News Briefs and Product Shorts

Plasmon Unveils UDO Desktop Drive, but Where's the OS/400 Support?

Plasmon officially unveiled a new desktop version of its 30 GB Ultra Density Optical drive a couple of weeks ago at a show in Australia. The UDO Desktop Drive features (almost) all of the same features as the UDO drives found in Plasmon's G-Series Libraries (it even uses the same WORM [write once, read many] or rewriteable media and can be upgraded to be part of a G-Series library), but it stands by itself, instead of being tied into an automated library. Plasmon is targeting a different kind customer with its UDO Desktop Drive than with its G-Series library, and as such it has decided to ship only Windows and Linux drivers with the UDO Desktop Drive, because apparently small companies and departments of large companies use only Windows and Linux, and only Windows and Linux users require relatively inexpensive, easy-to-use desktop drives. Plasmon and IBM worked for more than a year to get UDO support into OS/400, and the work paid off last August, when IBM shipped the final PTFs needed to let the UDO drives work with OS/400 V5R3 (see "UDO Storage Now Available for the iSeries"). iSeries shops that want to invest in UDO technology can start with Plasmon's Gx32 automated optical library, which features an array of high-end features like hot-swappable components, dual-pickers, and 32 media slots, and starts at around $10,500. UDO Desktop Drives will cost around 1,600 pounds in the United Kingdom, or about $3,000.

Korbel Uncorks a Bottle of Spreadsheet Server for J.D. Edwards

Korbel Champagne Cellars is the latest OS/400 shop to enjoy a sip of Global Software's Spreadsheet Server. Like the authentic bottle-fermented bubbly (or "methode champenoise," for you connoisseurs) produced at Korbel's Northern California facility, Global's Spreadsheet Server also brings pleasure from within, in a matter of speaking, since it provides users with direct and real-time access to Korbel's J.D. Edwards OneWorld application from Microsoft Excel, instead of requiring periodic batch updates. "When Global tells you that the Spreadsheet Server application for J.D. Edwards is 'real-time,' they mean it," says Beverly Noble, Korbel's applications manager. "It's a tool that gives you the ultimate in flexibility, with drill-downs to the lowest level of detail and the ease-of-use, all within Microsoft Excel."

Varsity Logistics Is Ready for 2005 FedEx, UPS Rate Changes

Varsity Logistics, the San Francisco developer of the OS/400-based ShipSoft shipping application, is ready for the new UPS and FedEx shipping rates, the company announced recently. Varsity reports that the changes were a little more severe than normal because both FedEx and UPS changed their calculations for "declared value" shipments and added new "hundredweight" service types for shipments to Alaska and Hawaii. Being ready for the changes is very important, Varsity says. "Our customers ship over a million packages each day," says Tony Phillips, Varsity's director of product management. "They depend on Varsity to deliver timely and accurate rate updates to prevent any disruption in their shipping." The updates are available via FTP, CD, or tape.

AMR Says Companies to Spend $80 Billion on Compliance Through 2009

Think complying with new federal regulations is taking up a lot of time and money at your OS/400 shop? You're not alone. According to analyst firm AMR Research, compliance is going to drive more than $80 billion in spending from 2005 to 2009. For 2005, AMR expects spending on Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance initiatives to account for 40 percent of this year's $15.5 billion piece of the pie, followed by 24 percent for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, 8 percent for Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, 7 percent for FDA regulations (such as CFR 21 Part 11), and 21 percent to other regulations, such as Basel II. That's a lot of money, but does it have to be a drain on your IT operations and core business processes? "It can be," according to AMR analysts John Hagerty and Fenella Scott, "if you don't use these mandates as an opportunity to improve, or even rethink, parts of your business."

GROUP Unveils New Anti-Spam Measures in iQ.Suite 8.0

Despite the Can-Spam Act of 2003, unsolicited commercial e-mail has continued its relentless assault on e-mail boxes and servers around the world and now accounts for about 80 percent of all e-mail traffic. GROUP Technologies, a German company that develops anti-spam filters, as well as other e-mail management tools, launched a new version of its flagship iQ.Suite for Lotus Domino at the recent Lotusphere conference that features new spam-fighting capabilities. Specifically, iQ.Suite Version 8.0 includes a new Web portal that allows users to manage their own quarantines, blacklists, and whitelists, and also allows users to manage their own blocked e-mails, which in turn reduces administrator duties. Version 8.0 also integrates with the Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse program, which reduces spam by enabling millions of participants around the world to share details about the bulk e-mail they receive, thus helping them to identify and eliminate spam. Version 8.0 of iQ.Suite is available now and also works with Microsoft Exchange.

Is Spam Increasing or Decreasing?

Is spam increasing or decreasing? It depends on how you figure it. America Online, one of the largest ISPs in the world, reported in January that the amount of spam blocked by its filters actually decreased by 50 percent from a peak in 2003 to late 2004. While it could be possible that spammers have simply stopped targeting AOL, there are other indicators that the tidal wave of spam has reached its peak. Symantec's BrightMail unit, for example, recently reported that the amount of spam passing through its servers has stayed at around 67 percent for the last five months. Heartening news is also coming from other larger vendors, like MessageLabs, which reported that its spam ratio peaked at about 95 percent in July 2004, and has since leveled off to about 80 percent, and Postini reports that spam levels for 2004 were consistently in the 75 to 80 percent range.

However, some analysts have warned against celebrating a premature victory in the war on spam. When you consider spam as a percentage of total e-mail, it may seem to be leveling off, but that is deceptive, they warn, because, mathematically, spam can never account for 100 percent of all e-mail. In terms of actual numbers and sheer volume, spam still shows signs of healthy growth. We will probably never again experience the exponential increase in spam like we did the last few years, but spam is definitely here for the long haul. So praise the Web lords and pass the spam filters, please.