Halcyon Boosts Spool File Manager, Company

June 26, 2007 Alex Woodie

Halcyon Software unveiled a new version of its Spool File Manager this month that should eliminate much of the manual processing users previously had to perform to get reports into the format they wanted. The English software house also announced the hiring of a new channel manager, Sean Gallagher, who has been tasked with expanding the company’s presence around the world.

Halcyon Software is an English software company that develops a line of systems management tools for the iSeries, as well as a line of tools for Windows servers. Halcyon has more than a dozen OS/400 systems management tools, which are available on a stand-alone basis, or as an integrated part of several suites it offers.

With Spool File Manager version 5, Halcyon has included the capability to run scripts over reports. This will allow users to automate several tasks, including splitting the spool files into multiple reports, merging multiple reports into one, extracting specific information from spool files to which calculations can then be applied, and exporting extracted and manipulated information from spools to Excel, the software company says.

Halcyon says the changes will make it quicker, easier, and less expensive for users to distribute reports (or segments of reports) to the right person. It will also reduce paper wastage because only the necessary documents will be printed and distributed.

Spool File Manager 5.0 also allows users to e-mail spool files natively from the System as PDFs, text, or HTML documents. Users can also export files to Excel while maintaining formatting options, such as font colors and sizes, background colors, and positional alignment, the company says.

In other news, Halcyon announced the appointment of Sean Gallagher as the company’s new channel manager. Gallagher will be responsible for consolidating and building a reseller partner channel in the U.K. and around the world.

“Halcyon wants to grow their international footprint and build progressively in a structured, process-driven manner,” Gallagher says. “There is tremendous opportunity internationally for this company and I’m looking forward to being part of its expansion.”

Gallagher previously worked as a technical consultant at Sagentia, a technology consulting and venture capital firm based in London, and with Three X Communication, a company in the AS/400 industry, where he held the titles of sales and marketing director and managing director. For the last two years, he has been working in Hong Kong setting up a firm called SGAI Tech with a local Chinese partner. He oversaw the engineering and manufacturing of new products for Western companies, which were then built in China and shipped around the world, Halcyon says.

“Sean will bring a great deal of channel expertise and international business experience to the Halcyon team,” says Lorraine Cousins, managing director of Halcyon Software. “With his detailed knowledge of international sales and, in particular, of the EMEA market, we believe his presence will have a very positive impact on the sales growth that we are looking to achieve.”

Halcyon also announced this week a new schedule for its Webinar “How to Get Smart with Automation and get real ROI.” The Webinar, which is hosted by Donnie MacColl, Halcyon’s head of technical services, will look at the experiences of actual businesses that have used Halcyon Systems Operations Suite to automate their System i environments. The Webinars will be held June 26, June 28, July 4, and July 10.

For more information on Halcyon or to register for the Webinars, go to www.halcyonsoftware.com.