News Briefs and Product Shorts

FormScape Solution Helps Reckon Glenfiddich Supply

When you buy a bottle of Glenfiddich single-malt at your local adult beverage shop, chances are you're not thinking much about the customs process for importing distilled products from overseas, or the computer system responsible for ensuring there will be another bottle awaiting the next customer. Leave that to William Grant & Sons, the London distiller that has been bottling single-malt Scotch whiskey since 1887. The distiller recently implemented a pair of new document management and workflow applications, based on FormScape's Covus software, to improve the handling of shipping and customs documents generated by William Grant & Sons' OS/400-based ERP system. The first new application automatically updates the customs database with data, such as how many cases of Glenfiddich are shipping, when the goods are leaving the warehouse, what seaport the goods are leaving from, and their final destination. Automating this function has saved the distiller between 30,000 GBP and 40,000 GBP ($55,000 to $74,000) per year, says Graeme Fraser, who works in William Grant & Sons' IT department. The second Covus application is used to automatically grab batch numbers, including date and time data, in XML format, from a high-speed printer at the end of each production line, and automatically enter the data into an OS/400 database. This application will form the foundation for a future Web-based, self-service front-end that will have a far-reaching impact on Glenfiddich's market presence. "In the future, if someone takes a bottle of whisky off our shelves anywhere in the world, we will be able to tell what case it was in when it left our site and what customer it was shipped to," Fraser says. "By tracking each case, we can ensure that products are sold in the countries to which they are shipped so that distributors will not undercut prices, which reflect local market conditions."

Migrate from QMF for iSeries Before It's Too Late

The end of support is drawing near for Query Management Facility (QMF) for Windows for iSeries version 7, but don't get your queries all in a bunch: IBM has a replacement program in the wings. Last week IBM announced that customers who have a current maintenance agreement for QMF for Windows for iSeries version 7 can get a free upgrade to its replacement, DB2 QMF Distributed Edition for Multiplatforms version 8.1, via its Passport Advantage program. IBM announced last March that it would stop selling QMF for iSeries 7.0 in September 2004, and end technical support for the product on September 30, 2005. DB2 QMF Distributed Edition for Multiplatforms 8.1, which also debuted in March 2004, brought several key features, including support for DB2 Cube Views, an online analytical processing (OLAP)-like functionality that now serves as a core component of IBM's business intelligence strategy following its decision this summer to kill the DB2 OLAP Server for iSeries, Unix, and Windows product line.

Centerfielders Snag Rochester Expert for Database Webinar

Interested in boosting the performance of your DB2/400 database? Then you might want to check out a Webinar next week by one of IBM's resident database gurus, Mike Cain. The online event, called "Indexing Strategies on DB2 UDB for iSeries," is being hosted by fellow Rochester, Minnesota, resident, iSeries performance tool developer Centerfield Technology. According to Centerfield sources, Cain Webinars occur only once in a blue moon. In fact, they are even more rare than that: it will be the first live online appearance for Cain, who won a Silver Medal Award for his presentations at the spring COMMON conference in Chicago. To register for the event, which is scheduled for Thursday, September 15 at 1 p.m. Central Time, click here.

The Sports Authority Sticks with Inovis for Integrated EDI, VAN

EDI transactions between The Sports Authority and its 800 suppliers now travel over Inovis' new value-added network (VAN) offering, called inovisworks.net, the Atlanta software and service provider announced last week. The switch to inovisworks.net was made easier for The Sports Authority, which for years had been a QRS VAN customer, as a result of Inovis' acquisition of QRS last year, and its longtime use of Inovis' TrustedLink iSeries Edition EDI translation software. While there were obvious advantages to sticking with a single provider of EDI and VAN services, the sporting goods retailer had other factors to consider, including integrating Gart Sports, one of its recent acquisitions, into the mix. "Also, we needed to incorporate the VAN migration into other critical B2B projects at The Sports Authority, and Inovis was able to accommodate our required timeline," says Kimberly Davis, an EDI project leader at the Englewood, Colorado, company. Inovis says The Sports Authority managed to switch all 800 of its suppliers to the new VAN in a single day. Inovisworks.net now serves as the single interface for all Inovis interactions, including those handled by its OS/400-based merchandising application from JDA Software Group. Many of QRS' VAN customers have made the switch to Inovis' new VAN offering, including Federated Department Stores, Modell's, and Allen-Edmonds. Inovis unveiled its new VAN offering in April 2004, five months before it acquired QRS last year.

Tales of iSeries Survival Trickles Up from Down Under

It sounds like one of those fantastic "Legends of iSeries" tales that IBM publicized last year. The only difference is we can feel confident in the veracity of this story, having been independently verified by Computerworld Australia. Reporter Rodney Gedda writes: "It was a sultry Australia Day long weekend in Sydney. A power surge caused the air conditioning in a new computer room to fail. The inside air temperature rapidly headed towards 80 degrees Celsius (176 degrees Fahrenheit). One by one the Wintel fleet began to fall as the new floor tiles warped under the heat. The squadron of switches then went down as an infernal heat strikes the data centre. Finally, the last line of defence--the uninterruptible power supplies--were damaged beyond repair. Amid the chaos there is only one survivor--the mighty iSeries which came out of the chaos unscathed." In addition to extreme heat, the OS/400 server has been known to survive immersion in water. Perhaps some tales of survival will emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Synapse Communications to Close Following Death of Owner

Synapse Communications, a developer of OS/400 utilities, is shutting down. "The closing of the office and withdrawal of the products from the market place is at the direction of Joseph G. Frank, who passed away on August 3, 2005, and his family," read a statement posted to the company's Web site. "We will not be selling the product line to another company so once this Web site closes, you will not have continuing support for Synapse Communications' products." The company will be permanently closing the doors of its Columbia, Missouri, headquarters on September 14. Technical support will be provided by former staff members for another month, until September 14, when the Web site is permanently shut down.