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
One of the more interesting developments is their use of wikis to actually construct the books/guides. Making the wikis available will mean that they can evolve as the products do, which has got to be goodness.
Here is the external start page: http://www-01.ibm.com/redbooks/community/display/redbookswiki/Home