News Briefs and Product Shorts

Vegas Casino Operator First to Link OS/400 Reservation System with Expedia

Using the Web to make reservations for any of Coast Casinos' four Las Vegas properties is about to get easier--for consumers, casino staff, and IT professionals. In mid-December, Hotel Information Systems announced that Coast Casinos, which operates the Orleans, the Gold Coast, the Suncoast, and the Barbary Coast casinos, was its first customer to install a "direct connect" interface linking Expedia's online reservation system with the OS/400 version of the HIS property management system, which is called epitome. The new direct connect interface streamlines the reservations process and automates the management of available rates and inventory. The new interface was easy to install and provided an immediate financial return, says Kim Kane, corporate reservation manager at Coast Casinos. "The time savings alone are equivalent to one full-time employee," Kane says.

More than 30,000 Coast Casino rooms are booked through Expedia each year, HIS says. The Expedia link at Coast Casinos is expected to go live this month and will be followed by a similar link to Hotels.com in the coming months. Expedia and HIS are also working on a second phase of their collaboration that will give hotel operators the ability to automatically push real-time availability, rates, and inventory information to Expedia, thus enabling two-way communication between the different systems, HIS says. This phase will also save hotels significant time and money by eliminating the need for loading rates manually into an extranet system, HIS says.

Global Software Launches New Software, Promotes Two People

Global Software in mid-December launched new releases of its popular Spreadsheet Server software that allow users to access, query, and work with OS/400 ERP-based accounting data through a familiar spreadsheet interface, notably Microsoft Excel. Some of the new features in the 10.1 release of Spreadsheet Server for PeopleSoft's (soon to be Oracle's) J.D. Edwards include new budget analysis and upload capabilities, new weekly balance processing, new combined segment lists, and the capability to summarize sub-ledger detail by account and sub-account. The 12.0 release of Spreadsheet Server for SSA's BPCS has been bolstered with new features, such as custom drill-down creation and processing, new drill-down windows functionality, and a new Control Panel that can be used for things like account inquiry, segment list maintenance, and general maintenance functions. Finally, the new Spreadsheet Server for Infinium 10.1.24 features full integration with SSA's Budget Manager for Infinium, support for general ledger balance comparisons at the detail account level, among other new features.

In other Global Software news, the Raleigh, North Carolina, company has promoted Jason Schemmel to vice president of product development and Becky Kaufman to vice president of client services. Schemmel, who joined Global in 2001 and formerly worked as a consultant at SSA, is charged with overseeing the entire Global product line, which is led by Spreadsheet Server and also includes financial and procurement systems. Kaufman has worked her way up Global's corporate ladder since joining the company 11 years ago. She has held a variety of positions, including application support specialist, pre-sales, development, support, and quality assurance.

Mail Order Outfit Picks iWay for Its Native OS/400 Adapters

The native iSeries adapters from iWay Software was a major reason why Collections Etc., a Chicago-based mail-order gift cataloguer, chose iWay to provide a new enterprise application integration (EAI) messaging backbone, according to the software vendor. With a requirement to transform and route more than 400 different types of messages flowing in and out of the company, the growing mail-order operation found it needed a sturdy enterprise-grade messaging platform to support continued expansion. In addition to the native iSeries adapters, iWay's willingness to work as a strategic partner was the other major reason why Collections Etc. chose iWay. "Ultimately, every piece of data that is floating around our enterprise will be routed through iWay Software," says Anand Ranganathan, systems integration manager at Collections Etc. "We have positioned iWay as one of the core technologies in our enterprise." For example, Collections Etc. plans to use iWay to identify customers and then route calls to the appropriate customer service representatives. The company is also exploring the possibility of using iWay route digitized voice-over IP (VoIP) data streams--a very leading edge idea, especially for an OS/400 shop.

J.C. Whitney Streamlines Ordering Process with New CommercialWare System

J.C. Whitney, the country's largest direct marketer of automotive accessories and parts, has successfully deployed CWDirect, an OS/400 application from CommercialWare, to give customers better visibility into current inventory levels. No matter whether customers interact with J.C. Whitney via the Web, through a catalog, or by telephone, they will have access to the same product information, thanks to CWDirect 8, the latest release of CommercialWare's flagship order management and fulfillment system designed specifically for cross-channel retailers like J.C. Whitney. "It is critical that our online, call center, and catalog customers are able to quickly search our inventory to purchase and accept delivery of the accessories and parts they require," says Marty Wehrle, J. C. Whitney's chief information officer. "CWDirect enables this, and integrates customer, inventory, and product information across our Web site, catalog, and inventory systems. The result is millions of customers, no matter which sales methods they prefer, have easy access to everything automotive." J.C. Whitney says it chose CWDirect to help automate operations at its 360,000 square-foot warehouse in Illinois due to its industry expertise, multi channel functionality, and its overall capability to process very complex inventory, broken down by automobile make, model, and year.

Magic Software Introduces iBOLT to the World of Financial Services

Magic Software is taking its iBOLT integration suite into the financial industry. In December, the company's German subsidiary announced a new initiative to get word of iBOLT out to system integrators in the banking and financial services field. The iBOLT product, released to the OS/400 and midrange market about two years ago, combines business process modeling, workflow mapping, integration and composite application development, deployment, and management. Avigdor Luttinger, head of Magic's iBOLT program, says the product's capabilities and functionality are well-suited for the finance sector. "Based on our extensive experience in the financial sector, we have developed a comprehensive solution that addresses the diverse and complicated requirements of this highly regulated industry." Magic Software unveiled its new financial services push in December in a conference called "Business Driven Integration and Business Process Management," which included various sessions given by experts in the business integration and financial sector.

Ross Systems OEMs LANSA's UCCnet Software

Ross Systems, an Atlanta-based provider of an ERP system for manufacturers, has entered into a partnership with LANSA for UCCnet software. As part of the deal, Ross Systems will sell a version of LANSA's Data Sync Direct product that allows Ross System's iRenaissance ERP users to synchronize their product data with trading partners via the Global Data Synchronization Network and the GS1 Global Registry data repository. J. Patrick Tinley, chief executive officer of Ross, says Data Sync Direct provides an "immediate, integrated solution" for iRenaissance customers. "As global data synchronization becomes essential for retail compliance efforts, we've delivered an answer for our customers," he says. About 1,000 manufacturers use iRenaissance, which runs on Windows, VMS, and Unix operating systems. Data Sync Direct also runs on OS/400.