Russell Stover Chooses JDA to Manage New Retail Stores

Russell Stover Candies has selected OS/400 and Windows software from JDA Software Group to power the roll-out of its new retail locations. Russell Stover has been using JDA's planning, forecasting, and collaboration software to sell to more than 50,000 wholesale accounts and 90,000 retail locations around the United States. As part of a plan to open its own stores, Russell Stover examined the merchandise management and point-of-sale systems offered by eight to 10 other providers, in addition to JDA, says Dave Copas, Russell Stover's senior vice president of logistics and IT. "I have installed MMS a number of times, including as CIO of $2 billion Western Auto," Copas says. "We selected JDA for a variety of reasons, including the company's solid reputation for delivering cost effectiveness and business efficiencies." MMS will operate on the IBM iSeries platform, which Russell Stover purchased through JDA's hardware reseller business unit, and which will be hosted by OneNeck IT Services at its data center in Scottsdale, Arizona.

LANSA's UCCnet Software Now Supports Distributors and Retailers, Too

LANSA's data synchronization software for supporting the UCCnet initiative is now supported at all levels of the supply chain, the software vendor announced last week. LANSA's Data Sync Direct software, which operates on iSeries and Windows servers, was previously targeted at manufacturers looking to synchronize their product data with the larger retail chains (such as Wal-Mart and The Home Depot) that they sell products to. However, this model is starting to change, and LANSA is adapting, says LANSA's vice president of solution products, Alan Christensen. "Many new mid-tier retailers are coming on board looking for the same benefits that the first wave of larger retailers found when they embraced UCCnet," Christensen says. "LANSA Data Sync Direct has matured to suit this change, and the same product now offers 'out of the box' middle-man functionality, as well as retailer [demand side] functionality."

Midwest Mosquito Eradicator Taps Intentia for ERP

Clarke Mosquito Control, a Roselle, Illinois, manufacturer of mosquito control equipment, services, and education, has contracted with ERP software vendor Intentia International to implement Movex across its U.S. and international operations. Clarke Mosquito evaluated many enterprise solutions before selecting the Java-based Movex suite, says Joseph Drago, Clarke's CFO. "Movex proved to be the most complete solution because of its unique ability to handle both process and discrete manufacturing, and a service business," he said. "In addition, we feel confident that Intentia will provide us with a highly focused and successful implementation." Intentia is based in Sweden, and its American headquarters are located in Schaumberg, Illinois. Movex will be installed on a new iSeries Model 810.

looksoftware Launches Directory of Third-Party Applications

Australian software developer looksoftware last week introduced a Web directory of applications that have been using its collection of OS/400 refacing and integration tools. The directory, which includes applications developed by third parties and by looksoftware, "helps customers and partners reduce costs and implementation timeframes by reusing modernization repositories already tried and tested," looksoftware's director, Marcus Dee, said. Most of the solutions in the directory have been built by application vendors that have strong domain knowledge and address vertical markets, including education, manufacturing, retail, government, finance, and insurance. For example, Affiliated Computer Services' NewVision suite of accounting modules for governmental entities was given a common GUI across the entire application suite using looksoftware's modernization software.

Some Familiar Faces in Gartner's New Magic Quadrant

Gartner has released a new Magic Quadrant for the application integration market, and several OS/400 software vendors are on the list. Traditional integration broker providers webMethods, TIBCO Software, and SeeBeyond Technology lead Gartner's field of 23 software vendors for their "completeness of vision," while the integration software vendors best able to execute are TIBCO, IBM, and Microsoft. Rounding out the "leaders" quadrant are BEA Systems and Sterling Commerce, which supports OS/400. One of the newcomers to the list is EXTOL, a Pennsylvania company that has built a business selling EDI translator software for OS/400 and other platforms. While EXTOL had the lowest scores for completeness of vision and ability to execute, the company was lauded by the analyst group for its "innovative utility" that let's companies "inexpensively" migrate non-EXTOL EDI translators to the EXTOL integration broker suite. CommerceQuest, another company providing native OS/400 support in its integration tools, was ranked near EXTOL in the "niche player" portion of the quadrant. Notably absent from Gartner's "magic" analysis was Magic Software, whose iBOLT integration suite was launched in 2002. Gartner says it is watching a dozen other integration software vendors that did not make the list, and we imagine Magic was one of them.