News Briefs and Product Shorts

• Hotel Information Systems has released a new Java-based collaborative computing application designed to integrate with and extend its existing OS/400, Unix, and Windows-based property management systems. Epitome Enterprise, designed using the Java 2 Enterprise Edition architecture, will install on any server that supports Java, and includes the following modules: Management Console, for creating customized views of critical operations statistics and alerts; Central Reservation, for gaining a centralized view of room inventories and rate plans; Channel Management, for establishing rates and availability controls for various sales channels; Reservation Portal, for allowing guests to book a room from a hotel's Web site; as well separate rate and channel management modules designed specifically for the Reservation Portal. Hotel Information Systems has also renamed its line of property management systems software, changing its top-of-the-line OS/400-based property management system, Paragon, its Windows-based LodgingTouch, and its Unix-based CLS Software applications into Epitome Enterprise Solutions for the IBM iSeries, Microsoft Windows, and Unix/Linux, respectively.
  
  

• INPRO International last week unveiled a new service offering for establishing secure connections from internal OS/400 networks to remote workstations located in a home office. Under the new offering, called webPRO/SECURE, INPRO establishes an encrypted private session from a workstation, through a firewall, to the OS/400 LAN. INPRO says webPRO/SECURE does not use virtual private network (VPN) software, but does require less than $100 worth of Unix software to be installed on the client workstation and on the server. Call the Austin, Texas, company at 800-63-INPRO for more information.
  
  
• LXI has joined the IBM eServer Tools Network. LXI sells a line of media management and systems management utilities for the iSeries. Sources at the company say participation in the Tools Network keeps the company's software up to date with the current release of OS/400, and even gives it access to early-release OS/400 code. Members of the data backup and recovery management category of IBM's Tools Network for integrated application servers--the most likely category for LXI's Media Management System--include ASCENT SOLUTIONS, Bavarian Consulting, Centerfield Technology, H.A. Technical Solutions, and Help Systems, among others.
  
  
• iWay Software last week announced its Bioterrorism Response Suite, a data collection and conversion application designed to fulfill a requirement laid down by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that companies in the healthcare industry create bioterrorism response systems that facilitate the sharing of information, and that they do it this year. The data collection component of the suite supports the numerous data types in use by hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies, and private medical practices, including flat files, Excel spreadsheets, XML documents, HL7 documents, and HIPAA documents, whether they're sent using FTP, EDI, HTTP, or Web services transport methods. The information delivery component of the system allows these documents to be displayed as Web-based reports, charts, or graphs, or as Excel spreadsheets or PDF documents. iWay says its application conforms to the CDC's National Electronic Disease Surveillance System standards and allows healthcare organizations to share documents created on legacy systems without writing a line of code.
  
  
• OASIS last week formed the Web Services Security Technical Committee, whose job will be to help extend and standardize the fledgling WS-Security specification, a standard set of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) extensions, or message headers, that can be used to implement integrity and confidentiality in Web services applications. Companies with seats on the new committee include BEA Systems, Blockade Systems, Commerce One, divine, Documentum, Fujitsu, Intel, IBM, IONA, Microsoft, Novell, Oblix, OpenNetwork Technologies, Perficient, SAP, SeeBeyond, Sonic Software, Sun Microsystems, TIBCO, VeriSign, webMethods, and XML Global Technologies. The committee's first meeting, on September 4 and 5, will be hosted by Sun Microsystems.
  
  
• Magic Software says the introduction of its application development environment, eDeveloper, in China last week was a major hit. Several hundred software developers, business partners, and journalists showed up for eDeveloper's debut in the Chinese capital of Beijing, Magic says, including representatives from China Computer World, Computer Partner World, Software Engineer, China Digital Life, CCTV, BJTV, and Sina Chinese news organizations and publications. Magic got not just a little bit of help from its friends and local government agencies in generating such a turnout by the good members of the press, whose curiosity of such events, at least in the West, is traditionally piqued as much by hunger as by carefully scripted industry hype. Magic tells us the China launch (or should we call it the Chinese lunch?) event was organized by Magic China, Magic Software Enterprises' Chinese distributor, and a subsidiary of the Beijing Capital Group, the China Center for Information Industry Development, which is a government authorized organization under the Ministry of Information Industry, and Tafnit Communications, Magic Software Enterprises' consultant in China. With this kind of help, Magic's software will likely find success in the burgeoning Chinese market, as it has around the world, where it is in use in more than 50 countries.
  
  
• Here's yet another example of the sometimes tenuous state of relations between public relations firms and technology journalists. Last week, the American-British PR firm TalonPR launched a new Web site at www.handheldreporter.net "to give journalists a 'helping hand' for reporting on mobile computing," the firm explains. The only thing more unfortunate than the name of this new Web site is its aim, which is clearly to promote the software and services of its clients, which are all in the PDA industry, and to get their names in as many stories as possible. Talon would be better off holding a luncheon with free pizza and beer than offering its "helping hand," which resembles a sharp talon more than a genuine attempt to help journalists.
  
  

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