News Briefs and Product Shorts

Bowstreet Introduces New Portlet Extensions for SAP, Siebel

OS/400 shops using Bowstreet's Web portal development software gained new extensions to Siebel's CRM and SAP's ERP software with Bowstreet Portlet Factory Version 5.9, which was announced last week. The new release features the Siebel Extension, which allows users to rapidly create Siebel portlets without any knowledge of that vendor's API, and a new SAP Builder that lets users access SAP Business Warehouse data. "With Bowstreet Portlet Factory, our customers can not only tap into each of these back-end systems, they can easily combine functionality and data from these systems into a single portlet," says Rose O'Donnell, vice president of engineering at Bowstreet. The Portlet Factory, which is designed to eliminate the difficulty and drudgery of writing Enterprise Java (J2EE) code by generating all of the necessary Java programs, gained support for running on OS/400-based Web portals earlier this year (see "Bowstreet Brings 'Portlet Factory' to iSeries," in the June 15, 2004, issue of this newsletter). Bowstreet Portlet Factory 5.9 also has support for IBM's Eclipse 3.0, the IBM Portal Toolkit, Apache Axis, and the 4.0 release of the JBoss application server, and it is available immediately.

Quadrant Launches New Technical Support Web Site

Document management software vendor Quadrant Software has created a new online technical support center where customers can get quick answers to frequently asked questions and common problems. The new center provides access to FAQs, product utilities, tech tips, diagnostics, PTF requirements, and security codes. Some resources may only be available to customers on maintenance and are password-protected. Quadrant Software's president, Gary Langton, says that putting this information on the Web will free the company's 24/7 help line. "Creating this online tech support center allows our tech support team to concentrate on customers who really need personalized service, while allowing minor issues to be fixed online," he says. Quadrant Software sells its Electronic Document Distribution suite of OS/400 software from its headquarters in Taunton, Massachusetts.

Ease of ERP Installation Aim of Intentia Movex 2004.2

Intentia last week launched Movex 2004.2, the latest release of its Java-based ERP suite for OS/400 and other platforms. The Swedish software developer is making a major push toward reducing the time and expense of ERP implementations and on-going maintenance with this release of Movex. The company has enhanced Movex Environment Manager, which largely automates the initial Movex installation and helps to manage and record modifications and changes. But there shouldn't be much need to change Movex, according to Intentia. "Intentia products are 90 percent configured to fit our customers' businesses," says Henrik Billgren, head of Intentia research and development, "allowing them to quickly customize the remaining 10 percent to their specific processes and changing demands." For those customers who do endeavor to make substantial changes themselves, the software vendor offers a software developer kit, called the Movex Adaptation Kit. There is also a new MAK LITE kit, which helps customers make changes to areas that change frequently, such as screens and messages. Finally, Movex 2004.2 also features industry-specific application enhancements, such as new margin calculation and improved workflow functionality for fashion retailers and manufacturers in Movex Demand Planner, and enhanced aging functionality for the food and beverage industry in Movex Yield Optimizer. The new Yield Optimizer functionality is aimed at food and beverage companies with products that mature over time, such as poultry and wine. It recalculates a product's value based on age-related criteria, allowing an asset's worth to be reflected accurately.

ASNA Says It's Sold 750,000 Licenses for DataGate Product

Ten years ago, ASNA launched DataGate, a software product that provides Windows applications with high-speed access to the DB2/400 database. The San Antonio software developer announced last week that three quarters of a million licenses of DataGate have been sold worldwide since 1994. Today, thousands of businesses around the world are using various instances of DataGate to access the OS/400 database from a variety of Web and Windows applications built with Microsoft Visual Studio languages, as well as ASNA's own ASNA Visual RPG (AVR). In last week's announcement, noted iSeries consultant Robert Tipton had some kind words for the product. "Because DataGate provides a single 'data abstraction and program call' interface to Windows developers--be they C#, VB, or AVR--the power of iSeries applications and data can be leveraged across the IT infrastructure, quickly and powerfully." Anne Ferguson, president and cofounder of ASNA, says DataGate has been a "breakthrough product," and its success should rank it as one of the most successful products ever in the midrange systems market. "We appreciate the high degree of customer loyalty it has fostered, and we're looking forward to providing a second decade of customer satisfaction," she says.

IBM Completes Interoperability Testing on Brocade SAN Switch

IBM has completed qualification testing of Brocade Communications Systems' 4100 family of 4-Gigabit-per-second SilkWorm storage area network (SAN) switches with its iSeries, pSeries, and xSeries servers, and is now offering that switch as the IBM TotalStorage SAN32B-2, Brocade announced recently. The SilkWorm 4100 family supports the "pay as you grow" Ports On Demand capability, enabling the switch to support up to 32 ports. It is backward-compatible with thousands of older IBM and Brocade SANs in place today and can automatically sense data link speeds of 1, 2, or 4 Gbits per second. The switches feature redundant and hot-swappable power supplies and cooling fans, hot-swappable SFP media, and hot code loading and activation, as well as fabric management and security software.

ACOM Launches New Printer Supply Web Site

ACOM Solutions, a developer of document management software for OS/400 and Windows systems, last week announced the launch of a new e-commerce Web site where it is selling printer supplies. The online store, www.orderprintersupplies.com, offers an array of MICR, laser, and color toner cartridges, fax and copier cartridges, cartridges of inkjet printers, printer maintenance kits, blank and pre-printed check stock, and pressure seal envelopes. More than 600 different products are available from the new Web site, including OEM products, as well as ACOM-branded printer products that can be as much as 50 percent cheaper than the premium brand-name versions. "They are high quality, high value products that are manufactured to our specifications and which test out as good as or better than any other compatible products in the market," says Gregg Church, the company's vice president of marketing and product management. Same-day shipping is available on most products, and orders of $75 or more are eligible for free shipping for a limited time. ACOM also sells laser printers.

Look for the Four Hundred 2005 Special Report on December 15

Another year is winding down, and all of us are looking ahead and perhaps looking forward (they are not always the same thing, as the latter implies optimism) to 2005 and beyond. So what does the future of the IT market in general and the iSeries market in particular hold? What are the products and policies that OS/400 shops would like to see IBM and its partners implement in the iSeries? Find out in the "Four Hundred 2005 Special Report," which will be published on December 15. You don't have to do anything special to receive this report. We are sending it free to all subscribers to our OS/400 newsletters as a holiday gift.