The British i community has given the thumbs-up to IBM's decision to extend the life of i OS V5R4.

Big Blue originally said that it would stop selling V5R4 on January 05, 2010. However, at the end of November last year, the corporation declared that it had extended this withdrawal date to January 07, 2011 (you can read the terse EMEA announcement letter at http://tinyurl.com/yhm4yeb).

The volte-face is entirely pragmatic. IBM released V5R4 back in April 2007. Its renamed successor, IBM i 6.1, hit the corporate streets in March, 2008. But by July last year, Power Systems resellers were telling iNEWSWire UK that uptake of the newer OS was less than 10%, raising fears of users getting left behind.

Ray Titcombe, chairman of the IBM Computer Users Association and Power i user group Common UK, says: "Common UK and all Common organisations I am aware of have welcomed this extension. Simply put, it is a positive response to many requests from user groups to enable customers in that group to have longer to plan and implement any transition activities. Given current economic circumstances, many organisations are feeling the pinch and their finance directors are saying: 'Just keep the lights on'."

Blue Chip Group's Chris Smith says: "I do welcome the decision. If they had continued as planned they would have forced many iSeries users to move to a level they are not ready to invest in from both a time and financial perspective. We are a recession and most iSeries users consider V5R4 to be a stable platform. If they do not need any of the functionality of V6R1 you could ask why should they go cap in hand for budget to invest in an upgrade project that will not deliver any commercial benefit to a business?"

However, Power Consulting managing director Richard Field points out the stay of execution raises the issue of how IBM moves its customers forward as the release of IBM i 7.1 looms in the coming months.

"The extension of availability and support of i 5.4 is good and bad." Says Field. "Good because it gives customers on older systems and older releases a roadmap and upgrade options and postpones the potential pain of an i 6.1 conversion. Bad because it also gives customers on V5R4 a 'get out' for upgrading to 6.1 and I guess maybe that means customers can opt for a V5R4-capable box rather than the latest stuff -- Power7 and so on -- and miss out on the benefits of the newer kit around performance and cost of ownership."

When IBM pulls a product from marketing, withdrawal of support follows soon behind. Support for V5R4 will presumably now extend well into 2012. Clearly, the prospect of the vast majority of its Power i customers running untold millions of pounds-worth of hardware on an unsupported OS was not one to be countenanced. But what can IBM now do to persuade its loyal midrange customers to eventually upgrade?

"This is an area of focus that I am waiting for IBM to develop," says Titcombe. "My view is that finance and licence deals will be made available to encourage them to upgrade." Smith says: "I honestly don’t know what they can do to persuade customers to move. All iSeries users hate pain and do their best to avoid it."

Alluding to the program conversion process involved in moving from V5R4 to 6.1, he adds: "Like the upgrade from CISC to RISC, this upgrade represents pain and most will do their best to avoid it until they really have to. In time, they will have to move. The best way to do this is to combine with a technology refresh. For many customers, this might not happen until the next generation of hardware is released."

Will Power i users eventually simply cut out 6.1 and jump straight to 7.1 which, after all, is almost definitely going to start shipping in a few months' time?

Titcombe says that this is emerging as a "stronger option for the larger and most loyal long-term customers". But Smith provides a note of caution that is perhaps typical of a conservative sector of the IT market.

"I would suggest that a move from V5R4 to 7.1 would make sense but only when 7.1 has reached maturity and is seen as stable as V5R4 or it predecessors," says Smith. "For most users, out-of- support software is not perceived to be as risky as being on a very new release of software with the potential for many PTFs during its infancy. If a customer is not doing cutting edge things with technology and software, often a mature version is so stable they do not feel the pressure to upgrade regardless of current up-to-date support from the manufacturer."