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But Wait, There's More
BCD Gets ServerProven Certification from IBM
BCD has received the ServerProven certification from IBM for its ProGen WebSmart Web application server, the Chicago, Illinois, software company announced last week.
The certification, which gives customers a Big Blue stamp of approval that ensures WebSmart is rock-solid on the iSeries server, is a coup for BCD, which has been somewhat critical of IBM's competing WebSphere products for the OS/400 platform for being over-priced, disruptive, and inefficient. BCD says more than 500 customer have deployed WebSmart on OS/400 servers to date, including Formica (which did the validation for IBM), Starbucks, CompUSA, Universal Music, Goodyear, SouthTrust Bank, Hickory Farms, and Kawasaki. WebSmart comes in two editions: one that uses Java, and one that uses RPG-based CGI programs. The ServerProven certification is also important because it makes customers who buy it eligible for up to $5,000 in rebates from IBM if WebSmart is purchased in conjunction with an IBM server.
Genelco Does iSeries Healthcare Administration Application Benchmark
Genelco Software Solutions, an application developer that is based in St Louis, knows all about having to show proof Missouri-style. That is why the company developed and ran a benchmark on its Genelco Group+ group health administration system to prove that its software and the iSeries could scale to suit the needs of even the largest healthcare organizations. The results of that benchmark, which is published in an IBM Redbook, demonstrated that a 16-way iSeries using 1.3 GHz Power4 processors could handle the interactive and batch processing necessary to support 100,000 employer groups, 6 million employees, and 10 different kinds of coverage.
The iSeries that Geleco Software tested was not a 16-way iSeries Model 870, but rather a 32-way Model 890 that only had 12 processors activated. And while that Model 890 had 128 GB of physical main memory, IBM and Geleco Software only turned on 48 GB of it to simulate a Model 870. Storing two and a half years' worth of premium and claims information on those 6 million employees required 9.5 TB of disk capacity. The whole shebang ran OS/400 V5R2 and also used the batch journal cache (option 42) and DB2 symmetric multiprocessing (option 26) features of OS/400 to boost performance. Using a different mix of users, the simulated iSeries Model 870 was able to support 1,380 or 2,378 end users with 0.08 second or 0.18 second average response time. The iSeries machine could process 20,000 interactive or EDI claims per hour, and batch processing tests to simulate the calculation and payment of premiums, issuing invoices, and processing statements finished in a six-hour window. While it probably can't scale linearly, moving to a 32-way Model 890 would have probably nearly doubled interactive performance, and where multithreading in the Genelco Software suite could be exploited, scalability should be almost linear.
SSA Global Reports $142 Million in Sales for First Quarter
SSA Global, a privately held ERP software conglomerate with a big OS/400 play, announced its financial results last week for the first fiscal 2004 quarter ended October 31. The company says it had revenues of nearly $142 million for the quarter, up 143 percent from the year earlier period when it sold $58.3 million in software and services. The company also reported that software license fees brought in $31.2 million for the quarter, almost double the $16.8 million in software sales SSA posted last year. SSA did not provide net earnings results (which it can do as a private company), but said that earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization were $22.4 million, up 82 percent from the $12.3 million it booked this time last year.
Much of the growth in sales and profits at SSA comes from the fact that the company has acquired a handful of relatively large software companies in the past year. Acquisitions completed during SSA Global's fiscal year 2003 include Baan, EXE Technologies, Elevon, Ironside Technologies, and Infinium.
CMS to Get Marketing, Technical Backing from Big Blue
CMS Manufacturing Systems has joined IBM's ISV Advantage program, the software vendor announced last week. ISV Advantage is a $500 million program that IBM's PartnerWorld for Developers organization launched last year to provide software developers with marketing support, as well as technical support to configure their applications to work with IBM's servers and middleware.
In exchange for the marketing dollars, CMS will enable its ERP system for IBM's WebSphere, the company said. CMS has been developing OS/400 ERP packages for small and mid-sized manufacturers for more than ten years. The company, which has world headquarters in Markham, Ontario and American headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, recently announced its intention to develop a user interface based on Java and XML for its ILE RPG-based ERP suite.
An iSeries Whodunit: Bytware Unveils Great Security Caper of 2004
Bytware, the OS/400 software vendor that brought you the strange but exciting "Red Orb" advertisements in trade press last summer, is at it again. The Reno, Nevada company, which used the Red Orb to highlight its native OS/400 StandGuard Anti-Virus solution in 2003, has released a series of new advertisements that revolve around a fictitious company, called Evans Business Solutions, which had its product research stolen by its fiercest competitor, called Extar Systems, which used the data to beat Evans to market with a new product. Bytware's "iSeries Security Caper" will play out over the coming months in the iSeries trade press and on the Web pages of the Houston Record, a fictitious newspaper the creative marketing folks over at Bytware dreamt up to give you clues about who stole the precious data.
So what's in it for you? Try an Apple iPod, which will be yours if you correctly guess the culprit from the slew of characters involved in the caper.
Get the Latest OS/400 PTF Guide
Our partner DLB Associates has been keeping track of IBM's PTF updates to OS/400 and its related programs. Here are the latest OS/400 PTF Guides:
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