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MAPICS Announces First ERP for iSeries Linux
by Alex Woodie
MAPICS
scored a first among iSeries ERP vendors last week when it
announced that its enterprise suite of software for
manufacturers now runs on iSeries Linux. While the
announcement thrust the Atlanta, Georgia-based, software
company ahead of its competitors in the movement toward
open-source software and Linux, MAPICS insists that its
Linux move is not about radically altering how software is
shaped and distributed, but about giving customers as much
choice as possible.
"This is all about choice, giving customers flexibility,"
says MAPICS solution management director Steve Watson, who
added that MAPICS' iSeries Linux offering can be deployed in
n-tier fashion. "If they want to look at deploying some
pieces on the iSeries and some on Linux, or all on iSeries,
they can do that."
The ERP package that MAPICS ported to Linux is called
MAPICS ERP for iSeries, the new name that was given to the
old RPG-based MAPICS XA suite with the delivery of Version
7.0 of that software package last October. The company
rebranded its core OS/400 ERP package, which is used by most
of the company's 3,500 customers around the world, with
Version 7.0 because it marked the beginning of the suite's
overhaul in Java. Today, about 75 percent of the suite has
been rewritten in Java, and it should be totally Java by the
end of the year, when the rewrite of the financial modules
is done, according to Watson.
"IBM is very
excited with what we're doing here," Watson says. "We're
dedicated to putting all of the right technologies on that
[ERP] platform. We're using Java for application
development, WebSphere for e-business, Linux as part of the
operating system strategy, DB2 for database access, XML for
systems integration, and MQ Series."
The technological basis of Java and Linux theoretically
opens MAPICS ERP for iSeries to run on just about any
computer--including IBM's Intel-based xSeries servers
and their iSeries-connected brethren, Watson says--as long
as the application's data resides in the DB2/400 database.
"We still have the iSeries DB2 database," says Watson.
"That's still a requirement, but you can run the user
interface, the application layer, and WebSphere" on Linux.
While MAPICS customers will have the capability to run
their MAPICS ERP for iSeries software on any Linux server
equipped with a Java Virtual Machine (except for the
database tier), most will probably choose to stick with
keeping the bulk of the software in the iSeries proper, and
that means running it in a Linux logical partition on the
iSeries. "We're focused on the iSeries, with LPAR [logical
partitioning] on the iSeries and running Linux under that,"
Watson says. "It's an option with growing interest from our
customers, and they're looking at that and looking at the
reliability and scalability of Linux."
It's all about giving customers choice, Watson says, and
if it also happens to hedge MAPICS bets against the next
major technology shift, so much the better. That's one way
to look at why MAPICS also sells a Windows-centric ERP
suite, called MAPICS ERP for Extended Systems, which MAPICS
acquired with the 2000 purchase of Pivotpoint and which used
to be called Point.Man before it was renamed last September.
While MAPICS initially advertised Point.Man as an ERP system
for Unix, Linux, and Windows, the company has taken a
decidedly Microsoft-centric route
since then, and is working to bundle MAPICS ERP for Extended
Systems with Microsoft's Windows .NET Web services strategy,
Watson says.
"Clearly, the direction that most customers are moving in
is Java," he says. "We have a history at MAPICS of looking
after customers and letting them move [to new technologies]
when they're ready. . . . evolving our customers forward and
not forcing them to go through huge technology shifts."
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