ibm-i
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Fortra Bought a Cybersecurity Arsenal. Now It Has to Make the Pieces Talk.
The company once helped operators run overnight jobs on IBM machines. Four decades and a long acquisition spree later, it is trying to turn a cabinet of famous security tools into one coherent defense - while learning what happens when one trusted product becomes the way in.
The 48-Year-Old ERP Company Teaching Warehouse Software to Answer Back
VAI grew up writing code for IBM machines and stayed close to the distributors that run on it. Now the Long Island family business is betting that industry detail - plus an AI assistant - can beat a shinier generic suite.
IBM's Bob Grows Up: From Coding Assistant to Agentic Development Partner
On July 9, 2026, IBM unveiled major enhancements to IBM Bob, its agentic software development platform. The updates introduce multi-agent coordination across the full software development lifecycle, model-native parallel tool calling, subagents for context management, cost-and-productivity visibility via Bobalytics, and pre-built premium modernization workflows for IBM Z (COBOL/PL/I), IBM i (RPG), and Java (migration to Java 25). The release responds to a shift in enterprise bottlenecks from code generation to code review and validation, aiming to help teams ship production-ready software faster while optimizing the total cost of AI-driven development.
Fresche Solutions
Fresche Solutions is a Montreal-based enterprise software and services company that helps organizations manage, maintain, and modernize their IBM i (AS/400) and Microsoft systems. With more than 40 years of IBM i heritage, Fresche combines proprietary modernization tools such as X-Analysis, Presto, and Newlook with managed services, cloud hosting, and AI-driven data analytics to help legacy-dependent businesses move to modern web UIs, contemporary languages, and cloud platforms without disrupting operations.
Joe Zarrehparvar
Joe Zarrehparvar is the President and CEO of Fresche Solutions, a Montreal-based IT advisory and modernization company specializing in IBM i (AS/400) systems serving 22,000+ global clients. A 30-year technology veteran who built his career at Microsoft, Juniper Networks, and Wicresoft, Zarrehparvar took the helm at Fresche in May 2023 and has since driven a wave of AI-powered modernization tools, strategic partnerships with IBM, and a transition to subscription-based service models - all while championing a platform-neutral approach that lets clients modernize on their own terms.