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 Guides are for Oct. 26 and Nov. 2. An archive of OS/400 PTF Guides is also available on our site.

• ASNA last week launched developer.ASNA, a new Web site for programmers using the company's development tools, which meld Microsoft's Windows, Web, and .NET development tools with OS/400 and Windows servers. The Web site features loads of technical content, including example code, development ideas from ASNA programmers, and interactive demos and classes. It also features ASNA's training schedule and includes class abstracts and courseware. "We created developer.ASNA as a proactive application development resource for our community of ASNA developers," said ASNA president Anne Ferguson. "Another reason we created developer.ASNA is to help promote the ASNA culture we work hard to provide for our customers." For example, if you search the site carefully, you might find silly pictures of ASNA employees, posted in random places. There will also be the occasional survey posted to the site. The initial survey last week asked visitors, "How much do you know (or think you know!) about MS's .NET?" By mid-week, "I wrote the .NET spec for Bill" got two votes; "I've attended seminars and written lots of .NET code" garnered four votes; "I've loaded .NET and dabbled with it a bit" got six votes; "I've read articles and am conversationally familiar with .NET" earned 16; and ".NET? Is that what you use to catch dot fishes?" easily cruised to victory with 34 votes. Apparently, we could all use some .NET education.
  
  
• The next commercial version of Linux, based on the 2.6 kernel, will be available some time in the second quarter of 2003. Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel that is at the heart of the operating system, said so at the Geek Cruise Linux Lunacy II conference, held in the Caribbean last week and attended by a--pardon the metaphor--boatload of Linux contributors. Torvalds, according to reports, told conference attendees that the development version of the future Linux operating system, called Linux 2.5, will go into feature freeze this week (which means no new bells and whistles can be added to the future Linux) and that a code freeze will occur early in the new year, so the whole shebang can be delivered as a production product called Linux 2.6 by sometime in the second quarter of 2003. As we reported in April, clustering support is expected to be a key feature in Linux 2.5 and 2.6, the next release of the Linux kernel, as is support for asynchronous I/O and a workload manager (which the Linux crowd calls a "scheduler"). Linux 2.5 and 2.6 are expected to include I/O enhancements that are more akin to those in high-end Unix operating systems that deal with block I/O, large-memory pages, and other advancements that allow database performance to scale with the number of processors and physical memory in midrange and enterprise servers. The latest Linux 2.5 beta is 2.5.44, which you can get at www.kernel.org.
  
  
• OS/400 supply chain execution software vendor Manhattan Associates is set to acquire transportation management software vendor Logistics.com, of Burlington, Vermont. Logistics.com's flagship offering, OptiManage, provides logistics execution and planning functionality for shippers and carriers; it runs on Windows, Linux, AIX, HP-UX, and Solaris platforms; and it is also offered over the Internet, via the application-service-provider delivery model. Manhattan Associates, headquartered in Atlanta, signed a letter of intent to purchase Logistics.com for $20 million from Internet Capital Group, a publicly traded company that had $123 million in revenue in 2001 and is involved in developing B2B and supply chain software through several dozen subsidiaries, including CommerceQuest, eMerge Interactive, and ICG Commerce. Manhattan made the announcement at the same time that it announced its third quarter financial results. The company reported revenue of about $43 million and income of about $6 million, and the majority of its revenue comes from OS/400-based applications.
  
  
• Vision Solutions made a key personnel move last week, when it announced that Bob Davis has been hired as the Irvine, California, software company's new vice president of North American sales. Davis arrived at Vision from Jamcracker, a Silicon Valley startup that specializes in helping companies deliver and access business software over the Internet. Before his Jamcracker stint, Davis' career took him far and wide across the IT plain. He began his career 27 years ago at IBM, where he held a series of sales management positions with primary focus on IBM minicomputers, the precursors to iSeries and pSeries servers. His career also took him to minicomputer manufacturer Wang Laboratories; supercomputer maker Cray; a DSL provider; and a large manufacturing company, where he was in charge of sales, marketing, and business development. Davis joins the Vision team as it heads into the crucial fourth quarter, when many high availability software deals are closed.
  
  
• J.D. Edwards has recently made two announcements about its supply chain management and customer relationship management software. First, JDE announced last week that its entire SCM offering, called J.D. Edwards 5 Supply Chain Event Management, will be supported natively on OS/400, with JDE's Advanced Planning modules coming to the platform sometime in early 2003. JDE, the biggest provider of OS/400 ERP software, is following through on a commitment it made earlier this year to deliver more modular software by allowing its Supply Chain Event Management software to integrate seamlessly with OneWorld (which runs on Windows, Unix, and OS/400 platforms) and WorldSoftware (a green-screen suite that runs only on OS/400). JDE also announced that Apria Healthcare will be the first to implement Supply Chain Event Management on an iSeries. (Apria, you will recall, made headlines this June when IBM announced that it would be the first company to install one of the new monster i890 mainframe servers.) JDE also recently announced that it will deliver "universal queuing" functionality in its core CRM application as a result of a new OEM agreement it has formed with Apropos Technology. JDE will embed a private-label version of Apropos' Multi-channel Interaction Management Suite in the JDE CRM application. The integrated solution will enable JDE to provide its contact-center customers with the capability to offer real-time customer communications through the regular telephone network or the newer voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology, e-mail, Web collaboration, or fax. This integrated CRM offering solution is expected to be available late this year or early next year.
  
  
• COMMON last week issued its official post-conference report on the recent event, held in beautiful downtown Denver three weeks ago. COMMON's official tally of the number of people who attended the conference--including support staff, vendors, and IBMers--was 2,400. In reality, the number of paying attendees was closer to 1,700, according to industry reports. The Denver show was different from past shows in several ways. For instance, the recent show featured many more classes given by software vendors than in the past. J.D. Edwards employees presented a number of classes (although the Denver ERP giant was a no-show in the expo). This show also marked the first time that COMMON held its IT Executive Conference, which is kind of a "show within a show," for technology executives. Although COMMON stopped short of calling the IT Executive Conference a success, the organization reported that some of the participants benefited from the event. Mark Hoover, IT director of Robbins Inc., said he enjoyed being able to talk with other IT managers about their strategies and the problems they all face. "Also, I really enjoyed the access to IBM executives," he said. Mark Goebel, an IS manager at North American Lighting, said the show was very well thought out and planned. "It was action packed, and I learned a lot," he said. "Bob Tipton was very articulate, and the subject he spoke on was applicable. He talked about aligning yourself and your business, and it really hit home for us." Charles "Duffy" Boyle, chief information officer for American Agrisurance, said he benefited from the time with IBM executives and other IT executives like himself. "I thought it was a great opportunity to meet other IT executives with a similar infrastructure in the iSeries world...learning what they're faced with in their organizations," he said.
  
  

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