What was the C4040-124 exam?
C4040-124 was “Power Systems with POWER7 and IBM i Sales Skills -v2,” the IBM i branch of IBM’s Power Systems sales certification track. Per IBM’s own test index, it ran 60 minutes with 44 questions and a 70 percent passing score, the highest bar in the Power Systems sales family. Candidates sat it alongside the common core exam C4040-122 to earn IBM Certified Sales Specialist - Power Systems with POWER7 and IBM i -v2. The exam is retired.
Why This Branch Had the Highest Passing Score
IBM set 70 percent for this exam, against 61 percent for the AIX and Linux branch and 63 percent for the common core. That difference is small on paper and meaningful in practice, and the reason is the nature of the IBM i market.
IBM i customers are unlike any other enterprise computing constituency. The platform descends through OS/400 and the AS/400, launched in 1988, and a great many organisations have run business-critical applications on that lineage for thirty years or more. Those applications are frequently custom-built, deeply embedded in how the business operates, and maintained by people who know the platform intimately.
Selling into that market requires more than product familiarity. The customer typically knows the platform better than the salesperson does, has heard every migration pitch repeatedly, and is making decisions with a time horizon measured in decades rather than refresh cycles. A superficial sales conversation fails immediately.
A higher passing score for that branch is a reasonable design decision, and it is worth noting if you hold this credential: you cleared the strictest bar in the track.
What the Exam Covered
As the operating-system branch, this exam focused on what IBM i customers specifically needed: the integrated nature of the platform, where the operating system, database, and middleware are far more tightly coupled than in a typical Unix or Linux stack; the workload characteristics of long-lived business applications; and the upgrade and consolidation cases that made sense for that installed base.
The commercial conversation differed fundamentally from the AIX and Linux branch. There, IBM was frequently arguing for competitive displacement against x86. Here, the conversation was usually about retention and modernisation within an existing base: justifying a hardware refresh, consolidating older systems onto newer Power hardware, or extending the life of applications that the business had no intention of rewriting.
The integrated database is the detail outsiders most often miss. Db2 for i is built into the operating system rather than installed on top of it, which changes the administration model, the licensing conversation, and the migration calculus. Someone who sold into this market understood that the “just move it to x86 and a separate database” argument frequently underestimated the work by an enormous margin.
What Happened to the Platform
Power Systems stayed with IBM. IBM sold its x86 System x server business to Lenovo in a deal announced in January 2014. Power Systems was not part of that sale and continues as an IBM product line through POWER8, POWER9, and POWER10.
IBM i continues as a current operating system. It has moved through successive releases and remains supported and actively developed. The installed base has proved remarkably durable, which is precisely what the platform’s economics always predicted: when an application works, is deeply embedded, and would be expensive and risky to rewrite, organisations keep running it.
That durability is the most useful thing to understand about this credential. Unlike most retired vendor certifications, the market it addressed still exists in recognisable form, and organisations still need people who understand it. The skills shortage in IBM i is a live, frequently discussed problem, precisely because the generation that built those systems is retiring.
What dated: POWER7 hardware specifics and the 2013 model lineup. The platform strategy and the modernisation conversation moved on, particularly around integrating IBM i systems with modern APIs, cloud services, and contemporary development tooling.
What This Credential Is Worth Today
As a current certification, it is expired, being version-locked to POWER7.
As evidence of experience in a specialised market, this is arguably the most distinctive of the Power Systems sales credentials. IBM i expertise is scarce and the customer base is loyal, long-term, and still spending. Someone who genuinely understands that market has knowledge that is not easily replaced, and there are noticeably fewer people entering it than leaving.
What transferred: understanding of long-lifecycle enterprise systems, the economics of modernisation against replacement, and how to sell to technically expert buyers who have heard the pitch before. The broader lesson, that migration proposals routinely underestimate the cost of moving embedded business logic, applies well beyond this platform and is exactly the reasoning that makes legacy modernisation projects succeed or fail.
What did not: POWER7 hardware specifics and the 2013 competitive framing.
How to present it. Name the certification with its year: “IBM Certified Sales Specialist - Power Systems with POWER7 and IBM i, 2013.” If IBM i work is relevant to the role you are pursuing, say so explicitly in an experience bullet, because that specialisation is genuinely differentiating and a reader may not infer it from the exam code.
Where the Path Leads
If you still work in the IBM i ecosystem, this is one of the few areas where retired-era knowledge remains directly commercially valuable. IBM maintains current certification and partner enablement around its present portfolio, and current requirements should be verified with IBM directly, since its catalogue is dynamically generated and older exam pages are no longer published.
If you moved to modernisation or integration work, your background is an asset. Organisations trying to connect IBM i systems to modern applications need people who understand what those systems actually do, and that understanding is much harder to acquire than familiarity with the integration tooling.
If you moved to cloud infrastructure sales, the transferable part is the modernisation-versus-replacement analysis. That conversation is now happening about a much broader class of legacy systems, and the reasoning you learned applies directly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I still take C4040-124? No. The exam is retired and version-locked to POWER7.
What certification did it lead to? IBM Certified Sales Specialist - Power Systems with POWER7 and IBM i -v2, in combination with the common core exam C4040-122. It also counted toward IBM Certified Sales Expert - Power Systems with POWER7 -v2.
What was the exam format? Per IBM’s test index: 60 minutes, 44 questions, and a 70 percent passing score, the highest in the Power Systems sales family.
How did it differ from C4040-123? C4040-124 covered the IBM i branch; C4040-123 covered AIX and Linux with a lower 61 percent passing score. Both sat on top of the shared core exam C4040-122.
Is IBM i still a current platform? Yes. IBM i remains a supported, actively developed operating system running on current Power hardware, with a notably durable installed base.
Did Power Systems go to Lenovo? No. IBM sold its x86 System x business to Lenovo in a deal announced January 2014. Power Systems stayed with IBM.
References
IBM. Professional Certification Program: Test Information by Number. Archived August 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140801000000/http://www-03.ibm.com/certify/tests/test_index.shtml (Primary source for the exam name, 60-minute duration, 44 questions, 70 percent passing score, and the certifications it counted toward; also the comparison point for the C4040-122 and C4040-123 passing scores)
IBM. IBM i. https://www.ibm.com/products/ibm-i (Current operating system product page)
IBM. IBM Power Systems. https://www.ibm.com/power (Current product line, confirming Power Systems remains an IBM product)
IBM. IBM Training and Certification. https://www.ibm.com/training/certification (Current IBM certification catalogue)