News Briefs and Product Shorts

Typex to Launch EIM Product for Simplifying SSO

Typex Group last week announced the pending release of new software that will automate the setup of IBM's Enterprise Identity Mapping technology, which brings single sign-on capabilities to OS/400 and other servers. The English software house's new product, BlueNotes EIM Administration, will provide a GUI administration console that allows administrators to map their users' identities from various systems or registries into IBM's Enterprise Identity Mapping repository. While Enterprise Identity Mapping is considered a powerful--yet deceptively simple--way to implement single sign-on in multiplatform environments, some parts of the setup can be unwieldy, which is why Typex and other companies, such as TriAWorks (see "TriAWorks Aims to Simplify Single Sign-On with EIM Utility"), are working to simplify the process. Typex co-authored the new IBM Redbook Windows-based Single Sign-On for the EIM framework on the IBM eServer iSeries Server (SG24-6975), which had been available at www.redbooks.ibm.com but has since been removed. BlueNotes EIM Administration is currently in beta and should become available April 1, 2004.

Viking Descendants Choose CRM to Increase Member Satisfaction

Viking take note: The Sons of Norway will be attempting to get in touch with its far-flung constituency using new OS/400 CRM software from Touchtone. As the largest Norwegian organization outside of Norway, the Sons of Norway is a group of individuals dedicated to preserving its heritage through a series of events, publications, and member services, such as insurance. The group, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, selected Touchtone's Wintouch Member Management solution to provide an Internet portal that gives members secure access to their member profiles. Wintouch will allow them to enter address and phone number changes and moves to seasonal addresses; to register and pay for upcoming local district, national, and international events; to contact financial planners; and to make purchases from the online store. District officers of the organization will also be able to receive e-mail alerts when a member moves into their region. The organization chose Wintouch because it provided an easy way to integrate its AS/400 data with its online presence to improve communications, says Rich Hall, vice president of marketing and sales with the Costa Mesa, California, software company. "Wintouch allows us to better serve our members online at www.sonsofnorway.com with a wide variety of insurance products, ranging from automobile to long-term care and life insurance," says John Lund, the group's president.

SoftLanding Ships Free iSeries Message Plug-In for WDSc

SoftLanding Systems, a leading OS/400 change management software developer, is shipping a new plug-in for WebSphere Developer Studio client (WDSc) that allows developers to monitor iSeries message queues. "Our own developers use WDSc daily, and they grew tired of having to interrupt their work to bounce over to a 5250 session to check their iSeries messages," said Mark Phippard, director of development of the Peterborough, New Hampshire, company. "We developed this plug-in knowing that any iSeries developer using WDSc was likely facing the same issue." The WDSc iSeries Message Plug-In actively monitors the message queue associated with a developer's Remote Systems Explorer user profile, and notifies the developer by their choice of pop-up dialog box, e-mail, or sound when a message arrives in the queue. Additionally, the plug-in creates an iSeries Messages subsystem within Remote Systems Explorer that allows users to view and work with specific messages from other message queues. SoftLanding is distributing this plug-in free for WDSc users; it doesn't require users to have SoftLanding's TurnOver change management system. You can download the WDSc iSeries Message Plug-In, as well as other free plug-ins, such as the WDSC Spooled File Plug-In, free from www.softlanding.com/websphere.

GST's AIT Drives Can Now Connect to Unix, Linux, and Windows NT Too

OS/400 shops using GST's AIT drives to back-up their iSeries servers can now use the AIT drives to back-up their Unix, Linux, and Windows NT servers, as well. Last week the Lake Forest, California, company announced open systems support for its AIT-1, AIT-2, and AIT-3 tape drives. "Our initial success with our AIT tape products in the iSeries market encouraged us to complete the engineering and testing for Unix, Linux, and NT users," says David Breisacher, GST's chairman and chief executive. "The iSeries connectivity took a tremendous amount of engineering to accomplish. In contrast, getting these products to run on the more open systems in the Unix/Linux/NT world was quite straightforward and yielded excellent results." The company also announced support with the AIT-2 and AIT-3 drives for write once, read many (WORM) capabilities, which some organizations require to comply with certain regulations for data archiving.

BEA and iWay Co-Develop New iSeries and Mainframe Adapters for WebLogic

BEA Systems and iWay Software have teamed up to give BEA's mainframe and iSeries integration a boost. Last week the companies announced they had co-developed new 5250, 3270, CICS, and IMS data adapters for use with BEA's WebLogic Version 8.1. iWay says the new adapters are distinguished by "intelligent" features, such as Web service enablement, rich metadata, security compliance, and automatic error-handling. iWay, one of the most successful and prolific developer of data and application adapters and connectors, was chosen by BEA to be its preferred partner for "last-mile connectivity" to "legacy" systems, although it maintains ties to other connector developers, as well.

California Software Moves InifiniteNet 3.0 into Production

California Software has launched a new version of InfiniteNet, Microsoft's .NET-based enterprise application integration software, which used to be called baby.NET. InfiniteNet provides a set of development and runtime tools for generating and deploying Windows- and browser-based GUI clients from 5250 and 3270 screens, using the .NET framework. The company says it has delivered many new enhancements with InfiniteNet 3.0. For example, the browser client has been adapted to include an easier-to-deploy client that requires no setup or installable files, the company says. Other new features include support for multiple hosts and auto connect and disconnect capabilities, the company says. In November, the San Clemente, California, software company launched Infinite, which envelopes the company's complete line of legacy extension, enterprise application integration, and business intelligence software. Other products in the Infinite family include InfiniteOLAP, InfiniteiSeries, and Infinite36. The company continues to list its Baby product line, which includes baby.NET, BABY/OLAP, BABY/iSeries, and BABY/36, on its Web site, in addition to its two Unibol products, Unibol400 and Unibol36.