News Briefs and Product Shorts

Praxair Picks TomorrowNow for Third-Party Maintenance of J.D. Edwards Applications

A Fortune 500 company has elected not to pay Oracle maintenance fees for support of its J.D. Edwards applications, and to go with a third-party maintenance provider instead. TomorrowNow announced last week that Praxair, a $6.6-billion provider of gases and high performance coatings, has been using TomorrowNow's maintenance services to support its World and OneWorld (now EnterpriseOne) applications since January. Praxair decided to expand its relationship with TomorrowNow as a result of "the responsiveness we have experienced in their support of our PeopleSoft [Enterprise] applications," says Melissa Buckwalter, Praxair's CIO. "TomorrowNow gives Praxair the opportunity to take control of our J.D. Edwards technology investments and optimize the utilization of our J.D. Edwards applications worldwide," Buckwalter says. In early January, TomorrowNow decided to expand its third-party maintenance offerings from PeopleSoft Enterprise to include PeopleSoft's World and EnterpriseOne applications, to meet the surge in interest in third-party maintenance providers that analyst groups and others expected as a result of Oracle's hostile acquisition of PeopleSoft. Third-party providers like TomorrowNow provide help desk support, bug fixes, and tax and regulatory updates, such as annual W2s and 1099s, for less than Oracle charges for maintenance. Since it was acquired by SAP earlier this year, TomorrowNow is the largest (but not only) provider of third-party maintenance for the J.D. Edwards applications (see "JDE Shops Have Plenty of Options for Third-Party Maintenance").

Plasmon Unveils Two New G-Series Libraries for UDO Drives

iSeries shops implementing Plasmon's Ultra Density Optical (UDO) drives have two new G-Series libraries to house those UDO drives. Last week Plasmon unveiled the new Gx134 library, which has an archival storage capacity of 4TB, and the Gx174 library, which can store 5.2TB. Both libraries can be configured with two or four 30GB UDO, two or four older 9.1GB Magneto Optical (MO) drives, or a mix of UDO and MO drives. Like all of Plasmon's G-Series libraries, the Gx134 and Gx174 have good mean time between failure (MTBF) ratings and dual pickers that provide data access times of less than 10 seconds in most cases. With its capability to maintain data securely for more than 50 years, as well as its write once, read many (WORM) capability, Plasmon's UDO technology has been well-received in industries with strict data storage regulations, such as healthcare and financial services. The iSeries gained the capability to connect to Plasmon's UDO drives last summer when IBM issued a PTF for OS/400 V5R3 (see "UDO Storage Now Available for the iSeries"). The iSeries has supported the G-Series libraries since they started shipping less than two years ago.

Maverik Country Stores Speeds Check-Outs with ISD Corp.'s Payment Processing Software

A chain of convenience stores in the western United States is undergoing an IT makeover, and the iSeries is at the heart of it. Maverik Country Stores, which operates 170 stores and gas stations in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming, has deployed ISD Corp.'s payment processing software, called ISD Payment Switch, on the iSeries server. Payment Switch is certified on many third-party payment networks, and will enable Maverik Country Stores to consolidate a variety of payment types, including credit and debit cards, checks, private label cards, phone cards, and fleet cards, into a single payment system. Payment authorization is also much quicker now as a result of broadband satellite network connectivity provided by packetPointe, an ISD partner. Credit card purchases that would have taken a minimum of 20 seconds now take an average of four to five seconds, the companies say. Maverik also implemented ISD's Self-Managed Gift Card solution to gain more control over gift card processing and program administration.

Devon IT's New Thin Client Features Ericom Emulators

Thin client provider Devon IT has tapped terminal emulation software developer Ericom for a new OEM partnership. As part of a new alliance announced yesterday, Devon IT will include the embeddable version of Ericom's terminal emulation software, called PowerTerm LTC, in its new NTA 6010E thin client, a Windows-based computer that features 64MB of memory, has no moving parts, and sells for $189. "The NTA 6010E helps increase the enterprise-wide benefits of thin client implementations by enabling reliable access to legacy systems such as accounting, inventory management, transaction processing, and other mission-critical legacy applications," says Joe Makoid, president of Devon IT. Among other benefits, the OEM alliance brings Devon IT a 5250 emulator; the company previously relied upon 3270 emulation, which it said provided some access to OS/400 applications. Companies typically deploy Devon IT's thin clients along with Devon IT's NTA Virtual Office (NTAVO) Appliance, which is a Linux-based appliance that's based on an IBM xSeries or BladeCenter server. The NTAVO appliance ensures the security of sessions without hurting the performance of the application by offloading SSL encryption and providing multiple forms of authentication.

SSA Global Updates Its 'Technology Architecture' with Version 5.0

SSA Global last week unveiled Technology Architecture 5.0, the keystone of the company's service-oriented architecture (SOA) strategy. Although details of this release were slim as we went to press, we do know that Technology Architecture 5.0 works with both ERP LX (the OS/400-based ERP products that SSA owns, including BPCS, PRMS, PRISM, and Infinium) as well as ERP LN (the Baan product line), and brings those ERP products several capabilities, including a Web interface, single sign-on capabilities, reporting and analysis functions, centralized administration, and business process management. The software is based on J2EE and IBM WebSphere, and is available now.

New Bottomline Software Automates the Accounts Payable Lifecycle

Bottomline Technologies yesterday unveiled inView AP, a new application for automating and building greater efficiency into accounts payable (AP) processes. inView AP automates every step of the purchase-to-pay process, from invoice receipt and processing through approvals and payment. The new software is designed to automatically receive, aggregate, format, and transfer invoice data directly into the ODBC-compliant database of an ERP system or other AP systems. The software components of inView AP include an Invoice Processing Module and Requisition Processing Module, and there is also an optional Online Purchasing Gateway for "punch-out" integration with CXML-enabled vendors, such as Dell and Staples, the company says. There is also a Vendor Portal component that provides chase order receipt, flip to invoice, invoice entry, file upload, AP process, and payment status visibility. inView AP runs on Windows and Linux computers, and is available now.