MINNEAPOLIS – January 24, 2023 – Cybersecurity software and services provider Fortra today published findings from its 2024 IBM i Marketplace Survey. Now in its tenth year, the survey reveals the trends shaping and driving the global IBM i market. This year, concerns around cybersecurity reach record heights, with 79% of respondents listing it as a top priority, up 11% from 2023. While a lack of knowledge and skills tops the list as their greatest challenge, rising to 49% in 2024.
“Having to battle a constantly changing threat landscape and do so when skilled professionals are in short supply makes for an extremely challenging market environment,” explains Tom Huntington, Executive Vice President of Technical Solutions at Fortra. “We know these concerns aren’t limited to the IBM i industry but after a decade of research, they have never featured so prominently. However, organizations are responding by making application modernization a higher priority and adopting new technology.”
When planning IT environments, concern around modernization has grown, with 72% of respondents now citing it as a top concern compared to just 51% in 2021.
IBM i 7.5 was released in May of 2022 and adoption has grown from just 2% last year to 19% in 2024. The use of Power10 has spiked – increasing from 6% to 32%. Meanwhile, the use of Power9 decreased slightly from 67% to 60%.
“It is evident that customers are adopting the releases more quickly – a trend that is fueled by the need to reap the feature benefits of newer versions, to provide a secure environment to support remote operations, and to facilitate application modernization,” continues Huntington. “It is also worth noting that the use of IBM i in the cloud is growing and this too goes hand in hand with the need for modernization of applications and helps alleviate concerns over the skills shortage.”
Access the complete 2024 IBM i Marketplace Survey results here.
Methodology and Demographics
This survey represents the viewpoints of 270 IBM i professionals from around the globe across multiple industries and regions. This diverse sampling spans variability in budgets, company size, server size, operating system versions and experience levels to give a representative and diverse look at the worldwide IBM i market.
This year saw a balance between respondents from smaller organizations (less than 500 employees) and those coming from bigger ones (42% vs 58% respectively). In terms of the job titles of respondents, they are mostly cybersecurity professionals, IT managers, developers, and administrators, while under the “Other” option you may find titles like account manager, architect, and engineer.
Additionally, we saw an uptick in the number of respondents from the United States, and a slight downturn from respondents in Europe. Manufacturing and banking/finance are the top two industries represented.
About Fortra
Fortra is a cybersecurity company like no other. We’re creating a simpler, stronger future for our customers. Our trusted experts and portfolio of integrated, scalable solutions bring balance and control to organizations around the world. We’re the positive changemakers and your relentless ally to provide peace of mind through every step of your cybersecurity journey. Learn more at fortra.com.
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