I just learned that IBM has renamed OS/400 again. It was called i5/OS last year, but this year they renamed it…
i
Yes, the letter ‘i’ in lower-case. IBM i.
Fabulous! That’s going to be really great for searching for information, isn’t it? Hardly any web pages contain the letter ‘i’ on its own, or sentence bridges like "…I downloaded the patch from IBM. I then…"
It’ll work especially well in IBM Lotus Notes, where searches are case-insensitive and punctuation-insensitive unless you reindex the entire database with non-default settings.
I also look forward to the support calls. "There seems to be some corruption in the database, the OS field says ‘i’." "Yes, the machine is running ‘i’." "A running eye?" "It’s running IBM i." "The letter ‘i’?" "Yes, the OS has a 1-letter name which is a lower case ‘i’."
Somehow I get the feeling this is going to be the best renaming since that UK railway company called itself ‘one’.
Ah well, I’m sure they’ll change it again next year.
[Opinions mine, not IBM's.]
May 9th, 2008 at 01:06 +0000
One thing that BBC article fails to mention is that a carriage with “one” blazoned down the side looks a lot like it’s first-class.
The travel reports on local radio have started calling them “National Express” rather than “One Railways” now; I don’t know whether they have the company’s blessing for this, but it certainly makes things clearer, though now I think they’re talking about delays on coaches instead.