You just have to love this sub-headline from MC Press Online’s article about the upcoming i5/OS V6R1: Will it be the Joy of Six (V6, that is) or the Annoy of Six?

Timothy Prickett Morgan at IT Jungle has put together a great resource for older AS/400 and iSeries shops that are thinking about upgrading to a System i model. Heck, the resource is great for those who aren’t thinking about upgrading, simply because it’s always good to consider options that you didn’t know you had.

And it’s no surprise that IBM is trying hard to sell new hardware; judging by revenue numbers over the past two years, IBM hasn’t done so well when it comes to System i hardware. At least part of that problem is the hardiness of the platform itself. We’ve all heard stories of System i machines sitting in corners, running for years without a hiccup. While it’s a blessing for the shops where that is the case, it can be a curse for IBM: Its customers are hesitant to fix what they don’t consider broken.

And so IBM has assembled a way to compare AS/400 and iSeries boxes with what it views as the ideal System i hardware upgrade. The site looks at processor performance, hardware and software maintenance, and power costs. To simplify it for you, Morgan put it in this awesome System i comparison table. Check it out. Bookmark it.

RPG expert Paul Tuohy says the longtime programming language — whose history dates back to the days of punchcards — is anything but ancient and insists that IBM won’t let it die off.

But there are problems, he said. One of them is backward compatibility. What? Being able to run an RPG program from 30 years ago on today’s System i machine without having to recompile is a problem? Well, yes. Because it works, people are slow to adopt change, and are therefore not taking advantage of the new developments IBM has done with RPG.

Tuohy added that newer technologies like Java should be working in concert with RPG on the System i, not as a replacement. Tuohy suggests using Java to tweak the interface but keeping RPG to handle all the business logic, which he said it’s so good at.

Excel Program Inventions has upgraded its Database Assistant software for the System i to include Control Language (CL) support and a feature to generate SQL for changed files.

Version 2.2 of EPI’s database change management software, called Database Assistant, is available now. Its goal is to reduce the manual programming effort needed to make changes to database files and RPG applications on the System i.

Do you use open source software on your System i? Here is an opportunity to give back to the open source community.

Tech book publisher No Starch Press is auctioning a copy of its new pub, Absolutely FreeBSD by Michael W. Lucas, to raise money for the FreeBSD Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the Unix-like FreeBSD platform. The winner of the auction receives a signed copy of “Absolute FreeBSD” and a certificate of authenticity.

The ongoing auction runs through Nov. 2, 2007. The FreeBSD Foundation is using eBay’s charitable MissionFish service to provide this auction at a reduced rate.

Lawson Software is bringing 64-bit support to HP-UX and AIX on its S3 ERP software, but i5/OS folks are going to have to wait.

Lawson has quite a few S3 software users on the System i platform, and yet it’s unclear when 64-bit support for i5/OS will be coming. The marketing director for Lawson told IT Jungle that it would come but didn’t specify when. Lawson also plans to have 64-bit support on S3 ERP software for Windows and Solaris.

Does i5/OS need a native graphical user interface (GUI)? Does it already have one? Much of the talk about GUIs on System i — whether it is native on i5/OS or through applications — usually revolves around making the platform easier and more attractive to use for the newbies.

Check out these comments from readers of the System i network about what IBM has to do, and what it has already done, regarding GUIs on the platform.

For what has now been eight quarters in a row — that’s two years — IBM System i revenues have dropped in year-over-year comparisons. You would think at some point that the platform’s revenue would have hit the bottom of the valley with nowhere else to go but up, but that simply has not been the case.

At least System i doesn’t have to feel alone this time. Mainframe revenues dropped 31% compared with a year ago, even more than the 21% decline that System i experienced. Overall, IBM system revenues decreased, while software and services increased.

The question, of course, is why? Why does revenue continue to free-fall? There must be reasons other than a marketing problem tied to a couple of name changes. Some think IBM hasn’t been pricing and engineering System i correctly to target it at a different customer base than System p, IBM’s Unix boxes.

It is good to see that IBM has reported System i revenues separately. When IBM decided to split System i into two divisions, it wasn’t clear whether it would be able to avoid this reporting requirement. Whether it’s required or not and despite the poor news, IBM is still doing it.

Then again, do hardware revenues matter? It’s common in many places for vendors to give away hardware so they can sell the software and services. This happens with cell phones, Internet service and cable. You get the cable box for free, then you pay for your monthly service bill. You get your wireless router for free, but then pay for Internet service access. Is that the way it’s going to be for server hardware, or is this just an excuse for IBM’s dismal results?

Looking for a way to read up on System i resources without slogging through pages upon pages of Google results? Welcome to del.icio.us, the social bookmarking site. This is a good way to see what your peers are looking at and bookmarking. Check it out.

There are good results under both the AS400 and iSeries tags, although I couldn’t find anything under a “System i” tag. I guess del.icio.us hasn’t caught up with IBM’s name change yet.

A couple decent sites include JTOpen, midrange.com of course, and Code400.com.

Update: Thanks to a few readers, I found the “System i” tags, so I must apologize. They are under del.icio.us/tag/systemi and del.icio.us/tag/system_i. Oops. Thanks guys.

David Vasta over at the System i Addict has an enthusiastic recommendation for upgrading to Lotus Notes 8, along with an enthusiastic thumbs-down to Microsoft Outlook and Exchange:

If you’re using Outlook/Exchange then first of all I am sorry your company loves to waste money and you need to call IBM and have them give you “a talking to” as some of the boys down south would say.

He points readers to a new YouTube video that explains why upgrading to Lotus Notes 8 is such a good idea.