News Briefs and Product Shorts

PeopleSoft Adds RFID Capabilities to EnterpriseOne

PeopleSoft will begin shipping EnterpriseOne 8.10, a major new release of its ERP system for OS/400, Unix, and Windows operating systems, in May. One of the areas in which PeopleSoft has responded to customer demands with EnterpriseOne 8.10 is in radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. This release of the ERP system will support RFID mandates for outbound shipments, including support for Electronic Product Code (EPC) and Global Trade Identification Number (GTIN) standards. Other enhancements include a new customer self-service portal for collaborative forecasting; demand scheduling execution for greater visibility into high-volume supply chains such as the automotive supply chain; a new buyer workspace for streamlining inbound shipments; a new supplier self-service portal that supports Kanban procurement methodologies; and a new supplier release scheduling product. PeopleSoft's update also included new cost analysis, budgeting, job posting, and regulatory compliance capabilities.

General Fasteners Gets Generally More Efficient with LANSA

General Fasteners, a Canadian manufacturer, reports that its employees are now more productive as a result of tighter integration between its Windows desktop applications and OS/400 data. Before adopting LANSA programming tools, about 12 months ago, General Fasteners' employees were forced to re-key and reformat data from OS/400-based sales reports into Excel or Word. This was time-consuming, and there was no consistency in the way data was being presented, says Charlie Roth, senior systems analyst for the Calgary, Albert, company. For example, specials for flyers were sometimes printed with incorrect SKUs and prices, because of transposition and data entry errors. There had to be a better way. Enter Visual LANSA, a fourth-generation-language development environment that supports both Windows and OS/400. With integrated support for Word and Excel, Visual LANSA made it easy for General Fasteners' development team to integrate the company's DB2/400 database with productivity applications. "Visual LANSA has been well accepted by our programming staff," says Jim O'Reilly, president of General Fasteners. "They have learned quickly how to best use the software, allowing them to leverage their iSeries expertise into a Windows environment, and I am pleased that our production database still resides on the rock solid iSeries platform."

NLynx Announces New Windows-Based Terminal

NLynx Technologies last week launched a new thin client device for OS/400 shops. The Minit 6000 features a Sis 550 processor, 64 MB of memory, and the Microsoft CE.Net 4.2 operating system. The thin client includes the standard stack of productivity applications, including terminal emulators for a variety of hosts, a Web browser, e-mail client, and viewers for PDF documents, as well as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The Minit 6000 includes both PCI and PCMCIA expansion slots, four USB ports, a serial port, and an Ethernet card, and starts at $645.

Red Wing Picks Intentia for New ERP System

Red Wing Shoe Company, based in Minnesota, has chosen to deploy Intentia's Movex Version 12 ERP system on an iSeries server, Intentia announced last week. Red Wing will install the Java version of Intentia's Movex Fashion suite at its corporate headquarters, at two factories in Danville, Kentucky, and Potosi, Missouri, and at six warehouses worldwide. Ann Florine, Red Wing's ERP project manager, said the company selected Movex for several reasons. First, Intentia understands the footwear industry, and the Movex Fashion suite would provide Red Wing's customers with "ready access to timely, accurate information," Florine says. "In addition, it gives us a fully integrated system, complete with APIs to provide 'hooks' between Movex and external applications. These were key decision factors, as was Intentia's Implex implementation methodology." Red Wing will ultimately install the entire Movex suite, including the Corporate Portal, Workplace, e-Business, Advanced Production Planning, Supply Chain Planning & Execution, and Business Performance Warehouse applications. In the end, 250 employees will access the system.

SSA Global Makes Cashbook Application Available in U.S.

SSA Global recently announced that companies in the United States now have access to SSA Infinium Cashbook, a cash control application that has been used by Infinium customers in Europe for years, as part of Infinium's Financial Management suite. SSA Infinium Cashbook is a Web-enabled application that integrates with accounts receivable, accounts payable, and general ledger applications, and provides companies with a central view of their current cash position. The company recently announced Cashbook Version 12.1, which has enhancements in the area of recurring payments and payment schedules, manual payments, and security. In particular, user profiles can now be defined within Cashbook to adhere to internal control process, to help companies comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

CommercialWare Signs 20 New Customers in Four Months

Things are humming along over at CommercialWare, a privately held developer of OS/400- and Windows-based ERP applications for multi-channel retailers, which says it has signed 20 new customer deals in the last four months. Among the new customers is Flax art & design, a San Francisco retailer of art supplies that has licensed CommercialWare's flagship OS/400-based order management and fulfillment solution, called CWDirect. Another customer is Turtle Press, a Wethersfield, Connecticut, retailer of books on self defense and martial arts, which has chosen OrderMotion, a hosted order management and fulfillment system that CommercialWare delivers to customers over the Web (CommercialWare bought OrderMotion in December). Other retailers purchasing software (or software services) from CommercialWare since December are Splash Hawaii, Jumpstart LLC, Natural Bronze, Ace Systems, Camano Island Coffee, WineMonger, Fun To Collect, Elliottician, SpaLook.com, Popeil Family Store, TC Telemarketing, Provell, Theramune, DogToys.com, and Kylea Health & Energy.