News Briefs and Product Shorts

Jack Henry Offers Software for Upcoming XBRL Reporting Mandate

Jack Henry & Associates has added new reporting software that should help banks and other financial institutions that rely on its data processing applications to meet new regulations going into effect later this summer. The new products are called Sheshunoff Call Report and Sheshunoff Y-9, which the Monett, Missouri, software company officially acquired from Austin, Texas, based Alex eSolutions on June 1. "Every one of our core customers needs these products," says Michael Henry, Jack Henry's chairman and CEO. "Each of the products in the suite assists banks to effectively and efficiently fulfill regulatory reporting requirements, while streamlining the process." In particular, the software will help banks to comply with the Call Report Modernization initiative. Starting in September 2004, the FDIC will require all transmissions of bank call reports to be transmitted electronically in the XML-variant called eXtensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL. "Being in a position to provide compliant solutions for banks to satisfy this requirement is very important to us," says Jack Prim, Jack Henry's president. More information on XBRL and the new reporting requirements can be found at www.xbrl.org.

Crystal Window and Door Happy with Friedman ERP System

Crystal Window & Door Systems is getting good dividends from its recent installation of Friedman's OS/400-based ERP application, called Frontier. The Frontier implementation capped a two-year refresh of business processes at the Queens, New York, company, which manufacturers a wide range of vinyl and aluminum windows and steel and fiberglass entrance doors for commercial and residential customers around the world. Mason Wang, Crystal's M.I.S. director, described his search for a new ERP system. "After honing in on the options for industrial-strength AS/400-based enterprise software, we looked inside the window and door industry to see if any solution dominated the marketplace," he says. What he found was Friedman, whose ERP software was supporting multi-plant manufacturers. Friedman consultants installed Frontier at Crystal's two manufacturing sites and nine branch offices. As part of the ERP implementation, all of Crystal's old manual processes were automated, and every critical business function was addressed and improved upon, Wang says. Every department at Crystal is now using Frontier, and Wang says he is impressed with the software's capability to allow each department to customize the ERP application's output for their own reporting requirements. In terms of the benefits of the software, Wang says data from Frontier helps Crystal project profit margins, smooth out cash flow for the next month, quarter, and beyond, and helps it to save money by negotiating better purchase orders.

Introductory Pricing from Key for TSM Reports.com Reporting Tools

New partners Key Information Systems and TSM Reports.com have a special offering this month for companies implementing Tivoli Storage Manager. TSM Reports.com's reporting and analysis tools are designed to help customers implement TSM more efficiently, and lead to increases in system throughputs of up to 20 to 80 percent. As part of the new partnership between Key and TSM Reports.com, companies can get introductory pricing on TSM Reports.com's reporting tools and services, including a 30-day license to use the TSM Reports Package for $2,000, and a 12-month contract for the Findings Review service, conducted by Key Information Systems or TSM Reports.com analysts, which costs $14,000 and includes quarterly reviews. The introductory pricing was originally scheduled to end June 30, but company officials say it will be extended.

DataMirror Deepens Partnership with Symbian for Embedded Java Database

DataMirror hopes to see its PointBase Java database technology take off in the growing market for smartphones. Yesterday the Canadian software company announced that it is now a platinum partner to Symbian, which develops the Java-based Symbian operating system, which has been deployed on more than 12 million mobile phones in the last few years. As a Symbian Platinum Partner, DataMirror gains access to technical support, joint marketing opportunities, and has access to part of the Symbian operating system source code. DataMirror's PointBase technology installs on Java server applications and can also be deployed within Java applications written for mobile phones. Its products include PointBase Micro, a compact database management system, and PointBase UniSync, a bi-directional data synchronization program. The number of mobile applications written for smartphones will increase by 80 percent by the end of the year, according to industry researcher Gartner.

Packeteer Enhances MLPS and VoIP Support with Network Monitoring Software

Packeteer yesterday launched ReportCenter 3.0, an updated version of its network traffic monitoring and management software. ReportCenter 3.0 has new support for emerging multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) and has expanded support for voice-over IP (VoIP) technologies. MPLS is being employed on the Internet to guarantee certain levels of service, and Packeteer says ReportCenter 3.0 will help Internet carriers by enabling them to identify and classify certain traffic types, such as SMTP e-mail, 5250 emulation sessions, or SAP applications, on which they can establish MPLS networks with guaranteed levels of service. For customers deploying Internet telephone systems based on the emerging VoIP standard, ReportCenter 3.0 allows them to monitor network latency, jitter, and packet loss, which are three key variables that Packeteer says impact voice quality and reliability. The ReportCenter software works with Packeteer's application traffic management appliances. ReportCenter 3.0 will start shipping in the third quarter, with pricing starting at $10,000.

Micromuse Enhances Application Impact Evaluation Software

Micromuse last week launched Netcool/Impact 3.0, an updated component of its Netcool suite of application and event performance monitoring software. Netcool/Impact works with other components of the Netcool suite, specifically the core Netcool/OMNIbus module, to show how specific faults within a company's IT infrastructure will impact IT-based business processes, services, and critical applications, including those running on OS/400 servers. New features in Netcool/Impact 3.0 include enhanced scalability through clustering; a new Web-based user interface; an enhanced "event listener" that communicates with devices in the infrastructure; a new set of off-the-shelf reports; and improved configuration management. Micromuse's Netcool suite supports OS/400 applications through the Netcool/Data Center Monitor component. An iSeries Event Monitor continually watches OS/400 message queue, while others monitor disk utilization, jobs, job queues, distribution queues, communications tasks, and hardware error logs.