For a long time now, IBM has been publishing both Redbooks and Redpapers. I’ve co-written a Redbook and mentioned them a number of times in the past – in fact, one of the best descriptions I can find of what they are all about comes from one of my old posts:

… deep technical books, usually written to address a particular product or scenario. The Redbooks are written collaboratively through the residency process. As a Redbooks author I have to say that working on one of them was one of the best experiences I’ve had at IBM so far – getting close to the development team, collaborating with folks from four or five different countries, working on hands-on scenarios and building a really strong book out of it.

As for Redpapers (from the website):

…shorter technical papers that are only available on the Web… They reflect working experiences on a specific topic.

New to the stable this week are the IBM Redguides, which are more business-oriented. According to the website, these:

…focus on the business view of technology that solves business issues, provides business value, or enables competitive advantage by applying existing technologies or exploring a roadmap for emerging technologies.

Quite a family of documentation! I’m looking forward to taking a look at some of the Redguides – based on the reputation of the Redbooks and Redpapers, I’m sure they are going to be really useful