End of the road for 7.1?

While IBM promises a year's notice before end of support I think the
upgrade path for 7.1 is going to be a little rocky.

Since IBM said this:
<snip>
TR11 was the last Technology Refresh for IBM i 7.1.
So, there won’t be more TRs for 7.1. We might put a few enhancements back
into the release, but it’s pretty well stabilized at this point.
</snip>
http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/Blogs/You-and-i/February-2016/Signs-and-Portents-for-IBM-i-Announcements/

A new TR is almost a requirement for a new respin of the OS. And a new
respin is a requirement for significant new hardware. You have to be able
to boot from an OS DVD to initialize the new lpar on a new system.
http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/i/planning/resave/index.html
<snip>
Resaves provide:
support for new hardware (for example, new I/O devices or newly
announced models)
</snip>

And apparently there's a timeline out there which says Power 8+ will be
out in 2016 and Power 9 will be out in 2017 (not from an official IBM
site!)
http://www.nextplatform.com/2015/08/10/ibm-roadmap-extends-power-chips-to-2020-and-beyond/

Then I'm guessing that, unless the TR11 had support for this new hardware
already (unlikely), that's probably very unlikely that IBM i 7.1 will be
able to run on any new hardware not yet announced.

This is NOT from any insider information!

Rob Berendt