What’s the iManifest All About?

The iManifest started out in Japan as a program to promote the growth and well-being of the IBM i platform. (The program has spread to the US and European markets as well.) A group of IBM i vendors was tired of what they perceived as not enough effort by IBM to spread the word. They wanted more people to hear about the success that their customers and groups were having by running their businesses using this technology.

I really like what the Japanese group has done. They documented IBM i success stories and put together some great online information for customers. They even arranged their own trade show events around the iManifest and are really working their own marketplace.

I also applaud the USA group that is getting behind this effort. The IBM i platform, or really the Power 7 server running IBM i, is a thriving, active group within the computing world. It has been the backbone of many prominent names in the banking, insurance, retail, casino, cable, manufacturing, services, and transportation industries. The major issue is that the consulting world does not know the technology—they are more comfortable with UNIX, Linux, and Windows.

Many consultants don’t like the operating system because it doesn’t require as many people to keep it running or to deploy applications. You don’t need separate database administrators, security experts, disk managers, or monitoring teams. Each day, IBM i administrators worry more about running the business than the latest virus attacks, or whether replication software will work with the Oracle database. On IBM i servers, things work and they work together.

I like the idea of a forum where customers can share success stories. Don’t be afraid to share if you are running your business on IBM I servers. Help/Systems runs its business primarily on IBM i servers and we love them.