Weird things are happening. Really weird: unpredictable, chaotic, random. Enter the case of the "Quantum i." (No, not me; as in, "I think, therefore I am." It's the small i - the one impervious to Google, underlined in red as I type this using Microsoft Word, the vowel that Apple seems to have done a far better job of marketing. That i.) So what makes it quantum, you ask. I'm not using the definition so often used to describe a giant leap forward. No. My definition comes from the world of the very small. A crazy, unpredictable world so elusive and strange that physicists like Einstein refused to acknowledge its existence, just as many hardcore AS/400 types refuse to acknowledge i.

Over the past couple of years, I've developed a fascination with the world of the very, very small. I've burrowed into the subatomic strata and tried my best to wrap my head around the world of quantum physics. It has been a difficult journey fraught with peril. I've had to suspend much of what I used to believe about reality. You see, for much of my life, I tended to trust only what could be seen. The laws of reality, as embodied by Newtonian physics (of which Einstein was a big fan), are what we've used for years to do some pretty amazing things, such as send human beings to the moon and back, fly satellites by Jupiter and Pluto, and crash projectiles into comets hurtling through space. Newton's laws are perfect: predictable, unerring, infallible.

The world of physics according to Newton and Einstein reminds me of the "old" IBM midrange market (all the way up to the System i): dependable, predictable, reliable, perfect.

However, following IBM's "Power Systems" announcement at COMMON 2008 in Nashville, things in the venerable world of the IBM midrange market got very weird indeed. It's sort of like the world of the quantum, in which, depending on the probabilities of the calculations, something can exist in wave and particle form at the same time, in both places, in both forms, or neither. One is never certain where things will be. And if you try to "peek," the pesky waves and particles move and change — simply as a result of being observed. Is it a System p? Depends. System i? You guess. Both? Neither? What's really happening under the covers? The rebirth of the 360? Pop! The wave becomes a particle and then shifts back again. Somewhere, Thomas J. Watson's head must be spinning.

Oh, and speaking of spinning, IBM is doing an amazing job of spinning this story so that it sounds like something terrific for the Newtonian types out there. You know, those that want a predictable, reliable computing appliance that simply runs their applications without aggravation. (They're called Macintosh users. Okay, sorry, got off track for a moment.) Enter the iSeries types — AS/400 users, i5/OS, OS/400 — and they love the environment that was impervious to the unknown, the weird, the bizarre. Unfortunately, the story IBM's giving us about the new world of Power Systems and ip, or pi, or IP — whatever — is anything but simple and straightforward.

Who's to blame? Who's to congratulate? Oh wait, the market's reaction has been popping and shifting just like particles and waves. Where's the truth? One easy target would be Mark Shearer. Mark has been at the helm of the IBM midrange market longer than just about any other general manager I can remember. His "multi-year journey" prediction has proven to be true, and he's been a man of his word in many, many ways. But it seemed IBM had big plans for the entire Systems and Technology Group (STG), and the depth of IBM's vision for the AS/400 market as implemented by Mr. Shearer has finally come to fruition. For many reasons (financial ones primarily), IBM could not justify totally separate technology platforms, and it makes logical sense for IBM to combine them.

So, it's good news and bad news (depending on the observer). Good news? We have insurance from IBM that we'll be able to run our OS/400-based applications for many years indeed. And, the hardware-cost penalty finally has been eliminated (no more explanations of $20,000 CD drives, like the $100,000 toilet seats we heard about from the Department of Defense). But — and there's a big but here — IBM has given us these features at a cost that goes beyond mere dollars. We now have to be very smart about the small stuff. Details! We now have to sort through the weird world of features, software, configuration details, pricing models, and integration (can you spell Vista? Unix?). Quantum. Yikes!

So, what's a loyal AS/400 type to do? Get familiar with the world of the weird. Recognize that your "Einstein would be proud of it" machine is moving in the world of the Quantum i — shifting, popping back and forth, and requiring us to dig deep into the details of making everything work correctly ourselves. As the old saying goes, "the devil is in the details," and the weird is in the quantum. Hello i. Goodbye Newton.

Robert Tipton is managing partner of R S Tipton, Inc., and a long-time contributor to System iNEWS magazine. His book, Untangling IT: 25 Years of Lessons in Effective IT Leadership (available at the System iNetwork Bookstore — pentontech.com/education), and R S Tipton’s workshops and consulting services focus directly on the process of creating higher levels of effectiveness through innovation, inspiration, and common sense.