CrossRoads Aims to Bring SANs Within Reach of AS/400 Masses
by Alex Woodie

Crossroads Systems last week announced a new storage router that it says opens the door to SAN, or storage area network, interoperability for a whole generation of older AS/400s that previously had no off-the-shelf options for plugging into SANs. The new router, called ServerAttach, basically converts the SCSI storage protocol used by OS/400 servers to Fibre Channel, the de facto standard for SANs, and therefore allows OS/400 servers to share resources with storage devices that use Fibre Channel. READ MORE >

Micro Focus Ports COBOL Compiler to OS/400
by Alex Woodie

Companies that have written applications using the COBOL development environment from Micro Focus now have another server platform that they can deploy to: OS/400 on iSeries. Last week, at the IBM Technical Conference in Miami, Florida, Micro Focus, one of the leading independent tool vendors in the COBOL arena, announced that Server Express, its COBOL compiler, now supports OS/400 as a target platform, as well as most Unix variants, Linux, and Windows. READ MORE >

Transamerica Finds a Less Taxing Approach to Systems Management
by Greer Hahn

Transamerica Real Estate Tax Service has a reputation for pioneering new technology. The Dallas-based subsidiary of AEGON, one of the world's largest listed insurance and related financial services organizations, was a leader in offering electronic tax payment and processing. Over the years, it has invested in technologies that handle millions of dollars' worth of payments. Transamerica Tax knows that when it comes to IBM iSeries systems management, there's no room for cowboys. READ MORE >

Vendor Snapshot: B.O.S. Stays Connected to the IBM Midrange
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

With the downturn in high-tech spending in all the major economies of the world, just about every IT vendor, large or small, has had to reexamine its business units and honestly assess which ones are working--usually meaning which ones are making profits--and which are not. As a side effect, the harsh economy forces companies to define their core competencies and get back to basics in delivering products that focus on them. That's exactly what's happening across the IBM midrange market, and with iSeries connectivity vendor Better On-line Solutions. READ MORE >

ClientSoft Ships .NET Integration Tool for iSeries Apps
by Alex Woodie

ClientSoft has started shipping a new development tool that will bring OS/400 and mainframe applications closer to Microsoft's .NET fold. ClientSoft's new ClientBuilder for Visual Studio .NET, announced two weeks ago, is a plug-in for Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET development environment that allows .NET developers to convert OS/400 and mainframe applications into reusable components that are compatible with the .NET framework, without modifying the legacy code. READ MORE >

News Briefs and Product Shorts

Perle Supports Gigabit Ethernet with 594 Controller . . . California Software Will Soon Compile ILE RPG to Windows . . . New DBCS Drives newlook Into Asia Markets . . . WRQ Announces Verastream Host Integrator 5.0 . . . FormScape Gets JDE Cert for Output Management App . . . Gauss Completes Interoperability Testing with JDE for Content Management . . . Guerilla Marketing Emerges From Microsoft Cocoon . . . READ MORE >

Reader Feedback and Insights

We value your feedback and your insights into the OS/400 market. Feel free to send a letter to the editor. We will consider your letter a candidate for the reader feedback column associated with this newsletter, but we will contact you before we make your email public. READ MORE >