News Briefs and Product Shorts

• The party is just getting started at Party America, the largest retail provider of party goods and supplies west of the Rockies. The Alameda, California, company recently completed installation of an OS/400-based demand planning application from Evant (formerly NonStop Solutions). Evant's Java-based Demand Planning and Replenishment application allowed Party America to centralize the replenishment process for its 36 stores, each of which keeps about 15,000 different items in stock at any given time. Before Party America chose Evant, it would typically take each store manager 10 to 15 hours per week to go through the replenishment process. Now those store managers can spend their time concentrating on customer service and let the replenishment analysts in Alameda make most of the inventory decisions. The software also gives Party America more power to track buying trends and should allow the company to keep the correct assortment of party supplies--from weddings to luaus to Labor Day celebrations--on the shelves as the year's holidays come to pass.

• In the coming weeks Ricoh is expected to officially announce that its printers can accept Intelligent Print Data Stream (IPDS) documents from OS/400 servers and IBM mainframes. The new IPDS capability will save customers money by allowing Ricoh printers to print IPDS documents directly, without having to purchase a separate controller to convert the IPDS into the Printer Control Language (PCL) print data stream. The IPDS capability will bring support for Advanced Function Print (AFP), an IBM programming language that works with IPDS to deliver advanced printing capabilities. Ricoh, the American subsidiary of Japanese electronic and camera giant Ricoh Company, has been demonstrating the solution internally and at tradeshows such as ComDex and COMMON for the past few months, and will deliver the solution as an optional software-based add-on. For years Ricoh has supplied OS/400 shops with printing software, including Document Output Technology, a Windows-based print format translation utility, RMS, an OS/400 host based printing solution, and PrintDriver400, which it licenses from Accel Technologies.
  
  
• J.D. Edwards continued its push into supply chain management space last week, when it announced two new supply chain planning and scheduling applications. The new Production and Distribution Planning application, which will ship this summer, and Production Scheduling, which is available now, are designed to help manufacturers move into collaborative production processes. JDE says its Production and Distribution Planning application will replace "outdated MRP tools," with a supply planning algorithm that minimizes a company's inventory by synchronizing a materials flow with a company's resources, production capacity, and process requirements. The new Production Scheduling application, for industrial manufacturers, is designed to quickly produce high-quality production schedules that maintain a high-degree of integrity over time and improved on-time delivery to customers. Both modules will install independently or integrate with other members of the J.D. Edwards 5 suite of ERP products. Both Production and Distribution Planning and Production Scheduling are part of a larger release of new supply chain tools that JDE will detail further at its Quest Global 2003 user group conference, scheduled to be held in Denver, June 9-12.
  
  
• StorageTek gained market share in the market for high-end tape drives in 2002, according to a recent report from Gartner's Dataquest unit. According to the March 2003 report "Tape Drive Market Shares, 2002," StorageTek's share of the market for half-inch tape drives grew by 6 percent between 2001 and 2002, which took it from 55.8 percent to 61.8 percent. Competing against StorageTek in this segment are IBM's Magstar 3590 tape drives, the 3480/3490 compatible tape drives from NEC, and Fujitsu's half-inch tape drives, which are actually 9X40 drives it OEMs from StorageTek.
  
  
• Enfish recently started shipping a new release of its Enfish enterprise portal application for OS/400, Unix, Windows, and other operating systems. With Enfish Version 6.0, the Pasadena, California, software company now allows its portal environment to access Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes data stores. Enfish can now access the Exchange and Notes data stores; scan them for pertinent e-mails, contacts, companies, and projects; and then rank them for relevance, in context with other information a company keeps on databases, document systems, intranets, and enterprise applications, which Enfish can also access. The product makes users more productive and allows them to spend more time on their work, instead of wasting time hunting for critical information, says Louise Wannier, chief executive of Enfish. This version also has performance enhancements, new Quick Start Guides, and optional integration with the Salesforce.com CRM system.
  
  
• Axel, a Tampa, Florida, manufacturer of thin-client computers, recently announced a new 5250-compatible thin-client terminal, the AX3000 Model 75E. This new terminal is an improved version of the company's AX3000 Model 65E terminal, with new capabilities such as an Ethernet adapter and improved graphics, including enhanced resolution, improved graphical performance, and 65,000-color support. The Model 75E, like the Model 65E, is based on a solid state design, with no moving parts, and features memory-resident firmware that allows the terminal to be set up remotely. The AX3000 can connect to a variety of host servers, and is an IBM-compatible 5250 terminal with support for 80x24 and 132x27 screens, a status line, Terminal name support (DEVNAME), the capability to use PC- or 24-function-key keyboard layouts, and 5250 printing. The Model 75E can support up to four graphical or text sessions, and it also comes equipped with Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) for emulating Microsoft desktop environments. For more information, go to www.axel.com.
  
  

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