Top OS/400 Stories from Around the Web

(IT Jungle) Everyone knows sales revenue for the System i is the ugliest statistic in IBM's quarterly financial reports. But those figures don't tell the entire story. The amount of time between upgrades is growing wider, server consolidation has had an impact on the number of boxes being sold, and more sales revenue goes into the reseller channel than ever before as IBM has backed off on direct sales. What about those resellers? What do they have to say? READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) They're making hay in Eden Prairie. That's suburban Minneapolis for those of you who might be wondering about Eden Prairie. And the people making hay there is a private equity firm called Audax Group, which has just purchased Help/Systems, a System i software vendor that earlier this summer celebrated its 25th year in business. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) The reason there is a Power6-based System i server available right now is because it fills an immediate need for some companies. And because some companies could use a hand configuring the new machines, IBM has introduced Migration Services for System i. It's a four-day consulting gig covering operations and management. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) The case for voice over IP communications running on a System i comes with some pretty substantial savings when compared with traditional PBX systems. For some companies the migration to VoIP involves upgrading network infrastructure and incorporating high availability, among other considerations. For those reasons, it may turn out that VoIP will be more popular as a hosted service. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Not every software deal is a box of chocolates. Maybe you've been around one (or two) where expectations were high, but were never met. After that, two things can happen. You can quit trying or you can learn from your mistakes and come up with a better solution. Here's how one company managed to do that with document management software. READ MORE >

(MCPress) When IT giants like SAP introduce new products, you can almost feel the earth move under your feet. That could be just the vibration from the PR wheels turning though. Will its new Business ByDesign software as a service plan gain immediate traction or will companies not be moved? READ MORE >

(Search400) Bob Krzeczowski, the newest elected member of the COMMON board of directors, comments on the System i user community, "tool consolidation," and application development in this brief Q&A session. Krzeczowski has been a volunteer with COMMON, the world's largest System i user group, for more than 15 years. READ MORE >

Vendor Announcements, Promotions, and Deals

(IT Jungle) You don't have to have gray hair and wrinkles to remember when high availability was very expensive and very complex. It no longer takes deep pockets and a highly skilled staff to reduce downtime to almost zero. It does take a little extra effort, however, to find all the vendors. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Another type of software that formerly came in a box marked "expensive and complex" is business process integration where such things as workflow management, inventory control, and sales oversight come into play. These types of applications used to be programmer-intensive. Not so anymore. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) When you are in the manufacturing and distribution businesses, software designed for warehouse management efficiencies can offer a lot of candy for the money. Automation that improves inventory accuracy, picking and packing, production tracking, and cycle counting usually pays for itself in short order. But which way do you turn when it comes to barcoding versus RFID? READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) IBM's Global Services has a plan to make your business more competitive. It involves analyzing your business processes, examining your integration capabilities, comparing your company to the competition, and then devising market strategies and advising you on market opportunities. Automating business processes: good. Bringing in the Big Blue consultants: well, you be the judge. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) One of the good guys in this business, LANSA president, John Siniscal, has announced he will retire at the end of 2007. On deck and getting ready to hit for Siniscal, is Steve Gapp, a very capable replacement who was leading another prominent System i ISV, SoftLanding, until that company was purchased one year ago. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) What's old is new . . . sort of. In terms of Web-enabled applications, companies that use the CA Plex development environment will be getting a new development tool that will convert existing Plex applications to the Web. CA says the conversion will not require additional development work. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Online backup and recovery software for the iSeries installed base has gotten the attention of data center managers who see it as a convenience and cost saving advantage over tape drive backup. The latest enhancement in this area is the capability to include virtual environments such as those connected to the System i via attached System x servers. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) When your business is systems availability and you happen to be the most dominant vendor in the System i market, building a Web site that can serve as a resource center for researching analyst reports, case studies, Webcasts, and white papers seems like a good idea. I mean, what makes more sense? Oh, yeah, bringing IBM in as a partner. That was a good idea, too. READ MORE >

(System iNews) IBM reports its office productivity suite, Lotus Symphony, has been downloaded by more than 100,000 registered business and consumer users after one week of availability. Obviously people like the price, which coincidentally is the same price as this newsletter. With Symphony and plenty of other freeware choices available, it won't be long before people will be asking themselves why they pay what they pay for Microsoft Office, right? READ MORE >

Redbooks, White Papers, and Other OS/400 Resources

(Quadrant Software) Identifying the bottlenecks in the purchasing, receiving, and payables processes at your organization is the first step toward implementing a paperless solution. The second step is taking advantage of cost savings related to reducing the payables cycle and improving productivity. This archived Webcast titled "Making the Case for a Paperless Accounts Payable" includes methodology to help avoid the pitfalls in paperless implementations. READ MORE >

(IBM) Hundreds of SQL stored procedures, functions and triggers have been ported from other database platforms to DB2 for i5/OS. To make use of the increased functionality and performance this represents, IBM has organized this white paper that covers the enhancements to DB2 for i5/OS (V5R4). Of particular note is the Expression Evaluator component. READ MORE >

(MySQL) Interest in MySQL is growing along with the interest in PHP among the System i developer crowd. Find out what MySQL database users are doing based on a variety of survey responses posted on this site. Here are two examples: What database connectors/APIs are you using or are you planning to use with MySQL? How do you backup your production MySQL databases? The answer to these and many more insights can be found on this Web site. READ MORE >

(IBM & Manhattan Associates) This report examines warehouse management on the System i with a goal of reducing costs while improving efficiencies and service levels. The warehouse is more than a picking, packing, and shipping environment. You may know how to move goods, but are you good at moving information? READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

See our full calendar of events at
http://www.itjungle.com/fhm/fhm-calendar.html

October 5 -- Webinar - This 15-minute session explains how to convert AS/400 spooled files to fully formatted Excel spreadsheets without programming and without circumventing AS/400 security by using SpoolFlex software. Topics of discussion will include e-mailing reports directly from the AS/400 and archiving copies on the network server. The event begins at 2 p.m. EDT. LEARN MORE >

October 8-11 -- Orlando, Florida - The IBM WebSphere Portal Technical Conference will feature the latest product upgrades and platform extensions for the popular middleware. Among the highlights will be an emphasis on faster deployment of composite applications, enhanced Web 2.0 support, simplified portal-based solutions, and increased integration with business processes. IBM product architects and developers, business partners, and customers will provide training, case studies, and best practices information. Certification testing will be available and a vendor expo will be included. LEARN MORE >

October 10 -- Webinar - Tracking and reporting changes to database files for regulatory compliance management or internal control requirements is the focus of this session hosted by ProData Computer Services. This session will feature ProData's software, DBU Audit, and explains how it improves upon DBU change logs by storing the data in journals rather than spooled files. The 30-minute event begins at 2 p.m. CDT. LEARN MORE >

October 10 -- Webinar - Extending legacy applications to increase functionality and intuitiveness will be discussed in this online presentation by David Brault, product manager at LANSA. Highlighted in this session will be several examples of businesses that have transformed applications quickly and without major disruptions to their users. The event is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. CDT. Additional Webinars, featuring additional customer deployments, will be held October 23 and November 15 and 28. LEARN MORE >

October 10 -- Tampa, Florida - The Data Exchange Bay Area User's Group will host its regularly scheduled meeting at Bascom's Chop Shop in Clearwater, beginning at 5:50 p.m. The feature topic of discussion will be using System i and VMWare to simplify the management of Windows servers. Guest speaker is Keith Zblewski, an IBM System i technical sales specialist. LEARN MORE >

October 10 -- Webinar - This online session highlights systems availability solutions for the financial services industry, where 24x7x365 availability to their end-users is expected, transactional workloads are mountainous, and customer databases must be kept up-to-date and available for around-the-clock access. IBM's finance industry segment executive for the Americas, Stu Bilick, and Bill Hammond, director of product marketing for Vision Solutions, are guest speakers. The event is sponsored by Vision Solutions, The SourceMedia Banking Group, and IBM. It begins at noon EDT. LEARN MORE >

October 12 -- Webinar - This 15-minute session explains how to convert AS/400 spooled files to fully formatted Excel spreadsheets without programming and without circumventing AS/400 security by using SpoolFlex software. Topics of discussion will include e-mailing reports directly from the AS/400 and archiving copies on the network server. The event begins at 2 p.m. EDT. LEARN MORE >

October 14-17 -- Columbus, Ohio - The COMMON Focus 2007 workshop conference event is set up for 15 all-day educational workshops each confined to a specific topic. Attendees can attend only one workshop per day, and each workshop will include a combination of lecture and lab presentations. Areas of concentration include modernizing RPG applications, implementing i5/OS security, WebSphere Development Studio, PHP, disaster recovery, SQL, and systems management. A complete listing of workshops is available on the event Web page. There will also be a vendor exhibition area. LEARN MORE >

October 14-19 -- Las Vegas, Nevada - The IBM Information on Demand conference features more than 600 business and technical sessions and highlighting IBM information management technologies. This is actually seven conferences wrapped into one. It includes the DB2 Information Management Technical Conference, the Content Management Technical Conference, the Business Intelligence Customer Solutions Summit, the IMS Technical Conference, Information Integration Live, the Master Data Management Conference and the FileNet UserNet Conference. LEARN MORE >