Midrange Stuff, OS/400 Edition

OS/400 Edition
Volume 3, Number 6 -- February 11, 2003

News Briefs and Product Shorts

SEAGULL last week announced support for Java Message Service in Transidiom, its Java-based enterprise application integration platform. Java Message Service is a J2EE 1.3 Java API that establishes a messaging framework for the interchange of data and the execution of business functions between Java applications. With Transidiom 2.2, Java Message Service enables business processes running on OS/400 servers and mainframes to be called by any Java application, providing a less costly and less invasive alternative to building custom connectors and inserting them into the program. In other SEAGULL news, Transidiom has been chosen as a finalist for Best Web Services/ EAI Solution in the 2003 Codie Awards. The Codie Awards are presented annually by the Software & Information Industry Association to showcase promising software. Other finalists include the Web Service Orchestration Server from Collaxa, the Enterprise Integration Modeling solution from Contivo, the Web Messaging Platform from Kenamea, JRun 4 from Macromedia, and Web Applications and Services Platform 4.0 from Systinet. Codie Award winners will be presented in May as part of the SIIA 2003 conference in San Francisco.

Companies can now use CYBRA's MarkMagic/400 barcode software to create the two-dimensional MaxiCode labels used by UPS. Last week the Yonkers, New York, company announced that its MaxiCode PCL barcode offering has been certified as compliant with the UPS MaxiCode label standard. MaxiCode barcodes allow large amounts of data--up to 100 characters per square inch--to be embedded in two directions along the label, and can be read quickly because they feature a target-like pattern in the center that can be easily located by scanners. Another benefit of MaxiCode barcodes is that they can be wrapped on angular or round surfaces and still be read by the scanner. CYBRA's MarkMagic/400 Bar Code Label works with a range of thermal barcode printers and supports many different barcode label standards.
Magic Software announced last week that it is a member of the Web Services Interoperability Organization, an industry association that promotes Web services interoperability across platforms, operating systems, and programming languages. Magic Software recently unveiled its new enterprise application integration strategy, called iBolt, through which it will deliver integration services and enterprise application integration software built around its eDeveloper 4GL development environment. The eDeveloper already supports several burgeoning Web services standards, including XML, Web Services Definition Language (WSDL), and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), as well as the two leading Web services architectures, J2EE and Microsoft .NET.
Information Builders last week launched the Version 5 release of WebFOCUS, its Java servlet-based business intelligence solution that can be deployed from OS/400, z/OS, Unix, Linux, and Windows servers. WebFOCUS delivers an integrated set of programs that tackle different parts of the business intelligence software equation, including extraction, transformation, and load (ETL) tools, ad hoc query and OLAP components, direct integration to Java-based portals, and enterprise reporting tools. All told, Information Builders counts 450 improvements in WebFOCUS 5.0, including the ability to deliver business intelligence as a J2EE and Microsoft .NET Web service; new report delivery and archive techniques; "closed loop" business intelligence for direct integration to transactions and data; improved financial reporting capabilities; and new power user features for delivering OLAP access via thin-clients throughout the enterprise. Organizations using WebFOCUS include Ford, NASA, the Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Reporting System, and WEBCOURT, a Web-enabled small claims civil court in Los Angeles.
IBM last week announced the availability of beta versions of DB2 Information Integrator and DB2 Information Integrator for Content, the first two products to come out of its new Xperanto data management and integration project. IBM says the software promotes a "federated" data architecture that lets organizations view data from various sources, if they were located in the same place, thus reducing the time and cost associated with integrating diverse data environments. IBM says the software features the "broadest support for open standards," and with support for various data types, such as XML, e-mail, multimedia, Web services, life sciences, competitive data sources such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases. IBM sees various uses of the software, such as a call center that needs to pull customer data from various structured and unstructured sources into a new CRM application, or a bank that wants to tie customer records to investment information from the Internet.
IBM will host the pSeries Model 690 server to be used in the Smallpox Research Grid, a new distributed computing project sponsored by the Defense Department to investigate anti-smallpox drugs. The Smallpox Research Grid project, announced last week, will allow drug scientists to use the computing power of millions of PCs that are sitting idle, allowing them to bring this power to bear on developing new drugs to fight smallpox. Much like the SETI@home screensaver, which processes radio telescope results looking for signs of intelligent life, the Smallpox Research Grid software will run as a screensaver. The screensaver can be accessed at www.grid.org, a Web site run by UnitedDevices, which was founded by the creators of SETI@home.