News Briefs and Product Shorts

• EMC last week made several hardware and software announcements related to its new Symmetrix DMX disk arrays, including plans to support the iSeries with Fibre Channel next month. For years, EMC has supported OS/400 servers with its external Symmetrix disk arrays, providing OS/400 shops with an alternative to IBM's internal arrays and its external "Shark" arrays. This past winter, when EMC introduced its next-generation Symmetrix DMX disk arrays--which are based on a new Direct Matrix architecture that EMC says is an order of magnitude faster than traditional hub or switched architectures--the iSeries was not one of the supported platforms. However, the iSeries was expected to gain Symmetrix DMX connectivity by the beginning of this fall, and EMC's announcement last week backs this up. In addition to the new OS/400 Fibre Channel connectivity, EMC also announced a new high-end DMX3000 array, rack-mount capability for the entry-level DMX800, support for the iSCSI protocol, new backup and replication utilities, and enhanced connectivity for IBM mainframes.
  
  

• The Good Guys is set to install new supply chain software from Evant, the San Francisco, California, software vendor announced last week. The high-end home electronics retailer will begin installation of the first of two Evant applications, Merchandise Planning, next month. The strategy to use Merchandise Planning allows each of the 71 Good Guys stores in the Western U.S. to manage its inventory more effectively. Following the merchandising rollout, Good Guys plans to launch Evant's Demand Planning and Replenishment application, which will unite the stores and the distribution centers on a single system to further streamline its demand chain business processes. Evant's software was written in Java and is commonly deployed on the iSeries.
  
  
• Last week, the convenience store chain 7-Eleven announced its Australian branch is making a significant investment in IBM's integrated xSeries technology to power a new SAP retail system that should impact the convenience store chain's IT system, from the checkout line to corporate headquarters. The company's $12.5 million plan involves installing xSeries servers under the protective wing of the company's beefed-up iSeries Model 840, which currently runs its SAP retail system. The company already has 19 xSeries servers, and plans to install many more to run a new Windows-based SAP portal application and database, Radiant Systems' Radiant6e business intelligence software, and other workloads, like antivirus and Active Directory. This New Store System is expected to be used at more than 200 new stores the company plans to open over the next three years. 7-Eleven Stores Pty Ltd currently operates 297 7-Eleven stores in Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland.
  
  
• In other news from Down Under, Australian IT reported last week that IBM's Rochester lab is working to port OS/400 to run on the Sony PlayStation. In the story "IBM does AS/400 for PlayStation", an Australian IT reporter quotes iSeries chief scientist Frank Soltis as saying the R&D department is working to port OS/400 to the gaming console. "I'm not sure there's a big market, but we're working on it," Soltis told Australian IT. Unfortunately, OS/400 is not expected to be commercially available for the 64-bit gaming console, which, like the iSeries, runs on Power chips. The research project is apparently part of a larger joint undertaking with Toshiba and Sony to develop new processors for other entertainment and gaming consoles.
  
  
• Facet Technologies, a developer of medical and drug delivery devices in Marietta, Georgia, has selected Logility's OS/400-based supply chain software, Logility announced last week. The Atlanta, Georgia, software company says Facet will run Voyager Solutions, which runs on OS/400 and Windows operating systems, on an iSeries server. Facet Technologies is a subsidiary of Matria Healthcare, is ISO 9001 certified, and develops medical technologies for some of the largest names in the industry, including Bayer Corporation, BD, LifeScan, Roche Diagnostics, TheraSense, and Nipro.
  
  
• The Bombay Co. will be installing several new analytical applications from JDA Software Group to expand the multi-channel retail capabilities of its core OS/400-based merchandising application, the Scottsdale, Arizona, software company announced last week. The Bombay Co., which started in the 1970s as a catalog retailer in New Orleans selling ready-to-assemble furniture, has grown considerably, and today boasts more than 400 stores, $437 million in revenue, and more than 4,000 employees. To support its growth, Bombay is installing several planning, allocation, analytical applications from JDA that will augment its current OS/400-based Merchandise Management System (MMS) and Advanced Planning by Arthur. Bombay licensed several additional applications in the Arthur suite last quarter, including Arthur Knowledge Base, Assortment Planning by Arthur, Advanced Allocation by Arthur, Performance Analysis Web by Arthur, Rapid Packages by Arthur. The company is also planning to utilize its store space more effectively, and has licensed JDA's Space Planning by Intactix, and Floor Planning by Intactix.
  
  

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