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In This Issue
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We Bring It All Together So You Don't Have To.
Sponsored By
 BYTWARE, INC
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The Saturday of Your Dreams
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Top OS/400 Stories from Around the Web
(Guild Companies) Although IBM's focus on the small and midsized business market (SMB) has always been somewhat fuzzy, the company is rolling out a new $500 million program called SMB Advantage, which will provide incentives for business partners to push hardware into the $300 billion a year SMB marketing opportunity. This article reveals some of IBM's thinking in attacking the SMB market, what it's looking for, how it plans to get there, and what kind of accounts will be the beneficiaries of these new plans. IBM is also launching a second program called Value Advantage, which will provide incentives for application solution providers to push IBM's middleware stack in addition to the solution providers' own products.
(MC Press Online) On January 24, IBM published list prices for its latest iSeries models. As expected, those prices deliver good-sized savings to customers who intend to purchase or upgrade an iSeries server. This article contains another analysis of the iSeries new price structure, including list prices and a CPW rating analysis for the new machines.
(iSeries Network) Look for manufacturing and distribution to take center stage at COMMON next month in Indianapolis. COMMON will showcase a series of sessions that spotlight customer success stories. The sessions will also promote product development and the use of alternative business processes through customer relationship management, supply chain management, and enterprise resource planning.
(Guild Companies) From Lotusphere, the early indications are that in 2003 Lotus will bring new offerings to the SMB market, provide product integration with IBM's WebSphere line, and add some new features and facelifts for existing products. IBM is talking up a new beta-version of a standards-based email client that puts Lotus back into the inexpensive email client/server business. Code-named Next Gen, this client is intended to provide an easy-to-use alternative to Microsoft Exchange and it will be the first email package to run with IBM's WebSphere as its messaging transport mechanism and DB2 as it mail repository. The new email client will also be integrated with the Lotus Notes and Domino infrastructures. IBM Lotus will also be introducing new collaborative tools that work with WebSphere Portal, a new Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) toolkit for WebSphere Studio Client, a rapid application development (RAD) feature for Web applications, and upgrades of existing products (including Notes/Domino V6.5, due out in the third quarter), as well as new versions of Sametime, QuickPlace, and Domino Doc.
(iSeries Network) Is the new iSeries software-heavy packaging a threat to ISVs? The reaction seems to be mixed. For some vendors, the refreshed hardware and the changed interactive tax pricing might help them land more sales. For other vendors, the fear is that the bundling of WebSphere, Sametime, and Quickplace with iSeries might encourage customers to only use IBM's bundled software for development and to ignore any third-party solutions. This article includes interviews with representatives of several vendors-including LANSA, BCD, LXI, Advanced Business Link, and Fast400--as well as Tom Bittman, Gartner Group vice president and research director, to get their views.
(The 400 Group) Like the story previously listed, the 400 group also focused on vendor reaction to the new iSeries hardware announcements and software bundling. Based on interviews with BOScom, SEAGULL Software, Jacada, and Tom Bittman of Gartner Group (boy, that guy is everywhere), their conclusion is that the vendor verdict is split between vendors that offer 5250-based applications and vendors that don't.
(iSeries Network) Nate Viall, president of Nate Viall and Associates, recently studied the salaries of Midwestern iSeries developers and noted gender-based differences where women make $3,400 less than the $55,681 average, while men make $1,674 above that average. But there may be more to these differences than just unequal pay. Promotions, job titles, and regional differences are other factors that also may be factoring into some of these numbers.
(Guild Companies) Last week, Gartner's Dataquest market research firm released preliminary unit-shipment statistics for the full-year 2002 server market. While the good news for the server vendors is that companies actually bought more servers in 2002, the not-so-good news for those same vendors is that pricing pressure remains intense. Tim Prickett-Morgan reports on this trend, why it's likely to expand into 2003, and what that means for the marketplace as a whole. Of course, if you're a server customer enjoying lower prices, this is all good news, isn't it?
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Sponsored By
 SNAP-E BOOKS
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Snap-eBooks is a new publishing company
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Vendor Announcements, Promotions And Deals
(Guild Companies) With its new Robot/TRANSFORM software, Help/Systems handles the conversion of iSeries spool files containing embedded graphics, barcodes, or logos into commonly-used formats like Adobe PDF. Robot/TRANSFORM converts iSeries spool files and IFS files to the ubiquitous PDF format, while maintaining the integrity of the graphics. The product allows users to convert their ASCI, PCL, or AFP output into a PDF document, again without altering the graphics, barcodes, or labels.
(Guild Companies) inFORM Decisions recently started shipping an enhanced version of iSeries Positive Pay, its check-fraud-fighting application. The new release improves communication between companies and their banks in identifying authentic and forged checks. It also captures pertinent information from the check-writing application and summarizes that information in a Positive Pay Report for the bank. With this information in hand, the financial institution is then forbidden from paying any check that is not on the report. inFORM Decisions also says iSeries Positive Pay 4.0 will integrate with any OS/400-based check-writing application, not just inFORM Decision's check software. The new software also supports sending check data by FTP.
(Guild Companies) Maximum Availability came one step closer last week to delivering an OS/400 high availability software package that matches its competitors in features and functionality. The New Zealand company announced that Release 7 of its *noMAX data replication software now supports the replication of user profiles, an important enhancement that allows users to sign on to a backup server with the same level of access and the same passwords they had on the primary OS/400 server. Last fall, Maximum Availability began rolling out support for replication of OS/400 objects, including physical files, data areas, and data queues, with the general availability of *noMAX Release 7. The new user profile replication capability is available to all *noMAX users with a PTF update.
(Guild Companies) PKWARE brought strong encryption security standards to its complete line of PKZIP compression tools last week, upgrading its entire line with the 256-Bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm. The new encryption ships with the latest releases of PKWARE's PKZIP for OS/400, MVS, Unix, and Windows products, allowing companies to encrypt their compressed files with keys ranging from 128 bits to 256 bits in strength. This new encryption capability surpasses the product's previous 96-bit encryption key, and meets or exceeds IT security requirements mandated by the U.S. government.
(Guild Companies) This week's News Briefs and Product Shorts section covers current OS/400 events including how Wisconsin-based Jacobus Energy, an iSeries shop, deployed Global Software's Budget Planner product to extract budget data from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet directly into an OS/400 database. Symantec released a new line of Domino-based antivirus software products at the LotusSphere show last week; Symantec AntiVirus/Filtering for Domino protects Domino databases running on Solaris, AIX, iSeries, Linux, and Windows NT/2000 servers. Sterling Commerce had excellent fourth-quarter 2002 sales of its Unix-based integration product, the Gentran Integration Suite, and the company will continue to drive momentum in 2003 by porting the software to Windows, OS/400, and OS/390. Teamstudio announced ScreenSurfer 4.5, which includes Japanese double-byte character set support for mainframes and upgraded support for OS/400 and mainframe applications through VT100/102 emulation; Teamstudio also announced enhancements to its Teamstudio Express 1.3 IDE, including a new caching system that allows development to continue even when the user isn't connected to a live application. California Software announced Loan Production System (LPS) version 6.5, which allows the product to run on OS/400, Windows, Unix, and Linux operating systems. LPS can also store data by using either IBM's DB2 or an Oracle's database, giving the product "absolute operating system and database independence." And SEDONA announced a new release of its Intarsia 4.0 customer loyalty application last week. New features include the addition of a system administrator user profile to set security configurations; the addition of different user access levels, such as view, edit, and delete capabilities; the capability to attach advertising "collateral" to a campaign created and tracked by Intarsia; and the conversion of all applets to servlets.
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New Redbooks, White Papers, and Other OS/400 Resources
(ASNA) ASNA's Spanish distributor, CaCoval, recently released the Visual WRKSPLF program, a free utility that can be used in conjunction with ASNA's DataGate for iSeries product to provide a graphical representation of OS/400's Work with Spool Files (WRKSPLF) command. With Visual WRKSPLF, users can send spool file contents to Word 2000 or Excel 2000, convert the contents to HTML, or print spool file contents to a Windows printer. Visual WRKSPLF is available for downloading at http://developer.asna.com/articles/b000115.asp .
(HelpAS400.com) HelpAS400.com is a useful reference Web site for basic OS/400 concepts. Site pages include an OS/400-specific acronyms list; on-line lessons in programming CL programs; some good short explanations for things like single level store, object orientation, load balancing; and a good number of moderately active community forums. Check this site out at http://www.helpas400.com/ .
(IBM) Draft Redbook - IBM Host Access Client Package Update - IBM's Host Client Access package combines three separate products-WebSphere Host On-Demand, IBM Screen Customizer, and IBM Personal Communications-and sells them as a single solution for legacy host system access and graphic enablement of text-based applications. Although Host Access Client Package contains many of the same elements as IBM's Client Access and iSeries Access software, it differs from those packages in that HACP is designed to access mainframes as well as the iSeries and AS/400 midrange machines. This redbook explains the bundle, its products, and what features it contains. You can download this book at http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedpieceAbstracts/sg246182.html?Open .
(IBM) Redbook - IBM eServer iSeries System Handbook: Version 5 Release 2 January 2003 - IBM has released the 24th edition of this standard, which is intended as a guidebook to all the iSeries models, associated hardware, and OS/400-related software currently marketed by IBM. The new version adds a product and feature overview of the new iSeries Model 800, 810, 825, 870, and 890 models, as well as information on the older 250, 270, 820, 830, and 840 hardware. It also includes information on the latest release of the OS/400 operating system, V5R2. This book can be read or downloaded at http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/ga195486.html?Open .
(IBM) Redpaper - Migrating Applications from WebSphere Application Server Standard Edition to WebSphere Application Server-Express V5 - For those of you who have been using WebSphere Application Server V3.5 and now want to move to the new WebSphere Express V5 edition, this 56-page Redpaper deals with the issues, the migration process, changes to your servlet specifications, application migration steps, and how to test a migrated application. This might be helpful for OS/400 shops that will soon be moving away from the old Standard Edition product. Download this redpaper at http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedpaperAbstracts/redp3618.html?Open .
(IBM) Draft Redbook: IBM eserver iSeries Server Migration: System Migration and Upgrades at V5R1 and V5R2 - Previously called "iSeries Server Migration: A Guide to Server Upgrades at V5R1 and V5R2," IBM updated this book to include information about upgrading to the new PCI-X and Power4 processor technologies available in the new iSeries models introduced in January (the iSeries 800, 810, 825, 870, and 890). This book contains information on iSeries server hardware, PCI technology, High-Speed Link (HSL) configuration, LPAR and tower migrations, and other V5R1 and V5R2 upgrade considerations. Check out this book at http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedpieceAbstracts/sg246055.html?Open .
(IBM) WebSphere Application Server for iSeries: Related Resources - This is a collection of IBM resource links concerning WebSphere and other features that support running WebSphere on the iSeries. The site has links to other IBM WebSphere sites, articles, Redpieces, performance sites, HTTP server sites, security information, and Web services content. It's a good IBM-centric reference for iSeries WebSphere that can be accessed at http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/software/websphere/wsappserver/product/rellink.htm .
(SEAGULL Software) SEAGULL White Papers & Analyst Reports - Contains white papers dealing with IT issues and SEAGULL products. This site also contains analyst reports about SEAGULL from Aberdeen Group, Giga Information Group, and ZapThink. Registration is required. You can find this resource at http://www.seagullsw.com/resources/white_papers.html .
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Sponsored By
 COMMON
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Get the IT training you need by attending COMMON Users Group's
Spring 2003 IT Education Conference and Expo,
March 9 - 13, in Indianapolis.
Choose from hundreds of sessions and labs covering the widest range of industry topics, including RPG IV, LPAR, WebSphere, and High Availability.
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so don't miss out!
Click and visit www.common.org for details!
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Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings
Now through February 28 -- IBM presents "iSeries and the e-Business on Demand Era," a half-day traveling road show presented in 72 venues across North America. IBM will discuss its 2003 product strategy and explain how the iSeries delivers an on-demand computing environment to manage multiple operating systems, including WebSphere, Linux, Windows, and OS/400. Registration is free. Go to http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/education/ondemand/ for more information and dates that the show will be presented in your area.
Now through February 26 -- Business-to-business integration vendor Tamgroup will present a number of Webinars on iSeries and B2B topics during February. Topics include an overview of IBM's latest iSeries announcement, Portal 101 and Portal 201, B2B Integration, and Content Management. Go to http://www.tamgroup.com/www/registration.jsp?iSeries=1 to register.
February 10-13 -- Help/Systems will host its twelfth annual iSeries Operations Automation User Conference in Orlando, Florida. The conference agenda ranges from formal discussions on the future of the iSeries to personal development topics. To learn more and register, go to http://www.helpsystems.com/education/userconf.html .
February 12 -- Software Developer DPS, Inc. is hosting a Webcast for wholesale distributors titled "Technology that works for Distributors." See how Courter Company reduced expenses by $100,000 annually and Franklin Machine Products landed a major new customer. All attendees will receive a complimentary sleeve of golf balls (same brand that's used by Tiger Woods) and will be entered in a drawing for a TaylorMade 360Ti driver at the conclusion of the Webcast. Register at http://www.dpslink.com/webinar/feb12midrange.html .
February 16-19 -- IBM will be hosting PartnerWorld 2003, its annual conference and expo in New Orleans, Louisiana. The three-day event allows IBM Business Partners and IBM executives to network and exchange ideas. For more information, go to http://www-1.ibm.com/partnerworld/pwhome.nsf/weblook/pw2003_index.html .
February 18-19 -- J.D. Edwards is hosting two Webinars that will answer customer questions about how IBM's new iSeries 8xx hardware will perform in a J.D. Edwards environment. JDE experts will answer questions such as which new iSeries hardware and operating systems are right for JDE software, how to take advantage of IBM's bundled software offerings included with the J.D. Edwards Technology Foundation, and how the increased interactive capabilities included with the new iSeries boxes fit into the JDE picture. To register for one of these Webinars, go to the J.D. Edwards registration site at http://www.dsionline.com/promotions/i8xx_webinar_reg/ .
March 5-7 -- Registration is open for ASNApalooza 2003 in San Antonio, Texas. ASNApalooza is three days of ASNA Visual RPG (AVR) instruction and technical insight with an emphasis on the RPG development environment for Microsoft's .NET platform. Keynote speaker is Beny Rubinstein, product manager for the Enterprise Developer version of Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET. For more information, go to http://palooza.asna.com .
March 9-13 -- The COMMON User Group presents its Spring 2003 Conference & Expo in Indianapolis, Indiana. COMMON is an excellent setting for OS/400 professionals to get the technical information they need to do their jobs. It is an opportunity to meet industry experts, attend hands-on labs, exchange information with fellow professionals, attend a multitude of educational tracks, and get real-world solutions at the vendor expo. COMMON has been the finest venue for OS/400 education over the last two decades, and it's still going strong. For more information and registration, go to http://www.common.org/Conferences/conf.html .
April 30 to May 2 -- RPG World, an iSeries programmer education event presented by some of the top authorities on RPG and iSeries application development, will be held in Orlando, Florida, from April 30 to May 2. This event features educational presentations on RPG, web development, and general iSeries application development. For more information, visit http://www.rpgworld.com .
June 15-18 -- The 2003 iSeries & AS/400 Connection Conference--presented by Barsa Consulting Group, LLC, and Tramenco--is offering four days of iSeries-based education at the Registry Resort in Naples, Florida. Aside from beach access to the Gulf of Mexico, this conference features iSeries educational tracks focused on application development, Java, SQL, e-business, operations, and security. It also features many of the most knowledgeable speakers in the iSeries & AS/400 industry, including Dr. Frank Soltis, Al Barsa, Jr., Allison Butterill, Wayne O. Evans, Susan Gantner, Janet Krueger, Jon Paris, Jim Sloan, and Howard Arner. For more information and registration, go to http://www.tramenco.com/naples/ .
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Editor: Joe Hertvik
Managing Editor: Mari Barrett
Publisher and Advertising Director: Jenny Thomas
Advertising Sales Representative: Kim Reed
If you have a resource, event, or any other interesting item that you want to see publicized in Midrange Monitor, send an email to Joe Hertvik
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