Update: If you're interested in what makes it different to the old information centers, check out this slideshow about IBM Knowledge Center.

In 2014, the information centers, where IBM hosts the end-user documentation (what we used to call “user manuals”), are going away. They will be replaced by a new and better system, called IBM Knowledge Center. How does this change help you?

1. Knowledge Centre means all products in one place

There were hundreds of information centers across IBM – one for each product family. This could be confusing if you use, install, work with or support multiple IBM products. Knowledge Center is designed to host the technical information for every IBM hardware and software product. It has a simple entry URL: IBM Knowledge Center

2. Find the information you need faster

In IBM Knowledge Center, you can search across multiple products with ease. Search results come up very quickly.

There are all kinds of shortcuts to make the experience of using Knowledge Center faster. Start typing a search query, and Knowledge Center immediately suggests common search terms related to your keyword. The search suggestions appear as quickly as the type-ahead suggestions from commercial search engines.

3. Focus on what you want

You can easily set filters for search. Just start typing a product name, for example, and Knowledge Center suggests matching product landing pages. Click on a product page and you go straight there. Any searches you make now have a filter for that product pre-applied.

You can also choose one or more product filters directly from the suggested list, and your search will be limited to results for those products

Knowledge Center also has advanced search filters such as the operating system on which the software runs, and even the type of information you are looking for; for example: administering, troubleshooting, learning about, and so on:

4. Create your own version of Knowledge Center

Most of us don’t perform every possible task with a product. You can gather the information that’s most useful to you and save it in your own collection.

You can save your collections for later and print them at any time. If you're feeling social, you also can vote topics up or down, and leave comments on topics. You’ll need an IBM ID to sign in and use these features.

Knowledge Center is available now

Knowledge Center is live and in public beta right now. You can try it here: IBM Knowledge Center

The millions of pages on information centers should all redirect to the right place in Knowledge Center when the switchover happens early in 2014. To prepare for the upcoming redirection:

• Update your links to information centre topics.
• Try out Knowledge Center, and update your bookmarks to point to the equivalent topics in Knowledge Center.
• Encourage your customers and partners to update their links and bookmarks.

Over time, Knowledge Center will be the basis for a fusion of IBM’s technical content: information centers, wikis, and TIE content from developerWorks, Support, Redbooks, PartnerWorld, and more.

More information

Check out the Help topics for Knowledge Center, which describe all the features we didn’t have space for here:

http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/doc/kc_help.html