News Briefs and Product Shorts

'All-In-One' Box Keeps Costs Low at Logging Equipment Manufacturer

Logging used to be very manual profession, with lumberjacks chopping down trees with axes and mule teams hauling the logs away, but today's modern timber harvesting technology has practically eliminated the need for men to step out of their air-conditioned skippers and feller-bunchers and get their hands dirty. Likewise, advances in information technology displayed in machines like IBM's OS/400 server have changed the way businesses hire for accounting and administrative processes.

Such is the case at Suttle Equipment, an Arkansas company that sells timber harvesting equipment. Suttle recently upgraded its older OS/400 server to a new eServer i5, and automated several previously manual processes along the way. Before the upgrade, it could take up to three days for a courier service to deliver sales, inventory, and receivables data from Suttle's three locations to headquarters. After the new i5 was put it place, the same data could be transmitted in five minutes, according to IBM. What's more, Suttle has found the OS/400 line so reliable that it hasn't hired any IT specialists to run the machines for the last 10 years. Instead, the 50-person company relied on the expertise of its reseller, CRT International, for the migration to the i5, operating system upgrades, and installation of a new electronic invoice system that enables salespeople to access data remotely. Mark Shearer, the general manager of IBM's iSeries business, says this level of staffing is not uncommon at OS/400 shops. "The iSeries system is an all-in-one computing system ideal for companies looking to better serve customers while decreasing labor and the overall cost of doing business," he stated in a press release.

CONNX Solutions Updates Data Access Middleware

CONNX Solutions is shipping a new release of its data access middleware tool for accessing and integrating legacy data with SQL technology. With CONNX 10, the company has delivered a version of its CONNX SQL Engine that runs on Unix and Linux operating systems; previously it ran only on Windows servers or mainframes. By bundling the CONNX SQL Engine behind a Linux- or Unix-based Web server, companies can eliminate the need for a separate data federation server, which was previously required for mixed-platform environments. CONNX supports OS/400 and DB2/400, as well as mainframe operating systems like MVS and z/OS, and Windows, Unix, and Linux. "This release is another step forward in our strategy to allow customers to choose the technology appropriate for their business needs, without getting locked into a particular vendor," says Larry McGhaw, CONNX CTO. CONNX Solutions was founded in 2001 when the Redmond, Washington-based consultancy SolutionsIQ spun off its software products division.

CYBRA Adds Support for Thermal Printer Used in Apparel Industry

Companies using OS/400 printing software from CYBRA can now output to SNAP 500 printers from Paxar, a developer of label and tag printing solutions for the apparel industry. CYBRA says it is the first provider of OS/400 printing software to support the SNAP 500 printer, a thermal printer designed to print one-sided or two-sided labels on coated, satin, and heat-seal tapes. The decision to support the SNAP 500 printer with MarkMagic version 5.1 was driven by customers in the apparel manufacturing business that are dissatisfied with spending "a fortune getting care labels from a service bureau," says Harold Brand, president of New York City-based CYBRA. "The combination of the SNAP 500 and MarkMagic software for the IBM iSeries gives our customers a money-saving, in-plant care label solution with the same software they can use to replace pre-printed forms, print thermal UCC128 shipping labels, and hang tags." CYBRA supports about 300 different printers with its software, the company claims.

Fujitsu Scanners Now Part of IntelliChief PPM Solution from Quadrant

Quadrant Software has established a partnership with Fujitsu and will begin selling Fujitsu's scanners along with its new IntelliChief content management suite, the software company announced recently. In joining Fujitsu's One Capture Alliance program, Quadrant becomes a reseller of Fujitsu's scanning hardware. The move was important for Quadrant's customers because it maintains single-vendor simplicity for all hardware and software associated with the IntelliChief suite, including purchasing, support, professional services, and training. Quadrant unveiled its new IntelliChief application in September, and started shipping the software in November. Quadrant bills IntelliChief, which runs on Windows servers but supports OS/400 content sources, as a paperless process management, or PPM, solution because it provides numerous ways of capturing, storing, manipulating, and re-distributing documents in electronic formats.

New Batch of AS2 Product Certifications On Tap from eBusinessReady and Drummond Group

Thirty software products from 25 vendors received AS2 certification during the latest round of testing by eBusinessReady, a neutral third-party testing service that's jointly sponsored by GS1 US (formerly the Uniform Code Council) and the Drummond Group, which does the actual testing. There were several OS/400 products certified by Rik Drummond's company, including EXTOL International's EXTOL Secure Engine V5R2, Inovis' BizManager 3.0, nuBridges' EDI-INT for AS2 version 3.2, and Sterling Commerce's Gentran Integration Suite 4.1. The Drummond Group performs interoperability tests for various industry standards, such as AS1, AS2, and AS3, periodically throughout the year. The third-quarter AS2 test was conducted in September and October, and the results were published November 18.

Your Community Bank Goes Global

Your Community Bank, a 71-year-old financial institution serving southern Indiana and Kentucky, has implemented the Spreadsheet Server and Executive DASH applications from Global Software, the vendor announced last month. The 15-branch bank picked Global's analytical tools because they represented the "latest and greatest in financial reporting and analysis" for Jack Henry & Associates' core banking systems, says Paul Chrisco, CFO with the New Albany, Indiana-based bank. "Because both these applications are Excel-based, dynamic, and easy-to-use, this has saved us a lot of time in the back office, thus we can spend more time focusing on our clients," Chrisco says.