Four Hundred Stuff--BCD Updates Trio of iSeries Web Products

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Volume 6, Number 37 -- September 19, 2006

BCD Updates Trio of iSeries Web Products

Updated: September 21, 2006

by Alex Woodie

BCD today unveiled new releases of several iSeries Web applications. The announcement, which was made at the COMMON conference in Miami, Florida, covers WebSmart, a Web application server for the iSeries, Nexus, a portal environment that runs on WebSmart, and Clover, a business intelligence solution and the newest BCD offering.

WebSmart 6.0

Leading off the three announcements is WebSmart version 6.0, a new release of BCD's flagship Web application and deployment solution. Users can expect to find new debugging capabilities, new templates, better Web services support, and business intelligence enhancements.

BCD expects the new real-time visual debugger to be a big hit with users, particularly RPG programmers making the switch to Web applications. "Debugging Web applications has traditionally been difficult because it is cumbersome for developers to determine which HTTP server job is running their code, and to trap it for debugging purposes," says Duncan Kenzie, president of ExcelSystems, BCD's development partner. "The cross-reference of PML (BCD's fourth-generation development language) to generated RPG code feature ensures that developers can see the exact lines of code that are running, helping to pinpoint potential bugs in their code. This is a huge advantage for RPG programmers."

BCD says it will be easier for users to choose how they want their WebSmart application to look and function thanks to the new Template Assistant, which gives users a "clear, visual representation" of how the WebSmart apps will look, the company says. New templates have also been added that work across BCD's "Big Three" apps--WebSmart, Nexus, and Clover.

A new feature BCD calls "piping" will improve the look and functionality of external communications. The company says piping will enable users to take data that has been marked up with XML or HTML, and push it into the iSeries IFS or to e-mail programs. This brings two advantages. First, users can now use the editing and formatting capabilities of their WebSmart applications to compose business communications, which will bring greater uniformity and a higher degree of professionalism in the appearance. Secondly, because it supports XML, piping also boosts WebSmart's inter-server communication and Web service capabilities.

BCD is now including the SmartCharts feature free of charge with WebSmart 6.0. This will give users access to hundreds of pre-built graphs, charts, and gauges, and enable them to more inexpensively build key performance indicators (KPIs). Numerous other minor enhancements have been added with this release, including better support for internationalization, better compatibility with Nexus, and more conformity to Microsoft Windows XP when it comes to the look and feel of WebSmart apps.

All in all, WebSmart 6 delivers a more complete Web application environment, says Eric Figura, sales and marketing director for BCD. "With version 6 there is just no faster or easier way to build complete Web applications that extend iSeries applications," he says. "You literally have everything at your fingertips to quickly deploy defect-free software."

BCD breaks WebSmart into two components for licensing purposes. An unlimited license for the development component ranges from $5,800 to $11,500, while an unlimited license for the Web application server component goes from $5,200 to $11,000.

Nexus 3.0

iSeries shops using WebSmart to develop all-in-one portal applications for their users would do well to consider Nexus, a pre-built portal environment based on WebSmart that provides an organized framework for users to access sever-based applications, documents, and productivity tools from a Web browser.

BCD has complemented the Nexus' repertoire with version 3 by adding enterprise content management. With ECM, BCD is providing pre-built search and retrieval of documents, as well as automatic indexing of documents added to the repository, which is handled with help from Catapult, BCD's established iSeries spool file product.

Nexus 3.0 includes an ECM Navigator that enables users to access virtual folders and documents from a Windows Explorer-like interface. When users select a document, it's displayed in an ECM Viewer, a portlet that supports Word, Excel, PDF, HTML, and other common formats.

Like WebSmart, Nexus includes templates that govern how a given page will look, and also includes BCD's SmartCharts tool, which enables developers to display charts and KPIs. Users will also find a WYSIWYG page design tool, and a selection of pre-built "skins" that apply color and layout schemes.

For administrators, BCD has included a new "group management" interface that makes it easier to let others grant authority or add users to existing groups. This interface also supports the creation of groups within groups, which saves time by directing the subgroup to have all the access features of the parent group.

Nexus 3.0 also introduces the capability to create custom menus at the top of portlet screens, giving users access to specific documents in the ECM or to Web pages. Several all-new portlets have also been added, including chart-building wizards, a new calendar, and spool file retrieval portlets.

Nexus 3.0 is available now. BCD currently is waiving the product's license fee, which starts at $12,500. Instead, customers can obtain Nexus by paying the annual maintenance fee, which amounts to $2,295 for a license to run the product in a single partition, or $4,195 for unlimited partitions.

Clover 1.5

BCD's business intelligence tool, Clover, is also seeing some enhancements.

Clover, which BCD unveiled last year and started shipping earlier this year, is a report-and query-generation tool that plugs into the WebSmart development environment and eliminate the need for a user to be an SQL wizard. Clover helps users get the most out of their iSeries data by guiding users, through the use of prompts, wizards, and templates, through the query development process. It then serves up reports, charts, and graphs in a Web browser interface.

BCD has made several improvements on the first generation Clover, including a new "rebuild report" option that lets a user create a new report using a different template, but the same basic SQL, with the click of a button.

This release also gets a new "non-report splitting" feature that allows users to split report segments into separate banner, header, detail, and total sections, which will make assimilating the information in reports much easier, BCD says.

Clover users will also thrill at the new "segment properties" icon, which will let them add conditions, change the description, and change the type of segment and what the segment breaks on. Users also gain more power over their reports with the new SQL option controls, which let users change reports back and forth between detail and summary views, view only selected records, change the date format, or limit the number of records retrieved. A new features has also been added that prompts the Clover user for values to be used in user-input values, work fields, or program fields.

Clover can be purchased as a stand-alone product for about $10,000. That price drops to about $4,000 if users buy Clover along with WebSmart.

For more product information, visit www.bcdsoftware.com.

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Editor: Alex Woodie

Contributing Editors: Dan Burger, Joe Hertvik,
Shannon O'Donnell, Timothy Prickett Morgan

Publisher and Advertising Director: Jenny Thomas

Advertising Sales Representative: Kim Reed

Contact the Editors: To contact anyone on the IT Jungle Team
Go to our contacts page and send us a message.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Is Antivirus Ready for Open Source?

CYBRA Unveils New Release of Auto-Label Software

BCD Updates Trio of iSeries Web Products

CCSS Overhauls iSeries System Monitoring Tool

News Briefs and Product Shorts:

IBM Adds Encryption to High-End Tape Drives . . . Q4bis Signs Corning Data to Target J.D. Edwards Users . . . Tyler Pipe Deploys Web-Based Self-Service Software from American Software . . . Wal-Mart Touts Advances in RFID . . . Ericom Receives RSA Security Cert for PowerTerm WebConnect . . . Segway Recalls iSeries, pSeries Products . . .

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