News Briefs and Product Shorts

• Linoma Software's new aXes screen-rejuvenation software has been used to Web-enable an OS/400-based campground reservation system developed by Daksoft. The Rapid City, South Dakota, company was looking for a way to provide its customers (primarily state and county parks in Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Santa Clara County, California) with remote access to ReserverIt, its centralized reservation system. For good reason, the company realized that a Web-browser interface made the most sense. Daksoft looked at several solutions available on the market but eventually decided on aXes, a new screen-rejuvenation tool that Linoma introduced in July to provide a fast, lightweight, browser-based interface for OS/400 applications (see "Linoma's New Software Web-Enables OS/400 Apps Without the Interactive" for more on aXes). One of Daksoft's primary concerns was the impact that any Web-enabling of the ReserverIt application would have on iSeries performance. After a 30-minute installation, Linoma says, Daksoft had the entire solution running, while consuming about only 10 MB of disk space on Daksoft's iSeries and very little CPU and memory.
  
  

• InFORM Decisions recently issued a new release of PDF Enabler, a utility that converts spool files into the universally accepted PDF document format. With Version 2.07, the company has expanded platform support to include Unix, Linux, and Windows, in addition to OS/400. PDF Enabler can be closely linked to any Windows application with a DLL. It also can be called from any RPG, COBOL, or CL program running on an OS/400 server (The utility is one of only a handful of PDF conversion products to run natively on OS/400.) "Many [other PDF conversion products] require users to download their document to a PC, perform the conversion, then upload the results back to the iSeries host," says Davis Yokana, lead developer of PDF Enabler. PDF Enabler is a component of inFORM's Document Center product suite and is available for licensing starting at $3,000.
  
  
• One of the nation's largest hardware companies has reported a boost in the productivity of its shipping processes, following the installation of Varsity Logistics' OS/400 shipping software. Ultra Hardware ships more than 1,700 parcels a day to thousands of retailers from its 70,000 square-foot distribution center in New Jersey. The company decided to automate and streamline its shipping processes to keep pace with its expanding product lines and to ensure that customers receive shipments within 24 to 48 hours. Ultra Hardware chose ShipSoft, an OS/400-based application that handles many aspects of delivering parcels through the major carriers, including obtaining pricing, ensuring compliance, preparing documentation, and enabling point-to-point tracking and analysis of shipment data. Ultra Hardware's IS director, Michael Perilli, says he is happy with the installation, which took two weeks and involved integration with an IBS ERP system. "We worked closely with Varsity and found that their transportation management experience and iSeries expertise helped us achieve our 'go live' date right on schedule," Perilli says.
  
  
• Bostech, a developer of enterprise application integration solutions for the midmarket, announced a couple of customer wins recently, both of which are OS/400 shops. Pacific Sunwear, the sunglasses retailer, has licensed a Bostech-powered integration solution called IP Integrator from Island Pacific, a developer of OS/400-based merchandise management systems and a Bostech business partner. Likewise, Footstar, which sells one of every seven pairs of shoes sold in America, has selected a Bostech-powered enterprise application integration solution, called CWIntegrate, from its primary application vendor, CommercialWare, a developer of OS/400-based merchandising systems for multi-channel retailers.
  
  
• California Software this week is shipping a new release of baby.NET, its suite of software that uses Microsoft's .NET Framework to build new Windows- and Web-based interfaces for OS/400 and mainframe applications. The new release, baby.NET Version 2.2, features several enhancements, including improvements to both the browser and Windows clients, as well as an improved communication engine, the company says. The new release also features improvements in the following areas: macro recording and execution, transaction editor, command processor, and version control mechanisms. Karen Bass, a California Software vice president, says baby.net 2.2 is faster and easier to use and customize than previous versions, and it provides greater functionality for integrating agents and applications with legacy systems. The San Clemente, California, company is also holding a Webinar on its baby.NET product today at 11:00 a.m. PST. To register for the event, go to the company's Web site.
  
  
• Food-maker Hasegawa USA will no longer have to endure the lost productivity of its workers as a result of the cumbersome nature of its BPCS financial reporting system. That's because the Ceritos, California, company, which manufacturers a variety of beverage flavors, cuisine flavors, dairy products, salad dressings, and sauces, has licensed Global Software's Spreadsheet Server for BPCS and Executive DASH, the software company announced last week. "We continued to waste valuable employee cycles with too many manual exercises when it came to financial reporting," says Hasegawa's IT manager, Bill Wagner. "Human intervention when reporting on financial data is necessary to ensure accuracy; however, manually keying in data becomes cumbersome and lacks efficiency for all users involved." With Spreadsheet Server for BPCS, Hasegawa will able to automatically extract the pertinent data from their BPCS systems and load it into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. Global Software vice president Spencer Kupferman says BPCS's frailty is Global's gain. "We have taken those weaknesses in the financial/enterprise reporting and analysis make-up of the BPCS environment and made them the pillars of our applications," he says.
  
  

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