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MMO
OS/400 Edition
Volume 2, Number 47 -- December 12, 2003
   In This Issue

We Bring It All Together So You Don't Have To.
Midrange Monitor is taking a holiday
and will resume publishing on Thursday, January 8, 2004.

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Top OS/400 Stories from Around the Web

(Guild Companies) IBM's top brass recently held their semi-annual audience with the Wall Street analyst community, where Big Blue bandied about a number of interesting ideas about the computing industry and IBM's place in it. Perhaps the most interesting thought, however, was that IBM, in a sense, is changing from being a manufacturer of computers to a vector of ideas and a force for change itself.
(Guild Companies) While server shipments have risen by a healthy amount in recent quarters, everyone has been waiting for an uptick in server revenues, which would indicate the economy might be on the mend. But if stats are an economic barometer, the latest numbers from Gartner's Dataquest unit seem to indicate that the economies in North America, Europe, and Asia are stabilizing.
(Guild Companies) On configured midrange and enterprise servers, main memory and disk storage can account for anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of the total cost of the system. Although the disk market has been cut-throat for years, which cuts into vendor profitability, while its helps out customers, the disk array manufacturers saw their top line stabilize in the third quarter, according to a market analysis IDC released last week.
(MC Press Online) IBM's WebSphere Application Server (WAS) will be undergoing a middleware makeover next year. With WAS 6.0, IBM is performing an extensive product redesign that will enable WAS to integrate other middleware products into what Big Blue calls a service-oriented architecture. IBM intends to ship WAS 6.0 in the second half of 2004.
(SearchCRM.com) While some analysts are saying PeopleSoft should pare down its product lines, company executives have said the company is committed to delivering enhancements and support to PeopleSoft World for iSeries boxes. PeopleSoft even said it will offer a PeopleSoft World upgrade early next year.
(Computerworld) Beginning in early 2004, PeopleSoft will unify the pricing model for its Enterprise software line, as well as the EnterpriseOne line built around the applications it picked up from its J.D. Edwards acquisition. Customers should note that this change will alter the familiar J.D. Edwards licensing structure.
(CNET News.com) PeopleSoft may go to trial as early as March or April to defend itself against a shareholder lawsuit seeking to halt the company's controversial money-back-guarantee program for PeopleSoft customers. The program was designed to help the company insulate itself against an unsolicited buyout by Oracle. And--surprise, surprise--Oracle has also joined the shareholder suit.
(CRN) IBM announced that it's turning over the care and feeding of its WebSphere Studio toolset to its recently acquired Rational group. IBM is also updating its WebSphere line with WebSphere Application Server 5.1, WebSphere Application Server Express 5.1, and WebSphere Studio Version 5.1.1.
(ComputerWorld) IBM won a legal victory last week when a Utah district court ruled in Big Blue's favor by telling The SCO Group that it had just over 30 days to provide IBM with more details about how Big Blue violated SCO's Unix intellectual property rights.
(CNET News.com) For the third time this year, unknown attackers launched a denial-of-service attack on The SCO Group's Web site.
(iSeries Network) IBM's Software Group announced it will shift its sales focus from pushing middleware products to concentrating on providing vertical market solutions. While the announcement was largely welcomed by iSeries vendors and analysts, many observers doubt whether the change will have much of an impact on the way IBM Rochester does business.
(CNET News.com) According to a recent study by market research firm Gartner and securities company SoundView Technology, small and midsized companies are primed to lead the way to an IT spending recovery, and priorities will return to more traditional patterns.
(CNET News.com) Microsoft is edging its way into the enterprise resource planning (ERP) marketplace with a $10 million applications contract with Esselte, a $1.1 billion office supplies manufacturer. In the past, this deal might have been a slam-dunk for SAP, but it may also be a harbinger of things to come. Microsoft has ambitious plans for growing its ERP business, and if those plans put it in direct competition with SAP, will it also start infringing on other ERP vendors' accounts?
(Computerworld) At the Yankee Group's 2003 SMB Forum, Yankee analysts provided examples of how IT strategies at small and midsized businesses (SMBs) differ from those at large companies. In the SMB world, technology purchases are dominated by cash-flow issues, and companies expect a return on investment on technology purchases in six months or less.

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Vendor Announcements, Promotions, And Deals

(eWeek) BMC announced two new products this week, MAINVIEW Perceive and PATROL for iSeries-Perceive, which provide Web-based access to historical performance data on mainframes and their applications, as well as on iSeries and AS/400 boxes and their applications.
(eWeek) Computer Associates released its Unicenter Web Services Distributed Management system, which manages Web services natively at the service level by monitoring Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) messages.
(CNET News.com) Storage giant EMC announced it expects to close its $1.7 billion acquisition of content management software specialist Documentum next week.
(Guild Companies) Expand Networks announced its new ExpandView offering, which works in conjunction with Expand's Network Accelerators to analyze and control network traffic. The software automatically discovers and classifies more than 100 applications, which enables it to set bandwidth allocation policies to ensure that people have access to the highest-priority applications.
(Guild Companies) iMessaging Systems has improved its Spanish language support with iVoice 2.03, an interactive voice response system for OS/400 applications. The company expanded the number of voice options for dynamic DB2/400 text-to-speech conversion, including a new voice selection name "Javier," which features a male voice speaking the Mexican dialect of Spanish. The new release also supports Spanish for the first time with its automated speech-recognition capability.
(Guild Companies) Lakeview's acquisition of Availant, which codeveloped High Availability Cluster Multiprocessing (HACMP) software for IBM's pSeries servers, could turn into a real coup when IBM brings its OS/400 and AIX operating system together on Power-based servers next year. Meanwhile, DataMirror's acquisition of PointBase gives the company new tools for its RFID initiative.
(Guild Companies) Magic Software released Version 1.5 of the iBolt Integration Suite. The new release has enhanced testing capabilities and support for Business Process Execution Language for Web Services, a promising new specification that is expected to enable transaction processing with Web services.
(eWeek) PeopleSoft announced the availability of its Healthcare Scorecard performance-tracking software for the healthcare industry.
(eWeek) PeopleSoft is rolling out a service called ROI (return on investment) for Training, which will help customers measure the benefits of software education and training.
(Guild Companies) Quadrant Software's new Formatter utility works with the company's Formtastic Fusion5 software to reduce OS/400 reports by as much as 75 percent without losing any information, according to the company. The result is a report that is much smaller and easier to read and understand.
(eWeek) Siebel Systems is planning to add new hosting partners for the Siebel CRM OnDemand-hosted CRM service. In spite of this announcement, IBM will still likely be the sole hosting partner in the United States for at least the first year.

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New Redbooks, White Papers, and Other OS/400 Resources

(COMMON) COMMON's calendar of events features upcoming COMMON conferences, links to local user groups and meetings, local user group conferences and events, and COMMON international events.
(IBM) Draft Redbook Host Access Client Package V4 Update discusses how to install, configure, administer, and use the WebSphere Host On-Demand Version 8.0 and IBM Personal Communications for Windows Version 5.7 packages included in IBM Host Access Client Package Version 4.
(IBM) Redpaper PCI Card Placement Rules for the IBM eServer iSeries Server Version 5 Release 2: September 2003 describes the configuration and card placement rules for configuring IOAs and IOPs in order to size iSeries systems to customer expectations. This Redpaper was recently refreshed, in November 2003.
(IBM) IBM's Redbook Residency Web site lists all the residencies that are available for business partners, customers, and IBM product development staff to work at one of IBM's ITSO Centers. Residents live near the centers for two to eight weeks, and they become part of an IBM Redbook development team. If you're chosen for a residency, IBM pays authorized travel and living expenses, but it does not compensate residents for time of service.
(SoftLanding Systems) SoftLanding's Spooled File Plug-in for WebSphere Development Studio client is available as a free download from SoftLanding's Web site. The plug-in allows you to access job logs and compile listings as "views" within WDSc.
(WorksRight Software) WorksRight has announced a new newsletter called ZIP Letter, targeted at iSeries and AS/400 professionals interested in mailing-related issues. The newsletter, distributed to WorksRight's ZIP CODE product subscribers, is also available on the company's Web site.

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Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

January 8, 2004 -- The Houston Application Systems Group (HASG), an iSeries and AS/400 community, will hold its next luncheon meeting January 8, 2004. The meeting topic has not yet been announced. For more details, go to the HASG Web site.


January 13, 2004 -- The Central New York 400 User Group will hold its January meeting at the Doubletree Club Syracuse. The meeting's topic will be Application Development. Go to the group's Web site for more information.
January 14, 2004 -- The Fairfield AS/400 Users Group will hold its January meeting at the Norwalk Inn in Norwalk, Connecticut. Greg Hintermeister of IBM will present an iSeries Navigator Overview. For more details, go to the group's Web site.
January 20, 2004 -- The Front Range IBM Users Group will hold its January meeting at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton, Colorado. The featured speaker is Robert S. Tipton, and the subject will be "Untangling IT." For more information, go to the group's Web site.
January 20, 2004 -- The Tennessee IBM Mid-Range User Group, based in Nashville, meets the third Tuesday of each month. For topics, speakers, and meeting location go to the group's Web site.
January 21, 2004 -- The Toronto Users Group for Midrange Systems will hold its next meeting of members in North York, Ontario. For more information, go to the group's Web site.
January 21-22, 2004 -- The Washington Area Midrange group will host a two-day IT audit seminar featuring Stu Henderson at the Richmond Airport Holiday Inn. Cost is $250 per day for non-user group members and $225 for user group members. For more information, go to the group's Web site.
January 25-29, 2004 -- The 11th annual Lotusphere conference will be held at the Walt Disney Resort in Orlando, Florida. This year's conference includes preconference JumpStart sessions, hands-on and breakout sessions, a product showcase, interactive "birds-of-a-feather" sessions, certification training and testing, and other special events. Register before December 2 at the Lotusphere Web site to take advantage of special pricing.
February 10-12, 2004 -- Help/Systems will hold its 13th annual iSeries Operations Automation User Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Conference participants can discuss real-world examples of iSeries automation or select specific training sessions on the Robot Automated Operations Solution products. The conference will feature keynote speakers Malcolm Haines of IBM and Renee Wall Rogen, who specializes in career and personal motivation topics. Help/Systems is also offering daylong preconference workshops. For more information, go to Help/Systems' conference Web page.
February 29-March 3, 2004 -- IBM presents PartnerWorld 2004 in Las Vegas, the largest annual gathering of IBM Business Partners. Partnerworld brings together over 5,000 attendees to present IBM's e-business on-demand strategy and sales execution plans, provide networking opportunities, and to demonstrate IBM's commitment to growth, profitability, and ease of doing business. For more information, go to IBM's Partnerworld Web site.
March 22-24, 2004 -- The Northeast iSeries-AS/400 User Group will host its spring conference at the Sheraton hotel in Framingham, Massachusetts. The conference will feature a keynote address by Dr. Frank Soltis, as well as training sessions and seminars by many award-winning speakers from around the world, including Allison Butterill, Linda Cole, Dick Grenham, Donald Heller, Skip Marchesani, Pete Massiello, and Craig Pelkie. For more details, go to the conference Web site.
March 31-April 3, 2004 -- Lilly Software Associates presents its 10th annual user conference in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The conference, "Evolve 2004: Breaking with Tradition," will focus on helping users make modest changes to their business processes in order to produce significant improvements. Go to Lilly Software Associates' Web site for more information.
April 28-30, 2004 -- ASNApalooza 2004 will be held at the Westin River Walk Hotel in San Antonio, Texas. ASNApalooza is three days of ASNA Visual RPG instruction and technical insight, with an emphasis on RPG development for Microsoft's .NET platform. ASNA is also offering a special registration price of $1200 per person, if you register by Tuesday, September 30. Go to ASNA's Web site for more information.
May 2-6, 2004 -- The COMMON user group presents its spring 2004 conference and expo in San Antonio, Texas. COMMON is the largest and most widely attended of the iSeries-specific conferences. IBM's own experts and many other industry professionals present sessions and hands-on labs. COMMON provides an excellent opportunity to network with fellow professionals, attend a multitude of educational tracks, and get real-world solutions at the vendor expo. Go to COMMON's Web site for more information and to register.
May 19-21, 2004 -- Aldon Computer Group will present its annual user conference in Chicago. Sessions will highlight the practical application of Aldon software, including Affiniti, CMS, eTEAM, and Aldon integration to WebSphere (WDSc, WSAD, WSSD). Go to Aldon's Web site for more information.
June 20-22, 2004 -- The COMMON European Congress will present its annual conference in Cardiff, Wales. Initial planning has already commenced, but if you have any ideas for the event, go to the COMMON Europe Web site to see how you can contribute.
June 20-23, 2004 -- The iSeries and AS/400 Connection Conference will take place in Naples, Florida. This conference features 98 sessions, including 13 hands-on labs, and covers many key iSeries and AS/400 topics. Expert instructors from the iSeries community, including IBM staff members, will be presenting. The conference is offering a $100 discount if you register before December 31. Go to the iSeries and AS/400 Connection Conference Web site for more details.




Editor: Joe Hertvik
Managing Editor: Shannon Pastore
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 e-mail to Joe Hertvik


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