News Briefs and Product Shorts

Trans World Slashes Backup Times with New OS/400 Server

A retail chain has shortened its backup time from eight hours to less than three hours as a result of a project to consolidate servers on a new iSeries server, IBM announced last week. Those shortened backup times translate into an additional 12 to 14 hours per week that Trans World Entertainment, a $1.4 billion company that operates 800 stores selling music, movies, and games, is able to keep its systems online. "With the iSeries system, Trans World delivers more-up-to-date data in a third of the time, which is critical to a successful holiday season for a retailer, says John Hinkle, CIO of the Albany, New York, company.

"The scalability of the new system will allow us to grow our business. We know the iSeries can handle future expansions or seasonal spikes in business," Hinkle says. Trans World's server consolidation project was spearheaded by IBM business partner Strategic Computer Solutions, and involved the consolidation of three data centers into a single data center anchored by one of the new i5 Model 570 boxes. In addition to quicker backups, employees now have browser-based access to an OS/400 application that manages inventory adjustments. Previously, those adjustments had to be handled manually. Trans World's core OS/400 applications include a merchandise management system from Island Pacific and a warehouse management application from Manhattan Associates. The company is also running an Oracle data warehouse in an AIX partition residing on the i5.

Intentia Updates ERP Suite with New Features In Procurement, BI, Mobile Services

Intentia unveiled an update of its Java-based ERP system last week. Intentia Application Suite (IAS) version 5.2 brings architectural enhancements related to IBM's WebSphere middleware, and new functionality in the areas of business intelligence, mobile services, and procurement analysis. In terms of architecture, Intentia has adapted three additional components, including e-Sales, e-Procurement, and Workplace, to run on WebSphere. Functional enhancements include a new data warehousing and reporting module called Intentia Performance Analysis (IPA) geared toward helping users better understand and make businesses decisions relating to customers, products, and suppliers. A new field service module called Intentia Mobile Services has completed pilot tests and joins the ERP suite with this release, bringing expanded capabilities for engineers and technicians in the field to access information related to handling, preventive maintenance, service contracts, warranties, spare parts replenishment, inventory management, and invoicing. Finally IAS gains a new procurement module called Intentia e-Procurement. This application shares a single point of integration with the core ERP suite, and is expected to reduce the amount of time customers spend manually tracking and analyzing costs related to purchasing activities.

Intentia hasn't been resting on its laurels since agreeing to a merger with Lawson Software last June. In August, the Swedish software company unveiled the version 5.1 release of IAS, which previously went by the name Movex. The completion of the merger with Lawson has been slowed due to the difficulty translating multiple years' worth of Intentia's financial reporting from Swedish accounting standards and currency to American standards. At this point, it looks like the deal is expected to close in early 2006. When it does, the combined company will take Lawson's headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Rawlings Lets Best Buy 'Punch Out' With New LANSA App for Ariba

A LANSA CodeStart application is providing electronics retailer Best Buy with a "punch-out" Web site for purchasing uniforms from Rawlings Sporting Goods through the Ariba Supplier Network, the software company announced last week. Best Buy was already purchasing employee uniforms through Rawlings e-commerce Web site, which it developed with LANSA tools. But a request from Best Buy to move those purchases to the Ariba Supplier Network prompted Rawlings to ask LANSA for assistance. As a result, LANSA's professional services organization used the company's Ariba eCommerce Integration application to link Rawlings' on-line catalog and purchasing system to the Ariba Supplier Network, where Best Buy employees can browse catalogs hosted on a variety of servers, and make purchases from multiple vendors, in a single procurement session. "Buyers never know they are leaving our site to make other purchases--the look and feel is seamless," says Matt Bensing, director of marketing and operations at Rawlings. In addition to providing a seamless experience for Rawlings customers, the company is also saving money by utilizing the LANSA CodeStart application to create the punch-out Web site. According to Bensing, Rawlings is saving three to five cents per dollar in debit fees by using the Ariba Supplier Network. "That translates into a three percent savings on a million dollar purchase, more than enough to make Best Buy's request a positive experience for Rawlings, too," he says. The Ariba eCommerce Integration is one of about a dozen CodeStart applications from LANSA, which for the past few years has been moving toward providing specific application functionality instead of strictly development tools. Other CodeStart offerings include ERP and CRM frameworks, and extension solutions such as Amazon Seller Central, e-Payment Service, LDAP Service, PGP Encryption Service, and HIPAA Direct.

Geac to Focus on RFID with System21 Aurora Refresh in '06

Despite an acquisition by OS/400 ERP powerhouse Infor in the works, Geac is focusing on delivering a new release of its RPG-based suite of ERP software, called System21 Aurora version 2.2. Slated for availability in early 2006, the new release of System21 Aurora will feature new radio frequency identification (RFID) capabilities, according to Geac's Studley, England, System21 division, which last week announced a partnership with Indigo Software to make RFID a "core component" of the ERP suite with the next release. Richard Smith, vice president of operations for the System21 division, says RFID has become a commercial mandate for System21 shops. "Many of our customers who supply the retailers within the fast moving consumer packaged goods industry are now looking towards initial projects for the adoption of RFID technology," Smith says. "This is going to become a compelling issue for many customers in the next 12 months."

Indigo Software, which is also based in England, has been developing warehouse management and supply chain software for System21 users for 17 years, Indigo's managing director Peter McLane says. "Recently we have been talking extensively to a number of them about their requirements for forthcoming RFID pilots," McLane says. "We're now taking this knowledge and experience into this development project to provide a single solution which will be tightly integrated with System21 for our joint customers." RFID software for System21 users is already available from Indigo, which in November unveiled a bundle of software called RealTime for System21 Aurora that includes RFID, warehouse management, raw materials and finished goods management, and shop floor production bookings components. Now it appears this bundle's RFID-related functionality will be built directly into System21.

Software AG Supports the Standards with New Release of XML Middleware

Software AG, which bills itself as "the XML company," last week unveiled enhancements to its collection of four Business Integration products that rely on--you guessed it--XML. The new release of Software AG's Enterprise Business Process Manager (EBPM) product includes the capability to reuse existing Microsoft Visio diagrams and support for the Business Process Modeling Notations (BPMN) standard. Another integration product called Enterprise Information Integrator (EII) now supports UDDI registration of the Web services generated by the product, as well as WS-I compliance, Web service mapping, and the importing of Software AG's Adabas mainframe database, the company says. Support for business process execution language (BPEL) has been added to Software AG's Enterprise Service Integrator (ESI) product, which also features improved support for SOAP and UDDI. Lastly, the new release of Enterprise Legacy Integrator (ELI) can now register Web services in CentraSite, an embedded version of the Business Integration suite that Software AG jointly develops with Fujitsu. ELI includes adapters for OS/400 and 5250 applications, among others.

No Documentation Yet for New Release of Documentation Tool

Development of CabledSoft's DSP400i graphical cross-reference tool for OS/400 applications is moving forward, with two new releases expected in 2006, according to a note posted on the company's Web site. Mikael Asplund, founder of the Swedish company, developed DSP400i after he couldn't find a cross-reference tool that fit his needs, and unveiled the Java-based product, which runs on a PC and costs about $500 per year, earlier this year (see "CabledSoft Delivers Graphical Cross Reference Tool for OS/400"). A note from Asplund posted to the CabledSoft Web site says he has finished developing DSP400i version 1.7, but that he will not release it at this time because he has not finished the documentation ("the boring part") and instead wants to jump into development of version 1.8, which will feature new support for working with fields, three-dimensional tree views, and other "nice things," Asplund says. "Strange?" he writes. Perhaps so. But before we start casting stones, Asplund encourages us to look deeply within ourselves, and to answer honestly this question: "I guess you have jumped over the documentation part sometimes?" Yes, Mikael, we all have skipped the documentation at some point in our lives. You just keep writing software--the documentation can wait.