But Wait, There's More

• If you are trying to keep up with PTFs on OS/400 and related systems programs, check out the OS/400 PTF Guides, put together by our partner DLB Associates.
  
  

• August 2
• July 26
• July 19
• July 12
• July 5

• A recent study of software development practices put together by Evans Data has found that outsourcing software projects is a common thing. Evans Data surveyed large companies--those with 20,000 or more employees--and found that 65 percent outsource at least some of development, up from 40 percent only two years ago. These same companies say that 13 percent of their outsourcing projects are offshored to India, China, Russia, and other remote geographies; this is more than double the percentage of only a year ago. More than 75 percent of companies with 20,000 employees outsource some software development projects, and 22 percent outsource more than a quarter of their development work. Looking at the study from a slightly different angle, 85 percent of companies with IT budgets in excess of $10 million outsource at least some of their work, 61 percent outsource a quarter of their work, and 7 percent outsource more than three-quarters of their work. The survey interviewed 400 IT professionals all industries in the United States.
  
  
• Back in February, IBM announced Community Tools for the iSeries platform, and in particular for the members of the iSeries Nation user group, to share ideas and collaborate. These tools now are being made available for customers of all ilks and persuasions, through the IBM alphaWorks Web site. This is where IBM puts some of its most forward-looking and unfinished software projects. Community Tools is built using Domino Instant Messaging, DB2, WebSphere MQ Event Broker, and the WebSphere Application server, running on a Linux operating system. It includes a special client that allows iSeries customers to join the community and use a bunch collaborative technologies that will probably make their way into the real Lotus Domino and WebSphere tools in the not-too-distant future. SkillTap allows the broadcast of questions to the community's online subscribers. FreeJam allows just-in-time discussions with community members. PollCast provides the capability to poll community members and to deliver survey results. TeamRing is used for making Web presentations. The w3alert sends alerts to community members, with optional hot links to Internet pages. Question Search provides search capabilities of multiple knowledge bases. Right now the alphaWorks team just wants to see how people will use the Community Tools and to see how they can be improved.
  
  
• The top brass in the iSeries organization were making the rounds in the Asia/Pacific region last week, and, according to a report in India's Financial Express, iSeries General Manager Al Zollar says that sales of the iSeries platform in the Asia/Pacific region--which includes Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, India, and other countries--were up by 20 percent in the first half of 2003. Zollar told the crowd at a user group gathering for the Asia/Pacific region that sales for the first six months were up by an incredible 80 percent. While this is great news, and may even be an indication that midrange businesses are booming in India and China, it may also be an indication that programmers and IT outsourcing firms in the region are gearing up to start offering programming services in the OS/400 market, and they need servers to do it on.
  
  
• iSeries reseller Sirius Computer Solutions, which says that it is the largest distributor of IBM midrange server equipment in the world, has inked a joint marketing alliance with ADVANCED BusinessLink to help OS/400 shops give their legacy applications Web and wireless interfaces and to otherwise modernize them. The deal calls for Sirius to peddle ABL's Strategi suite of products and services, and includes "load & go" modules to speed up Web modernization of new and legacy OS/400 applications. Financial terms of the alliance were not divulged.
  
  
• Quadrant Software, provider of electronic document distribution applications for the OS/400 market, announced last week that it has been named a certified partner by midrange ERP software maker MAPICS. MAPICS has one of the largest installed bases in the midrange, with 10,000 customers using its OS/400 and Windows ERP suites, and Quadrant has over 3,500 customers worldwide. The certification allows Quadrant to sell its suite of electronic forms, fax servers, e-mail gateways, end-to-end MICR check solutions, and barcode labeling software to MAPICS customers as a certified extension of the MAPICS ERP suite for OS/400 servers. Quadrant believes that a set of solutions called the MAPICS ERP for iSeries FormsPack is going to be particularly popular among the MAPICS base, since it has pre-made form templates that map into the MAPICS suite.
  
  
• The European Commission's antitrust organization, under Competition Commissioner Mario Monti, has reached a preliminary decision in its four-year antitrust investigation into the products and practices of Microsoft. Monti and his fellow commissioners are giving Microsoft a final chance to address their concerns before imposing fines that could amount to 10 percent of Microsoft's worldwide sales. Server and operating system maker Sun Microsystems and media-player software developer RealNetworks have been egging on the EC's antitrust body for years, claiming that Microsoft is leveraging its monopoly power for operating systems on the PC desktop to illegally stifle competition in the entry server and media player markets. To read the full story, see "EC Again Warns Microsoft Before Imposing Hefty Fines."
  
  

Sponsored By FAST400

What makes IBM different from Microsoft regarding Fast400?? What is Fast400? You are hearing a lot about Fast400 aren't you? But what is Fast400? Fast400 is a "tuning" product for the iSeries. Fast400 will allow an iSeries server to utilize the available CPW for interactive processing. IBM would have you believe that these interactive cards that cost thousands to millions of dollars, actually add value to your server. By buying Fast400, you do not ever need to buy another interactive card for your iSeries. For a free demonstration of Fast400, please visit www.fast400.net. Why Fast400? A few years ago Microsoft would not let other software companies build tools to work with the Windows operating system. Microsoft did all kinds of scurrilous things to stop other manufacturers' software from working on their platform. They would put code in the base operating system that prevented other companies code from working properly. IBM even had these issues with Operations Navigator. In the early days of Operations Navigator, the developers in Rochester had to scrap early versions because Microsoft did not want IBM leverage on what was proprietary to them. Netscape also had a few problems using the Windows operating system. The result Now we all know what happened to Microsoft. After spending tens of millions of our tax dollars in the trial, the US government told Microsoft that they were acting as a monopoly and what they did was not right or fair. The similarity IBM is doing exactly the same thing to Fast400 as Microsoft did. IBM has changed the operating system of the iSeries 400 to prevent Fast400 from working. In fact this has been done several times now, and each time the Fast400 developers produce a new fix to circumvent the IBM action. Why does IBM do this? because Fast400 takes money out of IBM's pocket. The potential for IBM to make billions from its user base, for delivering virtually no product is tantamount to corporate deception! Did IBM change the operating system when EMC introduced a low cost storage solution for the iSeries? The future The cat and mouse game between IBM and Fast400 is already a year old. Every time IBM changes the operating system to disable Fast400, the developers of Fast400 produce a new version within days to enable it again. Does Fast400 have a commercial agenda? Of course it does. Fast400 is in business to provide its clients with added benefits, which will maximise the interactive performance of iSeries 400 servers. And as we are a business, why shouldn't we charge a nominal fee for that service? A fee that our clients see as being fair and proper. After all, it's not Fast400 that is making enemies in the user base. As long as IBM wants to play "David and Goliath" we will continue to "out" the giant. Fast400 is not running, you can be assured!! For more information, please visit www.fast400.net.