News Briefs and Product Shorts

• Cable provider Cox Communications is installing Courion's PasswordCourier software and Vocent's voice authentication server to streamline employee password resets on its OS/400 and Microsoft Active Directory applications, Courion announced last week. Cox decided to implement self-service password resets after discovering that 20 percent of all calls that its 22,000 employees made to its IT help desk were to reset passwords, with the AS/400 and Active Directory applications accounting for 90 percent of those calls, Courion says. PasswordCourier, which runs primarily on Windows but features a native OS/400 "agent," lets employees reset their own lost or forgotten passwords after successfully answering several challenge questions. Cox Communications, a J.D. Edwards shop in Atlanta, also lets remote employees reset their passwords by using Vocent software to check their voices over the phone.
  
  

• A new Linux-based thin client was introduced by BOSaNOVA last week. The new BOSaNOVA LTC-400 features a VIA 400 MHz processor and 128 MB of memory, and will replace the LTC-300 as the company's entry-level thin client. The LTC-400 ships with a preloaded stack of software, including embedded TN5250e, TN3270e, and Unix emulators, a choice of Web browsers (the Java Virtual Machine-equipped Mozilla browser with a POP3 e-mail client or the Firebird browser), Adobe Acrobat Reader, and Microsoft RDP/ICA and Citrix emulators. The LTC-400 also supports the 122-key driverless keyboard that BOSaNOVA announced in August. Last month, BOSaNOVA introduced its first Windows-based thin client, the XTC-400, for companies that prefer to use software from Microsoft. For companies where performance is key, however, BOSaNOVA recommends Linux-based terminals. The company says that performance trials show embedded 5250 applications on Linux-based thin clients run at least four times faster than on their Windows CE.Net counterparts, and more than 13 times faster than on Windows CE-based terminals. However, Linux requires more CPU to be efficient, the company says, and that was the main reason why it beefed up its entry-level Linux-thin client with the LTC-400.
  
  
• While the application service provider market never lived up to the hype of a couple years ago, it hasn't stopped some vendors from successfully selling services. The latest ASP customer win comes from CPU Medical Management Systems, which develops the MED/FM suite of OS/400-based practice management software for doctors offices, radiology departments, and third-party medical billing services. The vendor's newest customer is Med-Pro Solutions, a medical billing outfit in Fresno, California, that processes 3,000 claims per month for anesthesia, sleep center, and durable medical equipment companies across California and the South. Med-Pro chose the Web-enabled version of MED/FM, which will be hosted on CPU Medical Management Systems' iSeries machines and deliver a browser-based GUI over the Internet to Med-Pro's offices.
  
  
• MessageOne, which sells back-up e-mail services for organizations to use during a disaster, rolled out support for IBM Lotus Notes/Domino e-mail with the latest version of its Emergency Messaging System. Among the enhancements delivered with EMS 3.0 are built-in emergency employee notification capabilities, guaranteed forwarding support for Research In Motion Blackberry and other wireless devices, and support for Notes R5 and R6 clients running on Windows and Linux PCs, which complements its existing support for Microsoft Exchange, the company says. Customers can activate their back-up e-mail services from MessageOne in as little as 30 seconds after their primary e-mail server goes down. The Austin, Texas, company's Linux-based e-mail servers have seen good use in 2003, with its spate of hurricanes, blackouts, viruses, and worms, says MessageOne's chief executive, Satin Mirchandani. "EMS has been put to the test over the past year and in every instance has helped customers look in control, while much around them was in disarray," he says. EMS 3.0 is available for an annual fee, starting at $14,000 per year, for enterprises with up to 1,000 e-mail clients.
  
  
• Fabris Lane is confident things will run smoothly this Christmas season. Last week Geac announced that Fabris Lane, England's largest sunglasses manufacturer, is the latest company to successfully implement System21 Aurora, its next-generation OS/400-based ERP system. Fabris Lane has been running System21 for the last five years but needed more functionality to get to the next level. "In order to reach our next level of customer service, and to take on further growth, we really needed to take advantage of Geac's workflow and process management solution, process.connect, to enable our quality control QC and assembly processes to work in unison," said Tim Downes, the company's finance and operations director. For example, if a batch of sunglasses arrives that needs to be fast-tracked to the assembly line, the new workflow management capabilities of System21 Aurora will be able to notify production management to take evasive action and seek alternatives to ensure the company fulfills its customers' demands, Downes says. Fabris Lane is also implementing the new ERP suite's User Workspace browser-based desktop application, which provides a simple and familiar working environment and allows employees to launch any functions in System21 Aurora or third-party products from a single location. Fabris Lane purchased a three-year maintenance agreement and is part of Geac's early adopter program for System21 Aurora, along with about 40 other companies.
  
  
• New World Systems, a developer of OS/400 and Windows applications for government and law enforcement, announced a new release of its mobile software for police officers, at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Philadelphia last week. The new release, called Mobile 5.0, enhances the capability of police officers to communicate with one another and with the computer aided dispatch (CAD) center. Mobile 5.0 implements secure transfer of messages from mobile to CAD, mobile to mobile, and CAD to mobile, giving officers real-time data on unit status, open calls, be-on-the-lookouts, and more. The new release was written with Microsoft .NET technology and XML, and integrates with the full suite of Aegis public safety software, which runs on both Windows and OS/400 servers and includes CAD, Records, and Corrections components. The company's Mobile application includes various modules, including field reporting, accident field reporting, state/NCIC access, driver's license magnetic strip reader, mug shot image download, demographic profiling, regional data sharing, automatic vehicle location, and traffic tickets and citations.
  
  

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