News Briefs and Product Shorts

IBM Gives BCD the Nod for iSeries Developer Roadmap

Business Computer Design Int'l's WebSmart development environment has been added to IBM's iSeries Developer Roadmap, BCD announced yesterday. An updated version of the iSeries Developer Roadmap will feature WebSmart under the "Better Tools" and "Better Portability" categories, BCD says. "BCD is delighted that IBM has seen the value of WebSmart and has added it to the Better Tools and Better Portability categories of the roadmap," says Eric Figura, BCD's sales director. "If not for the two-category limit, I believe WebSmart would be listed in Better Architecture as well." The other two iSeries Roadmap categories include Better User Interface and Better Portability.

WebSmart will also be "better" in 2005 with WebSmart Version 5.0, which brings several notable enhancements, including a new RPG code converter, new wizards for generating HTML elements and SQL statements, and others (see "BCD Announces RPG Code Converter, Outlines Web App Enhancements"). WebSmart was plugged by IBM iSeries sales executive Doug Fulmer during a recent conference call, BCD says. "WebSmart overlays the central part of the roadmap, and 75 to 80 percent of our installed base is exactly at that point in the roadmap," Fulmer said.

Getting roadmap airplay from IBM is a big deal for BCD. The Chicago company competes directly with IBM's WebSphere and hasn't shied away from talking about some of WebSphere difficulties. While early versions of WebSmart were based on CGI, it also offers a version that uses Java technology, and can generate JavaScript and Java servlets. These Java-generation capabilities were undoubtedly key to WebSmart's being was chosen for the iSeries Developer Roadmap, which is basically a plan for moving everything on the iSeries to Java.

PGA Tour Implements Kronos iSeries Central for Labor Management

It's "tee time" in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, where resident company Kronos recently announced that the PGA Tour is using its OS/400 labor management software. The golfing membership organization recently rolled out Kronos' iSeries Central suite to all of its Tournament Players Club Network facilities across the United States, in addition to the PGA Tour's World Golf Foundation headquarters in St. Augustine, Florida. Picking Kronos to run its time clocks and to provide other workforce management functions took about as much forethought as a John Daley drive. "We didn't even consider other vendors for workforce management," says Regina Ford, the Tour's HRIS manager. "Kronos' iSeries suite is an excellent companion to our iSeries human resource and payroll solution." But it wasn't always so. The Tour had been using a different Kronos product for labor management for eight years, but found the decentralized system required too much maintenance and cost too much. Today, all 2,200 employees of the TPC Network record their time with Kronos, and management has much better control. "Now we can change a labor level at headquarters, and it is implemented across all facilities, rather than the onsite, one-by-one changes we used to make," Ford says.

Evant Rolls Out new Catalog Planning Solution

Evant, the San Francisco provider of supply chain planning software for the iSeries and servers that support Java, announced the release of its new Evant Catalog Planning application last week. Catalog Planning provides a centralized repository of catalog data for the formation of catalogs, and assists planners with product assortment optimization, forecasting, and inventory management. The software takes into account information and processes that are unique to the catalog retailing business, including drop dates, catalog demand curves, and product attributes that vary by catalog versions, such as page numbers and display spreads, the company says. In fact, Evant claims that Catalog Planning is the first planning solution designed specifically for the requirements of the catalog retailer. "Other retail planning solutions on the market today try to force-fit catalog customers into applications and processes that are designed for brick-and-mortar retailers," says Mike Matacunas, vice president of product strategy for Evant. Several catalog retailers have already deployed the software, including Lillian Vernon and Babystyle.

Acquisition of Sabratec Gives Software AG the SOA Story

Software AG, the German company known best for its Adabase mainframe database, is making a move into the wider legacy modernization business. With its pending acquisition of Sabratec, an Israeli software developer, Software AG will be aggressively pushing Sabratec's ApplinX integration platform to its traditional mainframe base, as well as to users of other platforms where application modernization is an issue, such as OS/400, Unix, VMS, Unisys, and Tandem. ApplinX makes it easier for IT departments to build on a legacy application's core processes without making extensive (and expensive) modifications to the legacy application. The software does this by putting a wrapper around the existing business logic written in Natural, COBOL, PL/1, RPG, and Assembler, and then exposing that logic as a Web service based on Windows .NET, J2EE, a COM object, Java Beans, ASP, JSP, or XML. These components can then be exposed as Web services that can be consumed in a service-oriented architecture.

Symbol Unveils the Lightweight and Configurable MC3000

Symbol Technologies is unveiling its new Symbol MC3000 handheld computer at the National Retail Federation's annual show in New York City this week. The MC3000 is a lightweight (weighs less than a pound) and rugged device that comes with features designed to minimize user fatigue in retail, inventory replenishment, and warehouse environments, including a variable keyboard (with the option of 28, 38, or 48 keys), a rotating barcode scanner turret, and a color display. The MC3000 supports 5250, 3270, and VT emulations, is equipped with Intel XScale processors (running at 312 MHz for monochrome displays, 520 MHz for color) and the Windows CE .NET Version 4.12 operating system (including the Windows CE 4.2 Core version for monochrome and CE 4.2 Professional for color). Additional options include a choice of lasers for scanning one- and two-dimensional barcodes, and either wireless (802.11) or batch communication.

Oculan 5.0 Adds iSeries to Windows Network Management Fold

Oculan says it's having success with Oculan 5.0, its "purple box" network management appliance launched last spring. Before the 5.0 release last year, Oculan held down a variety of jobs in the Windows network, including intrusion detection, vulnerability assessment, asset management, and generation of network performance reports, notifications, and alerts. With the introduction of Oculan 5.0, the purple box added the capability to collect asset and performance data from Unix, Linux, and OS/400 servers to its credentials, as well as a number of new Windows features, including the capability to monitor SQL Server, Exchange, Active Directory, and Terminal Services; coverage of both Windows servers and desktops; and new internal vulnerability scans for Windows systems. Two versions of the rack-mounted Oculan 5.0 are available, including the Oculan 100, which starts at $4,995 and supports up to 10 servers, 10 network devices, and 100 clients, and the Oculan 250, which supports up to 25 servers, 25 devices, and 250 clients.