercial, it’s organisational.

And for many businesses, the real question is no longer whether IBM i can keep running.

It is whether the people and processes around it are resilient enough to keep the business running with it.

i-UG’s i-Power 2026 event preview with Steve Cast from Fresche

And finally, we’ve a couple of events coming up that I’ll be attending and even speaking at – yes, in the middle of June, we have the COMMON Europe event in Lyon France.

Now, if you’re looking to attend, please join me for the IBM i Update Live – yes, a presentation of some of the hit articles and a little more will be presented by me late Monday afternoon. Do join me if you can.

But before then, we have the i-Power event in Milton Keynes at the beginning of June.

I’ll be there too, hosting the Proximity/Fresche booth at the event.

Please do come and say hello!

Now if you’re ‘umming and arring’ about attending, or just don’t know what to expect – I spoke with COMMON Board member Steve Cast to provide an insight and a bit of a preview. You can see the full interview here:

Time is now of the essence, so if you would like to join the event, please register here – https://iugipower2026.sched.com/

And that’s it for this months update.

I’m Andrew Nicholson, and we’re Proximity, your application support, maintenance and development partners that are in your corner.

If you missed it, catch up on our April IBM i update.

Follow this link to access all the IBM i Update’s in one place.

Alternatively, if you’d like to receive the latest IBM i Update hot off the press to your inbox, subscribe to the newsletter version on LinkedIn.

The post IBM i Update: May 2026 – Is IBM i the perfect platform for native agentic AI? appeared first on Proximity.

After three years in Northampton, the Leonardo Hotel in Milton Keynes will host this year’s event.

• Dates: Tuesday 2nd June and Wednesday 3rd June 2026
• Location: The Leonardo Hotel Milton Keynes, 300 Midsummer Boulevard, MK9 2HP, Milton Keynes, UK

Andy Nicholson sat down with fellow IBM Champion, Steve Cast last week to discuss the conference.

Steve is Senior Vice President, EMEA & APAC at Freshe Solutions, and holds the positions of Treasurer of Common Europe and Marketing Director of i-UG.

Catch the full interview in the video below:

In recent years, the i-Power conference has focused on AI and open source capabilities within the IBM i platform as well as interfacing data on POWER for AI purposes.

The theme for 2026? 

AI on IBM i has come of age. 

Day 1 (Tuesday): Workshop Day

• Features a mix of full-day and half-day workshops.
• Gala Dinner takes place in the evening.

Day 2 (Wednesday): Conference Day

• Features keynote presentations to the whole conference, individual conference sessions, networking, and refreshments.

Who should attend i-Power?

IBM i developers, System Administrators, IT leaders, or a mix of topics for all? 

Steve explains:

“We try and stream or section off different parts of the event for different audience members. Very much the first day, so that’s the Tuesday this year, is very much orientation around technical education. So by virtue of it being education and workshops, almost certainly that’s attracting a technical audience. The second day, with the IBM keynote, so what’s IBM roadmap look like? What are the AI solutions that IBM are working on? Everybody’s talking about Bob, so IBM Bob and how that’s going to revolutionise the way we develop software. All of those kind of topics draw in the decision makers, not just the technical teams”.

Those sessions at i-Power confirm what, to many IBM i shops, is the primary concern to the IBM i platform.

The growing skills gap. 

As we’ve explored in previous editions of the IBM i Update, our IT leaders and System Administrators in the IBM i community face a critical resource shortage. 

They’re often managing teams where developers are nearing retirement age.

This is the reality highlighted in the latest Fortra IBM i marketplace survey which highlights that as the number one concern for IBM i based businesses. 

This shortage of experienced RPG developers means business critical IBM i applications are at risk, leaving businesses in urgent need of reliable application support and continuity.

IBM’s Bob has been positioned as a developer assistant designed to help close this gap by enabling newer developers to gain understanding of so-called legacy code.

However, there is a potentially dangerous misunderstanding among some in the IBM i community.

Bob is an assistant for coding, it is NOT a modernisation solution for your entire IBM i application estate.

Steve points out in the interview that is not the tool to convert applications from RPG to another language or to eliminate years of legacy technical debt.

For that, you need skilled, experienced IBM i developer specialists.

“I don’t think there’s much of a shortage of kind of Java developers or open source knowledge,” comments Steve. 

He adds: “They’re all coming out of university, people with those kind of skills. The legacy RPG understanding is a little harder to teach. So maybe with something like Bob that helps us to understand the code. But a really critical point, if I may, is that Bob is very much a developer assistant, so a coding assistant. I think there’s a little misconception that Bob is somehow going to modernise your entire application or understand that entire application”

That’s not what IBM are trying to do with Bob. Bob is there to aid us as a developer.

It’s not there to kind of transform the entire application from one form of RPG to another, or RPG to Java, or whatever route you want to go. Bob’s not really the tool for that.”

For those of you who are interested in learning more about IBM Bob, i-Power has two full day workshops on Day 1 which delve into the possibilities further.

IBM AI: Bob & watsonx Orchestrate is split into a morning (Bob) and afternoon (watsonx) session. The morning includes hands-on demonstrations of some of the capabilities of Bob’s AI-powered Software Development assistant.

The afternoon focuses on IBM Agentic AI through watsonx.

In the other Bob-focused workshop, Carol Woodbury and Scott Forstie look at cyber security around the use of Bob with a demonstration of “the power of using IBM Bob for IBM i security tasks.

In addition, they’ll discuss the security safeguards and proper configurations you’ll want to consider when implementing AI.”

Register for i-Power 2026

You can register and see a complete schedule of events over the two-days through the i-UG website. With the packed itinerary, there’s bound to be something of interest for everyone.

The post What to expect at i-UG’s i-Power Conference 2026 appeared first on Proximity.

In this episode of the IBM i update, we discuss AI on IBM i and ask if we’re heading for a productivity breakthrough or is this just a bubble that’s about to burst?

You can watch the video above or read the blog post below…

Opportunity vs risk of AI on the IBM i

AI has become impossible to ignore in the IBM i world.

Gartner, the huge multi-national technology analyst firm is rather cautious on AI.

If you search ‘bubble’ on their website you get a slew of results that paint a tone of tempered optimism, where the opportunity is acknowledged, but the risk of inflated expectations and short-term disillusionment is never far behind.

As reported by The Register, Gartner’s view is sobering. Estimates suggest that up to 70% of AI projects could fail, while as many as 75% of vendors in this space may disappear.

Scary right? But let’s put some context behind these figures.

The Gartner report was mainly geared towards mainframes, a place where scale and interdependency of these systems make full migration physically and financially unrealistic for most enterprises.

So, the failure rate is largely about ambitious mainframe transformation programmes, not practical IBM i augmentation projects. I would suggest that the 70% failure reflects expectation – not technology failure.

Indeed, Gartner themselves advise caution due to what they describe as “The gap between the ‘marketing promise’ of generative AI…” As such, set your expectations accordingly.

As for the 75% of vendors disappearing, well, every emerging tech scenario goes through this.

The AI bubble vs the .com bubble

If you’re as old as I, then you’ll remember the .COM bubble where all anyone needed to throw money at a project was an idea – valuations of companies exploded with no proven business model.

Thousands of startups launched and investors piled in on potential, not delivery. Most of these startups disappeared within a few years.

Today, we’re seeing the same with products being rebranded as ‘AI-Powered’ but I think we’re learned enough (and with hindsight) understand that expectations shouldn’t run before reality.

So yes, many startups and business born on the AI revolution will appear and disappear just as quickly, and poor projects will fail – thousands of them.

But also, today the .COM the market is now larger than ever anticipated with Google and Amazon leading the charge.

AI is different from the .com era.

The fundamentals are stronger, the technology real and adoption being driven by tangible business value.

The lesson from the dot-com era isn’t that the technology failed – it’s that the hype did.

And we’re seeing the same pattern emerge with AI.

For IBM i organisations, the opportunity isn’t in chasing the bubble, but in applying AI where it genuinely adds value – on top of systems that already work.

How you can achieve good AI outcomes

What should we apply to ensure that we’re not just another nearly-run?

Well, good AI outcomes come from strong foundations:

1. Clear governance
2. Clean architecture
3. Well documented
4. Trusted data
5. Well-defined processes
6. Good people

So, this isn’t a signal to avoid AI, it’s a warning to approach it with clarity, structure and good dollop of realism.

AI-assisted tools can significantly reduce the time, cost, and risk of modernisation, but they need to be applied with a clear understanding of where they add value.

But perhaps the most critical component of this your data.

Indeed, IBM are saying the same thing.

Within their, ’Your AI is only as good as your data’ white paper, IBM explain that “In the AI era, no matter what industry you’re in, you’re in the data business.”

So, AI is only as good as the data that goes into it.

And this alone makes your organisation’s data its most important asset.

You can download a copy of the white paper here.

According to IBM, high-quality data isn’t just about volume, it’s data that is

• Accurate and correctly reflects the business, its processes and outcomes too
• Complete, with all data being present with no missing pieces
• Consistant and uniform across the systems and matching formats [dates, currency, decimal place…)
• Timely, up to date and available for when it’s needed (even archived data)
• Fit for purpose, so relevant for the task in hand be that for process, reference or even audit

IBM are clear – poor data quality is one of the most common reasons that AI initiatives fail.

Put it simply, AI models learn from whatever you give them, garbage in, garbage out.

If the data is flawed, biased or incomplete, the output will be flawed – at scale.

So, where success previously meant good code, in the AI era, success means good data.

AI-based code modernisation on the IBM i

When we have that good data in place, what can we do with that foundation layer?

Well, AI-based code modernisation is moving from concept to commercial reality on IBM i.

As highlighted recently in IT Jungle, new tools are emerging to help organisations understand legacy applications faster, uncover hidden business logic, assist with refactoring, and accelerate productivity.

We’re seeing the likes of Profound Logic, ARCAD and Remain Software providing teams with tools that analyse, convert and test complex estates.

Fresche too provide such tools but in addition, their XA-AI extracts the business logic and leverages this scematical information to support the generation of meaningful – connected code.

And of course, there’s Project Bob that’s pushing AI-assisted development and code understanding further into the mainstream.

But be aware, this isn’t push-button modernisation.

AI doesn’t replace skilled developers; it amplifies them. Human judgement is still critical for preserving business logic, validating outputs, and governing change.

And that’s the big opportunity: not AI replacing developers, but experienced IBM i teams using AI to modernise faster, reduce risk, and do more with scarce skills.

Amid the AI hype, the platform itself keeps evolving… albeit it slower in other areas as IBM i Technology Refresh appears to be arriving later than usual, reportedly to align with a broader Power announcement.

Rather than cause for concern, it may point to a bigger coordinated platform story involving IBM i 7.6 TR2, and potentially new Power hardware.

So, what may be coming downstream?

Well, this is all speculation but we may see better support around AI-assisted development tooling while improvements for project Bob have already been mooted.

Sticking with the AI theme, enhancements to SQL services for metadata access (of which will enhance AI-assisted analysis) plus features aimed at making IBM i data easier to expose to AI workloads may become present too.

Security is always a priority and I’m sure we’ll see more around zero-trust too. It would be a joy so see improvements in performance maybe enhancing DB2 (although this is more akin to tuning a Ferrari).

What are your thoughts, you do you think will be announced – let me know in the comments below.

PTF Guide – Updates for Java Security within the Java SDK / Runtime

And finally, this month’s PTF Guide is really a security story, centred on significant Java vulnerabilities affecting IBM i.

IBM has issued fixes across 7.4 through 7.6, with updates to Java, defective PTF and QMGTOOLS groups.

The takeaway is simple: patch discipline remains a key part of IBM i risk management.

Another reminder that on IBM i, stability doesn’t happen by accident… It’s maintained.

And that’s it for this months update.

I’m Andrew Nicholson, and we’re Proximity, your application support, maintenance and development partners that are in your corner.

If you missed it, catch up on our March IBM i update.

Follow this link to access all the IBM i Update’s in one place.

Alternatively, if you’d like to receive the latest IBM i Update hot off the press to your inbox, subscribe to the newsletter version on LinkedIn.

The post IBM i Update: April 2026 – Is AI on IBM i a productivity breakthrough, or a bubble ready to burst? appeared first on Proximity.

In this edition, we’ll look at whether COBOL is the asbestos of programming languages, as described by WIRED, the results of the Fortra IBM i Marketplace Survey 2026 with Mike Davison, a summary of iUG North in Rochdale and iUG South at IBM London, and dive into the recently announced pricing for IBM Bob!

You can watch the video above or read the blog post below.

COBOL: Is it the asbestos of programming languages?

A recent WIRED article called COBOL “the asbestos of programming languages” not because it’s inherently bad, but because it’s everywhere, deeply embedded, and extremely difficult to remove.

But it misses the real issue, replacement isn’t necessarily the answer. What the article fails to observe is that COBOL isn’t failing.

For decades, it has underpinned vast amounts of global infrastructure, particularly in finance and government, where it continues to run critical, high-volume systems.

The challenge isn’t that it doesn’t work, it works exceptionally well… but that the knowledge required to maintain and evolve these systems is becoming increasingly scarce.

This framing feels especially relevant in light of the latest Fortra IBM i Marketplace Survey.

For those who missed last month’s update, I reported that for the first time in nearly a decade, IBM i skills, not cybersecurity, is now the number one top concern for organisations, with around 69% of respondents highlighting the skills shortage as a top issue.

This marks a significant shift. For years, security dominated the conversation.

Now, the industry is recognising something more fundamental, “You can’t secure, modernise, or even run a system if you don’t have the people who understand it.”

Now, couple this with COBOL’s importance in running the world, you start to see the bigger picture.

For example, over 200 billion lines of COBOL code are running as I speak – that accounts for nearly 80% of all working code.

You see, COBOL still quietly powers much of the modern world. Credit card payments, airline bookings, government services – all still depend on it to function.

A quick example, during the pandemic, when demand for services surged, cracks began to show.

Unemployment systems didn’t fail because of infrastructure, they struggled because there weren’t enough COBOL specialists available to maintain and adapt them.

And within the WIRED article, this too highlighted these same structural problem that are echoed within IBM i estates:

Critical systems built decades ago

Many of these applications sit at the heart of the business — handling finance, logistics, and operations — and have been refined over decades. They’re not outdated in function, just in origin.

Deeply embedded business logic

The real value isn’t the code itself, but the layers of business rules built into it over time — often undocumented, tightly coupled, and difficult to separate without risking unintended consequences.

Small, ageing talent pool

Skills haven’t scaled with demand. Experienced developers are nearing retirement, while fewer new entrants are coming through — leaving organisations increasingly reliant on a handful of key individuals.

High risk attached to change

These systems are so business-critical that even small changes carry risk. Large-scale replacement or transformation programmes can introduce more uncertainty than stability, which is why many never fully materialise.

And just like COBOL in the article, IBM i environments aren’t being replaced at scale, they’re being maintained, extended, and cautiously modernised.

What’s the solution for COBOL?

So, I see the WIRED article more like a wake up call, because this isn’t about legacy technology anymore – it’s about operational risk.

And, replacing systems introduces risk at great expense.

The argument here is, “Why remove rock solid code that has worked and continues to work reliably and efficiently and introduce uncertainty?”

The idea of replacing COBOL sounds clean on paper, but in reality it means rewriting years, sometimes decades of business-critical logic, much of which isn’t fully documented.

That introduces risk, cost, and uncertainty.

Refactoring keeps the core logic but restructures it, improving maintainability while preserving what already works.

Recoding sits somewhere in between, translating existing functionality into a new language or platform – these days.

Each approach has its place, but all carry cost, complexity, and risk.

Modernisation, however, allows you to keep the concrete foundations that already hold the business up, and build new capability around them.

And then on the human front, organisations facing the COBOL skills challenge really have three choices: retain, retrain, or outsource.

Retaining experienced developers provides continuity but becomes harder as the talent pool shrinks.

Retraining internal teams can work, but it takes time and still relies on having enough existing knowledge to transfer.

Outsourcing to a managed service provider offers a more immediate and structured solution, bringing in proven expertise, reducing dependency on individuals, and ensuring the system is properly supported.

The key is making a conscious decision, because doing nothing simply allows the risk to grow over time.

And then what of AI?

Could this help with resourcing, refactoring or modernising? AI can certainly help.

Indeed, in February, Anthropic announced that Claude can automate the analysis and migration of legacy COBOL code.

However, considerations about architecture, integration and operational risk are key to a project’s success.

As IBM stated, “translating code is one thing, modernising a platform is something else entirely.”

You see, the real challenge isn’t the COBOL language, it’s everything around it.

Compliance, procedure, operational process, audit, middleware – years of bespoke tooling and code factored in organically around the core systems.

So, using AI to modernise legacy code is a bit like using an automated translation tool. You can translate Chinese into English and get something that looks broadly correct, but without someone who truly understands the language, you risk losing the nuance, context, and meaning behind it.

So, to bring the WIRED article to a conclusion, is COBOL asbestos? No, it’s reinforced concrete. Old, yes, but still holding everything up. A proven foundation to build on, not rip out.

The real question isn’t whether it works – it does. It’s how you design the next layer, how you evolve it, support it, and build on top of it.

The foundations are already there. The decisions are what you do next…

Discussing the 2026 IBM i Marketplace Survey with Mike Davison from Fortra

Now, last month Andy Nicholson reviewed the Fortra IBM i Marketplace Survey.

If you’ve not had the opportunity to review the results, you can find his thoughts in the previous episode of the IBM i Update here: Fortra Marketplace Survey 2026 results and trends

This month, Andy had the good fortune to speak with Fortra Stalwart and IBM Champion, Mike Davison, to discuss his thoughts on the results.

Why has IBM i skills overtaken cybersecurity as the top concern for IBM i professionals?

Andy Nicholson: Now, for the first time in nine years, the IBM i skills gap has overtaken security as the number one concern in the Fortra survey. What do you think has driven that shift?

Mike Davison: I’m sure it’s down to people retiring and no one being available to replace them. Us Gen-Xers who pioneered IBM i are reaching retirement, and because of the perception that IBM i is “legacy” and not cool, younger people aren’t as interested.

However, shifts in development such as using Git and Visual Studio Code and modernisation programmes using AI will help. But I can’t help feeling that the platform is behind the skills curve by quite some distance right now.

Any surprising trends this year?

Andy Nicholson: What was the most surprising trend you observed compared to last year’s results?

Mike Davison: It was absolutely code development shifting by 13% towards using AI. That’s the biggest movement in the whole survey.

It really shows that companies are embracing the AI age, which is great given that the talent pool is shrinking. It’s a strong way to help offset that deficit, and I think it’s a very good use of AI.

What’s driving software and hardware upgrades on the IBM i?

Andy Nicholson: The survey shows a record 70% of organisations planning hardware or software upgrades in 2026. What’s driving that level of urgency? Does it feel like a tipping point for the platform?

Mike Davison: In terms of hardware, Power9 went end of support at the end of January this year, which means no further patches, microcode, or security fixes. With the announcement of Power11 last year, sensible customers will be looking to upgrade their older systems to stay current.

Let’s also remember that Power9 launched in 2017–2018, which is eight years ago, that’s a long time in computing.

The other key factor is that Power9 doesn’t support IBM i 7.6, which was released in April last year. So anyone on Power9 who wants IBM i 7.6 and all the new features will need to upgrade both their hardware and operating system.

What security threats are IBM i users facing?

Andy Nicholson: While cybersecurity has been eclipsed as the top concern, it still ranks highly. What do you believe is the biggest security worry respondents are now facing?

Mike Davison: If we look at the top three concerns from the report:

First, threats are constantly evolving, which creates anxiety around a moving target. Second, the skills gap we discussed earlier, there’s a growing lack of security knowledge on the platform. Third, balancing security controls with business efficiency.

Many customers need to meet regulatory requirements, and when you combine that with the skills gap and evolving threats, it creates a perfect storm.

As I’ve said before, IBM i is highly securable, you just need to know how to do it properly.

What modernisation strategies are gaining momentum?

Andy Nicholson: Based on the survey, what modernisation strategies do you see gaining momentum in the IBM i space?

Mike Davison: 35% of respondents are now using AI for code development, and 68% see it as the future. That’s a significant shift in how development is approached, and it should help make the platform more appealing to younger developers.

However, companies need to modernise their applications, not just their development processes.

The survey shows that 73% of businesses are running in-house applications and 88% are coding in RPG. That’s something that needs a long, hard look as well, in my opinion.

How is IBM i development evolving?

Andy Nicholson: For the first time, Visual Studio Code usage has surpassed RDi. What does this tell us about how IBM i development is evolving?

Mike Davison: RDi is designed specifically for IBM i, whereas Visual Studio Code is a feature-rich, flexible development tool. It integrates well with Git and supports modern development practices.

More companies are adopting Git for source control, and VS Code works very well with that. Even myself, as a non-developer, I’ve moved to VS Code for CL and scripting, it’s simply easier for deployment and version control.

What’s your view on IBM’s Bob?

Andy Nicholson: That makes good sense. Now, IBM has been talking about tools such as BOB to support AI-assisted development on IBM i. What’s your view on BOB and what it will actually do in practice?

Mike Davison: Right now, I see BOB as a tool that can help document legacy code, improve it, and assist with development.

Steve Will’s vision is much broader, BOB supporting the entire modernisation journey from start to finish. That includes writing new RPG code, refactoring legacy code, debugging, unit testing, mentoring, documentation, and even project planning.

A lot of people are excited about it, and after seeing a live demo at Tech Exchange in Orlando last year, I can understand why—it really is impressive.

That said, its true capabilities are still to be fully realised across the wider market.

What does a well-prepared IBM i organisation look like in 2026

Andy Nicholson: When you look at the combination of skills shortages, increased upgrade activity, evolving tooling, and ongoing security concerns, what does a well-prepared IBM i organisation look like in 2026?

Mike Davison: For me, it’s an organisation that is up to date with patches and running on supported hardware and software.

It’s using modern tooling like Visual Studio Code and Git, recruiting and retaining talent with competitive salaries, and avoiding single points of failure—whether that’s a person or a system.

Ultimately, it’s a constantly moving target. If you don’t keep up, it becomes far more expensive to catch up later.

I still see many customers running outdated operating systems or ISV software and wondering why they have problems. Staying current is simply part of the cost of doing business.

IBM i Marketplace Survey 2027 release date

Andy Nicholson: We’ll look forward to the next IBM i Marketplace Survey in 2027. When do you expect that to be released?

Michael Davison: It will likely be around February 2027. We’ll begin collecting responses in October or November this year.

Hopefully, we can increase participation year on year to build an even clearer picture of the market.

Andy Nicholson: It’s incredibly important for the community moving forward. Mike, thank you for your efforts on the survey, thank you to Fortra, and I wish you a very good day.

Mike Davison: Thank you very much, Andy. Until next time!

iUG North & South Summary

In the past few weeks, I’ve been travelling the length and breadth of the country visiting the i-UG North and South. Here’s my quick take on both.

First, for the early starters, it’s always reassuring that the good people at i-UG know how to feed their audience.

At both North, hosted at their spiritual home in Rochdale and South, at IBM in London, on arrival you were treated to an assortment of pastries plus the obligatory bacon butties in Rochdale.

IBM stole the show however with their ‘drinks dispenser’ that did everything from a latte to cappuccino with a myriad of options for milk, espresso strength… the works (you’ll have to watch the video).

Someone in the queue likened it to IBM MQ, a wealth of options but complicated to operate – i liked that.

London too was by far the grander of locations, you were greeted by IBM’s first quantum computer as a display piece in the (rather plush) lobby before collecting your guest pass and being whistled up a few stories to the think suite in which hosted the days proceedings.

Both North and South shared the same agenda and I’ll pick out some pertinent parts to give you a flavour on what it’s like to attend.

Education is always a focus for i-UG and Chairman Mike Ryan discussed their i-ignite initiative of which continues to grow.

Essentially, this initiative has been set-up with partnering universities to train the next generation of IBM i professionals and some of the students who were on the course were at the event to network and learn more.

The keynote speech was conducted by board members, each providing their own insight.

Andy Youens, for example, explained that while in the past he eulogised about ACS, a better method today could be the use of the DB2 for i VS Code extensions to run SQL statements and display the results in a number of more ‘friendly’ ways.

He went on to say that with VS Code you have more flexibility in the way you can chart with selections, filters and queries completed at a click.

Steve Cast provided insight into the evolution of IBM i development tools from SEU way back in the late 1980’s right up to IBM Bob in 2026.

Demonstrating how far we’ve come in the past 40+ years and why developers today have never had it sooo good.

Steve Bradshaw gave us an episode of ‘Why Don’t You?’ and gave us short and simple but valuable advice on areas such as, how to check if you’re being hacked?

How to check if your system is up to date and performing well and how to check for obsolete users too.

But I think of most value was the topic of backup and protection. Here Mike Ryan presented with Eddie Chaffin of ABP Food Group and I always feel it valuable to learn how people have solved problems in real-life scenarios.

Mike opened with the case study of JLR and their effects of the cyber attack inflicted on the business last year – completely shutting down production for five weeks causing over £500m in losses and costs.

To mitigate risk, Mike put forward his perfect infrastructure that included FlashSystem SAN storage and FlashCopy.

The real-word example that Eddie is to use in 2026 was with the FlashSystem 5600. Just above entry level, this 24 core CPU system chewed through 30GB a second… the top spec 9600 moved at a whopping 86GB/s – think about it, in some instances that’s a businesses entire enterprise system flash copied in just a couple of seconds.

Is it expensive, well, yes it is, but not half as expensive as the situation in which faced JLR.

Now, lunch is always a treat at IBM and this year didn’t disappoint. The spread was a delight and a special mention to the fish pie, which was some of the best lunch time eating I’d done all year.

One final presentation I’d like to cover and keeping with the ‘business resilience’ theme, was on Power Virtual Server and the growing ecosystem that IBM is delivering.

Here, Tonny Bastiaans provided insight into how IBMs offering provides a 70% better total cost of ownership over AWS and Azure on IBM i but more than that, Power11 is available with the ability to decouple the OS from physical hardware for virtual serial number licensing.

Today, IBM have 1000+ clients and 24 worldwide datacenters with resilience baked into the offering to provide almost instant server crossover.

We (Proximity) even got a mention with our use of PowerVS for disaster recovery, in which we are now able to recover 50% faster, with optimised performance at 80% less cost.

There was a lot to unpack in his presentation and if you’re looking at virtual servers – this would be the place to start.

There was more packed into the day and if you stuck around until the end, you could have enjoyed a tour and demonstration of various IBM technology including spot the dog.

Pricing for IBM Bob

Now, we’ve all seen the hype around Project Bob… I’ve done a number of posts in the Updates in previous episodes. But what’s been less clear, is how much it would cost. Well, that is until now. Following the announcement, Nick Litten broke this down, and it’s worth understanding because for the majority of us, this is likely how AI tooling on IBM i is going to be consumed going forward. To read the full blog post from Nick Litten, click here.

So, Bob allows you to have a free trial with 40 BOBCOINS… I’ll get to those in a minute. Once they’ve been consumed or a month has elapsed, you have a choice of three tiers. First, Pro at $20 per month is a continuation of the 40 BOBCOIN model, so if you’re an occasional coder, a solo developer or a small shop, this may be the tier for you. Next is Pro+, this provides 160 BOBCOINS and may be the sweet spot for most IBM i shops while Ultra is $200 per user per month and provides 500 BOBCOINS, the tier for heavy coding and modernisation.

What are Bobcoins?

So, what are BOBCOINS? Bobcoins are essentially usage credits. Instead of just paying for the tool, you’re paying for the amount of AI work you actually use. Small tasks cost very little, but bigger jobs like code refactoring or modernisation use more coins. It’s a simple model, but it does mean AI becomes something you actively manage, not just switch on. So, Bobcoins act as a simplified way to measure AI consumption:

• Small tasks: 0.1–0.5 coins
• Code modernisation: 2–5 coins
• Complex workflows: higher usage

This effectively turns AI into a metered resource, rather than a fixed-cost tool.

It’s important to remember that project bob will not remove the need for IBM i expertise, no, instead, it’ll amplify it.

And with this pricing model, AI is becoming commercially structured in a way that directly ties cost to development output.

Once development becomes metered and scalable, the real question becomes, who’s managing it, controlling it, and making sure it delivers value?

That’s where the real opportunity sits.

And that’s it for this months update.

I’m Andrew Nicholson, and we’re Proximity, your application support, maintenance and development partners that are in your corner.

If you missed it, catch up on our February IBM i update.

Follow this link to access all the IBM i Update’s in one place.

Alternatively, if you’d like to receive the latest IBM i Update hot off the press to your inbox, subscribe to the newsletter version on LinkedIn.

The post IBM i Update: March 2026 – Is COBOL the asbestos of programming languages? appeared first on Proximity.

In this edition, we’ll look at the 2026 results of the Fortra IBM i Marketplace survey and discuss what they mean and analyse the trends using the previous years’ data.

You can watch the video above or read the blog post below.

Demographics of the Fortra Marketplace Survey 2026

At the beginning of February, we enjoyed the release of the FORTRA 2026 IBM i Marketplace Survey.

This is the 12th edition, and this year surveyed over 360 IT professionals across multiple industries – the majority (22-23%) being Administrators, IT Managers and Others, with developers representing 16% of respondents and 13% at Director or VP level.

So, a good spread.

The global respondents were pretty much the same as the past couple of years, and again, were dominated by the USA and Canada.

In Europe, we’re up a couple of percent high than last year with a move to 23%, but still a considerable drop from the all-time highs in 2023. And the rest of the world remains at 15%.

Now, as last year, the astute amongst you will notice that the figure doesn’t add up to 100% but as before, this has to do with large multinationals responding.

A strong commitment to the IBM i platform

The survey found a strong commitment to the platform with those looking to increase their IBM i footprint at 19%, up 7% on 2024.

Retaining the status-quo is down a few points, and a continuing downturn was with companies staying on IBM i but migrating to cloud. Down from 13% in 2024 to 5% in 2026.

Now, this could be seen as positive news as businesses move from a ‘no change’ standpoint to furthering their investment in IBM i however, the caveat here is an increase in migration of all apps to a new OS or platform, up from 8% in 2025 to 12% this year.

Is the IBM i platform a good investment?

The positivity continues with 95% of respondents rightly thinking that IBM i continues to be a good investment for their business.

This has been bobbing in around this area for the past few years and we see this trend continuing with the added resilience and performance of the Power 11.

The percentage of the majority of core business applications running on the platform is up from 5% to 47% with a further 27% having half to three quarters of their applications on IBM i at the heart of their business.

Indeed, the 25-50% bracket is down 1% from last year and with the upturn of 5% within the ‘majority’ bracket, this suggesting a significant proportion of business workload is increasingly predominantly run on the IBM i.

Main development code languages on the IBM i

RPG continues to be the mainstay, followed by SQL, but both are slightly down on the year previous.

COBOL remains static at 16%.

No huge surprise here, due to its continued presence in the financial sector and its rock-solid reliability.

The modern ‘web’ languages continue to eclipse COBOL with a continuing uptake of Python plus continued good adoption of PHP and Node.js.

One interesting change was in Java however, which had a noticeable drop from 40% to 32 – one thing that Fortra noted was that it may be possible that respondents are not listing languages in which they are receiving AI assistance?

If correct, these are all good signs for modernisation.

Continuing with development, Apache retains its position as the top open-source development tool. Unsurprisingly GIT retains its popularity in second place and I would expect to see this trend continue in the coming years too.

The other big gain in 2026 is perhaps in the ‘others’ category as new and exciting open source tools are adopted to support modernisation and API development.

Skills gap overtakes Cybersecurity as #1 concern amongst IBM i professionals

But the highlight is always the top concerns for the IBM i enterprise and, for the first time in almost 10 years, Cybersecurity is NOT the number one concern amongst IBM i professionals.

The number one slot has been taken by IBM i Skills up nearly 10% from last year to 69%. To put that into context, last year Cybersecurity got 77% of the vote in 2025, this year, it drops down to 64% – so quite the pivot.

What this tells us is that the biggest risk isn’t hackers, it’s retiring developer.

So, before we close, some of the takeaway highlights from the survey. First is with the growing interest in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Not covered in my previous chart but this year, it ranked 5th in the concern ranking with 42% of the casting vote.

However, the bigger picture here is in the trend line.

Now, if you go back to 2024, this was at just 18%, so a massive leap of 24% in just two years. This demonstrates a legitimate interest in these technologies to support everyday business processes.

AI has moved from a curiosity to active planning where IBM i teams are thinking on how they can use AI, where it may fit and if they are prepared for it.

And some may be more prepared than others as 73% of IBM i systems run fully unattended after working hours.

This shows us that IBM i shops are already highly automated and while this may be with nightly batch processes, and scheduled jobs – it demonstrates that the IBM i is a strong platform to build automation within – AI can only help in this area too.

Trust and satisfaction maintain a high level with 95% of respondents believing that the IBM i gives them a better ROI than other platforms.

But the same people are saying that there is a gap in skills to support, maintain and develop the systems, with 69% of respondents listing IBM i skills as a top concern when planning their IT environment.

Indeed, the Skills Gap is the biggest takeaway in this year’s Fortra Marketplace Survey.

The fact that IBM i skills has overtaken cybersecurity as the number one concern… Well that’s a big moment for the platform.

What it tells us is that IBM i itself isn’t the risk, the challenge is finding people with the experience to support and modernise these systems as teams get smaller and developers retire.

And we’re seeing organisations respond in a few ways: investing in training, using AI tools to help new developers learn faster, improving automation… and increasingly, partnering with specialist managed service providers (such as Proximity) to provide continuity and resilience around their IBM i applications.

Because for many companies, the goal isn’t to replace IBM i but to make sure they’ve got the right skills around it for the long term.

And that’s it for this update and of the IBM i Marketplace Survey.

Follow the link here for the full survey as compiled by Fortra.

And for more like this and to subscribe to the IBM i Update, please see our blog on the proximity website and on LinkedIn too, but for now, I’m Andrew Nicholson, we’re Proximity your application support, maintenance and development partners that are in your corner.

All the best.

If you missed it, catch up on our December IBM i update.

Follow this link to access all the IBM i Update’s in one place.

Alternatively, if you’d like to receive the latest IBM i Update hot off the press to your inbox, subscribe to the newsletter version on LinkedIn.

The post IBM i Update: February 2026 – Fortra Marketplace Survey 2026 results and trends appeared first on Proximity.

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.

Alternatively, if you’d like to receive the latest IBM i Update hot off the press to your inbox, subscribe to the newsletter version on LinkedIn.

The post IBM i Update December 2025: An Update on Project Bob and the Power of IBM i appeared first on Proximity.

This month I’m reporting from the i-UG Wolverhampton conference, where the sessions, the conversations and the curry, did not disappoint!

The big takeaway? VS Code (Code for IBM i) is becoming hard to ignore.

I spoke with presenter Richard Moulton about the move away from green-screen and RDi, and with our own Dylan Goodacre-Taylor on what it’s like to come from Python/C++ into RPG using VS Code today.

If your team is weighing up whether to modernise its development tooling, this one is well worth a look.

You can watch the video above or read the blog post below…

iUG November 2025: The future is now

Earlier in November, I attended the last i-UG conference of the year in Wolverhampton.

The evening before the big day, delegates arrived at the smartly accommodated Mount Hotel and gathered in the expo hall for a cracker of a curry – a good opportunity to enjoy good company with like minded people.

In the morning, we kicked off with the obligatory bacon butties and after the ‘state of the nation’ update from the i-UG committee members, it was down to business with the keynote speech by Winnie Allen, the Executive Director of Product Management for IBM Power.

Winnie spoke how the, ‘future is now’ and their strategy for the AI era. For IBM i, this starts with Power 11 and introduces 0 planned downtime, ransomware detection in less than a minute and AI.

The latter involving their new Spire acceleration technology and (of course) Project Bob.

Winnie concluded the presentation by providing the four key future innovations and strategic focus.

These were to focus on automation and intelligence, improve security and the developer experience and investing in hybrid technologies to enhance flexibility and scalability – all very sensible.

IBM i roadmap and strategy moving forwards

Scott Forstie then took the reigns and presented the strategy and roadmap for IBM i and IBM continue their rock-solid release and support schedule that takes IBM i well into the next decade.

Enhancements continue to be influenced by the COMMON Europe Advisory Council [of whom were present at this very i-UG event], and the response to the IBM i Marketplace Survey – and if you’ve not completed this years survey, it’s now too late, but there’s always next year.

One thing that was apparent was that, these days, IBM are doing a lot more in keeping the community up to date with what they’re doing. Scott himself was celebrating his 100th episode of iSee, where he provides short demonstrations of tools and techniques.

But of course, the big announcement was with Project Bob and it’s objective to automate the mundane and augment the complicated. Now, I covered the release of Project Bob in the October edition of the IBM i Update – so for an overview on, ‘what’s it all about’ go take a look at that. But, there were a few new morsels for us to digest.

First, in summary, BOB will be an AI-powered integrated development environment and modernisation assistant. It supersedes the Watson Code Assistant for i and aims to become a software development assistant that’s integrated into a code editor.

It aims to understand and explain code, refactor and generate RPG and transform fixed format RPG to free form ILE too. In addition, it should be able to create unit tests – more functionality than Watson ever dreamed of.

For this, IBM has merged it’s AI assistant efforts on IBM i with its other Power counterparts. It’s being pitched as a “junior programmer” or AI development partner for IBM i, System z and AIX/Linux. Bob will rely on a combination of foundation models – IBM’s own Granite model that Watson was being developed on and Claude Anthropic.

How these will be combined is still unknown but should they resolve these differences, then the future looks… well, artificial. When will it be released?

No firm date has been announced yet and based upon the expanded functionality, it’ll be well into 2026 at the earliest.

VS Code for IBM i with Richard Moulton

Now, there were many interesting topics during the event, but I’d like to pick up on one particular presentation by Richard Moulton. Richard’s session was on VS Code and how to get the best from using this IDE within IBM i.

This session wasn’t for the newbie and assumed you had some basic familiarity with Code for i but even for the uninitiated, you would have got a lot from seeing the functionality and flexibility that VS Code brings to a developer… and he covered a lot, from layouts and minimaps to comparing source and source references, in his two hour session you quickly got the picture that VS Code is (to use the keynote speech title) ‘the future now’.

Afterwards, we sat down to dive deeper into why he believes VS Code is transforming the IBM i development experience and what advice he has for teams thinking about making the switch. I started by asking him what first attracted him to VS Code as an IBM i developer?

Richard: Over the years I’ve used pretty much every source editor that has come along — SEU, RDi, MI Workplace and others. About ten years ago I got into open-source languages, and when you’re working with things like Node, the natural environment is VS Code. At some point it just clicked: why not use VS Code for my IBM i development as well?

Andy: Was there a particular moment that tipped the decision?

Richard: Yes. For me personally, it was when RDi dropped Linux support — I’ve been using Linux as my main desktop for about 12 years. But it wasn’t only that. VS Code felt quicker, smoother and more intuitive. RDi is incredibly feature-rich and has capabilities VS Code doesn’t, but it can feel clunky. VS Code just gave me a cleaner experience.

Andy: Do you think VS Code helps IBM i teams attract newer developers?

Richard: Definitely. If a younger developer already uses VS Code for Node, Python, Ruby or TypeScript, then adding the Code for i extensions is a very natural progression. It makes IBM i development feel like part of the wider software world rather than a separate island.

Andy: Suppose someone wants to try VS Code for the first time — what’s the simplest route?

Richard: Just download it from Microsoft. Installation is fast and painless. Then look at the Code for i documentation — it’s a great starting point. I also highly recommend the Seiden Group’s resources. Their “Getting Started with VS Code” video series and their Code for Fridays sessions every couple of weeks are full of practical tips.

Andy: The community around VS Code seems very active.

Richard: It really is. It’s supportive too. There’s Zulip, GitHub discussions, Code for i sessions — if you get stuck, someone will always help.

Andy: Which extensions would you call essential for RPG developers?

Richard: The IBM i Development Pack in the VS Code Marketplace. It bundles around a dozen extensions — RPG syntax and linter support, DDS and CL language highlighting, and the DB2 for i extension so you can run SQL directly within VS Code.

Andy: And what about the big productivity wins?

Richard: My number one is multiple cursors. Editing or formatting several lines of code simultaneously saves huge amounts of time. After that, the RPG linter, which enforces coding standards automatically as you type, and Peek Definition, which shows everywhere a variable or field is referenced. Being able to view two parts of the same source file side-by-side is also incredibly useful.

Andy: Which features tend to impress RPG developers when they see VS Code for the first time?

Richard: First — how fast it installs and loads. You can be up and running in minutes. Second — compile feedback right inside the editor. You submit a compile, and if there’s an error, you click on it and VS Code jumps straight to the exact line. The source comparison view is another standout: you can compare versions of a source file with a Git-style diff without leaving the editor.

Andy: Do you think VS Code will become the dominant development environment for IBM i?

Richard: Yes, I do. IBM’s messaging points in that direction, and the community moves extremely quickly — much faster than the old product release cycles. When you request a feature or report an issue, you often see engagement within weeks.

Andy: After 36 years in RPG development, what excites you most about the future?

Richard: Project Bob — without a doubt. The ability to convert fixed-format to free-format, automatically generate unit tests, work locally and integrate everything with Git… that’s going to be huge for IBM i teams. Especially for smaller development teams, which are so common in this space. I really hope the pricing lands well, because it could be a real accelerator for modernisation.

Andy: Richard, thank you for taking the time to talk with the IBM i Update.

Richard: Thank you Andy — I really appreciate the opportunity.

And my thanks to Richard for sharing his time and thoughts. Should you ever get the chance to join Richard on one of his sessions at an i-UG event, please do so – he has 36 years worth of experience and insight and one of those key people in the IBM i community that’s forever pushing the envelope in development on the IBM i.

You can find out more about Richard and his business over on his website.

If you’d like to explore the tools and resources Richard mentioned, the following links are a great place to start:

Learning RPG in VS Code with Dylan Goodacre-Taylor

Now, while Richard’s interview gives us the perspective of a highly experienced RPG developer who moved to VS Code after decades on SEU and RDi, the next conversation offers a very different story.

Dylan Goodacre-Taylor is one of Proximity’s newest developers, joining the team with a background in Python, C and C++ – and no prior exposure to IBM i or RPG.

Unlike Richard, Dylan began his development journey in VS Code and later discovered RPG through it, giving us a fresh view of how modern tooling can make the platform more accessible to new talent.

I started by asking him, before working with RPG, what programming languages and environments was he familiar with?

Dylan: Mainly Python, plus some C and C++. I used Python in VS Code and C++ in Visual Studio for graphics work with OpenGL — so I was already used to modern development tooling.

Andy: When you found out you’d be working with IBM i and RPG, what were your first impressions?

Dylan: I was really intrigued. I’d never heard of IBM i or RPG before, so I Googled it and saw the classic green screens — which actually made me excited to see what it was all about.

Andy: You spent your early weeks doing RPG development in SEU. How did that feel, coming from VS Code?

Dylan: At first it felt like a lot of features were missing. Text overwriting instead of inserting, copy and paste working differently — it was all very unfamiliar. I’ve grown used to it now, but initially I did struggle.

Andy: Did the ability to use VS Code change how you felt about learning RPG?

Dylan: Definitely. I didn’t find out until about two months in that VS Code could be used for RPG development. I downloaded the extensions and gave it a try — and it worked really well. It made a big difference.

Andy: Do you think your VS Code background made SEU harder at first?

Dylan: I think so. You get used to things like syntax highlighting that instantly show variables, routines and structure. When that’s missing, learning a new language is tougher.

Andy: What surprised you most when learning RPG itself?

Dylan: How rigid it is compared to Python — defining sizes of packed numbers and so on. Starting in fixed format then moving into free format made a big difference. And honestly, I really enjoy coding in RPG now.

Andy: Which VS Code features helped you most when learning and writing RPG?

Dylan: Syntax highlighting, without a doubt — it makes code instantly more readable. The IBM i Development Pack brings around 12 extensions, including linting, RPG/CL support and DB2 for i so you can execute SQL straight from VS Code. The outline view and mini-map are great for navigating large source files.

Andy: Do you use any AI tools in VS Code?

Dylan: I’ve used Copilot. It’s hit-and-miss for answering RPG questions, but it’s very good at predicting the next block of code — which speeds things up.

Andy: If a long-time SEU user is thinking about trying VS Code, what would your advice be?

Dylan: Just open a few scripts in VS Code and try it. I think the benefits become obvious immediately — you can interact with the code more smoothly, see the structure visually, and navigate much faster.

Andy: Dylan, thanks for sharing your experience. It’s really valuable to hear the perspective of someone who came into IBM i via modern tooling rather than the traditional route.

Dylan: No problem – happy to help.

And my thanks for Dylan, one of our newest members of the Proximity development team for taking his time to give his thoughts on VS Code, coming from a different direction than Richard having schooled in Python and C and now being a convert to RPG having being mentored by some of the best coders in the industry at Proximity HQ in Leeds.

So, these two interviews reveal the shift happening across the platform.

For experienced RPG developers, VS Code offers modern tooling without abandoning IBM i. For new talent, VS Code makes IBM i approachable, familiar and enjoyable. And for companies, VS Code helps future-proof development by aligning IBM i with mainstream developer workflows.

In summary, whether your developers are long-time RPG experts or new graduates who grew up with Python and VS Code, the destination is the same – and that destination is VS Code on IBM i.

PTF Update November 2025: Security Vulnerabilities

And all the PTFs revolve (unusually) around security updates. First we have multiple vulnerabilities in the Java SDK that affects the WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere Application Server Liberty.

Also, sticking with WebSphere, there is an additional vulnerability within SMTP injection due to Jakarta Mail – again, due to Java.

We also have a BIND issue with accepting records with untrusted data, and finally there was a Remote Code Execution vulnerability issue too.

IBM recommends installing the 5770-JV1 PTF Group to receive all the latest PTF(s)

And that’s it for this edition of the IBM i Update. For now, I’m Andrew Nicholson, we’re Proximity, the IBM i partners that are in your corner. We’ll see you next time.

If you missed it, catch up on our October 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.

Alternatively, if you’d like to receive the latest IBM i Update hot off the press to your inbox, subscribe to the newsletter version on LinkedIn.

The post IBM i Update November 2025: Modernising Development Tooling on the IBM i with VS Code appeared first on Proximity.

But what is Project Bob?

We explore the replacement for the Watson X Coding Assistant for i and explain the differences.

You can watch the video above or read the blog post below…

What is Project Bob on the IBM i?

Project Bob converges both the Watson Coding Assistant (WCA) for i’s RPG and the System Z’s Code Assistant for COBOL (that is primarily there to help COBOL shops port their applications to Java on the mainframe).

So, rather than maintaining separate tools for IBM i and System Z, the effort is consolidated under Project Bob’s umbrella.

This is a sensible approach for IBM, a business that is under pressure from its shareholders.

But what does this mean that all efforts achieved to date on the Watson X Code assistant for i?

Well, the good news is that WCA for i isn’t being discarded altogether, some of its learning, architectural work, and code/training assets may be absorbed into Bob’s ecosystem…

But primarily, it seems like the architectural will be based around Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet. That’s the LLM that was underpinning the System Z coding assistant, while WCA for i was using IBM’s Granite.

How these two will reconcile the models remains to be seen. But, even beyond that, the convergence into one, unified ‘bobby-assistant’ has its challenges.

For example, the main objectives behind each assistant differ.

While the Watson X Code Assistant for i was… well, just that – a generative code assistant, the tool for Z was geared more towards converting COBOL to Java.

So, while having one unified tool across platforms makes sense from a business perspective, you can see that putting these two together isn’t going to be solved by just stitching the two garments together.

No. Threads will be need to be unpicked, remeasured, recut and tailored to make the metaphoric coding clothing wearable, usable and durable.

What to expect from Project Bob?

Now, Project BOB was introduced to the masses earlier in October at TechXchange 2025 in Orlando.

Here, Neel Sundaresan, General Manager of Automation and AI, provided a real-time demonstration of Bob fixing Java code.

I’ve included some ‘highlights’ of the demo in the video above but for the full presentation and demonstration, please see the link here: Watch the full Project Bob presentation

It was impressively intuitive to use.

So much so that even I could have made the change (and that’s saying something!).

What they also demonstrated was the ability to lift Java 8 to Java 17, to do Java framework migrations.

However, there wasn’t much reported on regarding RPG or COBOL at the event.

But post-event, IT Jungle reported more on what the IBM i community is to expect from the initial release of the product.

And its functionality exceeds that which was originally scoped for the Watson Code Assistant for i.

You’ll remember that these were limited to three core functions – AI-powered code explanation, code generation, and test case generation.

And, out of those three functions, only ‘code explanation’ had been delivered as a preview.

Now, contrast that with Project Bob.

First, code understanding will be expanded beyond RPG with CL, DDS and SQL included.

It’ll explain code graphically with diagrams and drill into functionality.

You’ll be able to refactor code and create reusable procedures. The generative ability remains, but will be expanded outside of RPG.

Speaking of RPG, you’ll have the ability to uplift old RPG II and III to modern ILE, plus convert embedded SQL. And on testing, you’ll be able to test down to individual isolated components. So, a big boost to functionality over its precursor.

However, with the additional functionality and convergence of the existing tools, this is going to take some time.

When will Project Bob be released on the IBM i?

And so, while some were looking forward to the WCA on i in the immediate future, all clocks have been reset and there are currently no timelines for delivery.

Should you wish to join the limited customer preview, then there is a waiting list. Join the waiting list

So, super exciting times are ahead… we’ll have to wait a little longer but as things progress, I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop.

Complete the 2026 IBM i Marketplace Survey

The IBM i Marketplace Survey is open… but not for too much longer!

So, this is a quick reminder to complete the survey.

You can do so using the link below – it’ll take less time than a tea break to complete, and your input will help gauge the state of the platform and guide the direction for development and the future of the platform too!

So, I would warmly encourage you to grab a bourbon or digestive biscuit, click the link and complete the questionnaire: Complete 2026 IBM i Marketplace Survey

And that’s it for this edition of the IBM i Update. For now, I’m Andrew Nicholson, we’re Proximity, the IBM i partners that are in your corner. We’ll see you next time.

If you missed it, catch up on our September 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.

Alternatively, if you’d like to receive the latest IBM i Update hot off the press to your inbox, subscribe to the newsletter version on LinkedIn.

The post IBM i Update October 2025: What is Project Bob on the IBM i? appeared first on Proximity.