But Wait, There's More. . .

• If you are trying to sort out the latest PTFs for OS/400 and its related systems programs that IBM has released, you need to check out the OS/400 PTF Guides, which our partner, DLB Associates, has compiled for you. The latest OS/400 PTF Guide is for Sept. 14. An archive of OS/400 PTF Guides published to date is also available on our site.

• Sources at IBM, upon reading last week's article on the iSeries Model 890's performance on the SPECWeb99 e-business serving benchmark tests, wanted to remind everyone that most of the Unix servers tested on this and other Web benchmarks tend to use the eponymous Zeus Web server, while IBM chose its derivative of the open-source Apache Web server. The Unix vendors have to compete on the SPECWeb99 test using Zeus because it shows great performance, having been tuned to work well on Unix and particularly on Web benchmarks. According to surveys by Netcraft, however, Zeus supports less than 2 percent of Web sites worldwide, whereas Apache has a 63 percent domain-name penetration. IBM could have ported Zeus to the iSeries and shown great performance numbers, but IBM is of the opinion (and the correct one) that the iSeries should go with the pack and show that it is scalable with Apache. It's hard to say how the iSeries might perform running Zeus or how the pSeries might run using Apache, but that is absolutely intentional on the part of IBM. Other server vendors behave accordingly, and this is just another example of how vendors use select benchmark tests to make points, not to encourage cross-platform comparisons, which is the real point of benchmarks.
  
  
• Lakeview Technology last week enlisted three more companies as partners to help it sell its MIMIX high availability software to OS/400 shops. Lakeview's first new business partner, DMC Consulting, is a Toledo, Ohio, company that provides manufacturers and distributors in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan with hardware, services, and a range of software solutions developed by DMC and other OS/400 software developers. Lakeview's second new business partner, Paradigm Integrated Services, of Phoenix, Arizona, offers consulting services for the OS/400 midrange platform and other disciplines. DMC and Paradigm both become authorized MIMIX resellers and service providers. Lakeview's most recent new business partner is daly.commerce, an East Greenwich, Rhode Island, developer of OS/400-based ERP software. As part of the strategic alliance, daly.commerce will present MIMIX as the high availability solution of choice to users of its Application Plus ERP suite, which is installed on more than 1,000 OS/400 servers, Lakeview said. The business partner program at Lakeview, which is based near Chicago, has been very active lately. Two weeks ago, Lakeview signed a strategic alliance with CommercialWare that is very similar to the one it just signed with daly.commerce.
  
  
• Vision Solutions last week launched a new version of its Symbiator data replication software that has been translated and localized for the Japanese market. For Symbiator V4.0i, Vision altered the source code to support the double-byte character set, allowing it to display the characters used by Japanese as well as other Asian languages. Vision also translated the user interface, help files, and documentation for Symbiator into Japanese. The Irvine, California, company will take Symbiator V4.0i to market with its channel partner, Bitis, which is based in Tokyo, Japan.
  
  
• FormScape, a North Carolina provider of Windows-based document management software, has announced the addition of a new member to its business partner program. MSS Technologies is a 15-year-old Phoenix, Arizona, consultancy with an established practice in installing and maintaining J.D. Edwards systems. As part of this partnership, MSS will sell and support FormScape's software. On the same day that FormScape announced the new MSS partnership, it announced an OEM alliance with inFORM Decisions, an Irvine, California, company that developed a document management package for OS/400. As part of the agreement, inFORM Decisions is reselling FormScape's technology under its own brand, iDocs for NT.
  
  
• MKS, one of the main players in the market for OS/400 software change management software, has announced a new partnership with AFORA, an international software-change-management consultancy and training organization that bills itself as "The SCM Peripherals People." AFORA's specialty is helping customers learn to get more use out of their SCM tools, particularly in today's geographically distributed, multi-platform, multi-tool environments. MKS and AFORA already have several accounts in Europe and North America. As a result of this new partnership, the two companies will begin joint sales and marketing activities.
  
  

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