diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 96439b7072..656417b728 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -69,9 +69,12 @@ Master (not on release branches yet)
   true when using SLURM, as it improves interoperability with SLURM's signal
   propagation tools.  By default it is set to false, except for Cray XC systems.
 - Remove IB XRC support from the OpenIB BTL due to lack of support.
-- Remove support for big endian PowerPC.
-- Remove support for XL compilers older than v13.1
 - Fix rank-by algorithms to properly rank by object and span
+- Disable the POWER 7/BE block in configure.  Note that POWER 7/BE is
+  still not a supported platform, but it is no longer automatically
+  disabled.  See
+  https://github.com/open-mpi/ompi/issues/4349#issuecomment-374970982
+  for more information.
 
 3.0.1 -- March, 2018
 ----------------------
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 64eab61b8f..b14d942007 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -84,17 +84,6 @@ AS_IF([test "$host" != "$target"],
       [AC_MSG_WARN([Cross-compile detected])
        AC_MSG_WARN([Cross-compiling is only partially supported])
        AC_MSG_WARN([Proceed at your own risk!])])
-# Check for architectures that we explicitly no longer support
-case "${host}" in
-    powerpc-*|powerpc64-*|ppc-*)
-        AC_MSG_ERROR([Big endian PPC is no longer supported.])
-        ;;
-esac
-case "${target}" in
-    powerpc-*|powerpc64-*|ppc-*)
-        AC_MSG_ERROR([Big endian PPC is no longer supported.])
-        ;;
-esac
 
 # AC_USE_SYSTEM_EXTENSIONS alters CFLAGS (e.g., adds -g -O2)
 OPAL_VAR_SCOPE_PUSH([CFLAGS_save])