The System i roundup for 2008

The iDevelop blog, part of the IBM Systems Magazine, has a good 2008 roundup of the System i platform. A lot happened with System i — er, IBM i — this year, and not all of it was related to the merger of i and p, although of course that was the biggest news.

The blog starts with its hat tips to those who have left us, including Al Barsa, Tom Jarosh, and Dick Bains, and then tips its hat to the father (grandfather?) of System i, Frank Soltis, who left us in a different way.

It then goes on to explain the merger of System i and p, the inevitable name change that came with it (and the hand wringing around it),  reworked IBM software tools and the rise of PHP on System i.