You may have heard that old computer axiom “garbage in, garbage out” so many times that it’s become just another meaningless catch phrase. For the folks at BackOffice Associates, however, it reflects a reality they see every day, which is that business computers are filled with data that is wrong or duplicated, and that these errors can cost a company hundred of millions of dollars. With an array of tools and services, BackOffice enforces data quality, and can help customers get the upper hand on their data quality issues.

BackOffice Associates was founded 14 years ago by the husband

Lawson Software plunged into cloud computing in a big way last week when it announced its complete line of ERP software will be available as a service hosted by Amazon‘s Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) platform starting in May. Lawson says its cloud service, which is believed to be the first full-featured ERP solution available via EC2, will help customers by eliminating server sizing concerns, reducing IT headcount, and providing a predictable subscription-based payment model–without compromising the capability to customize the ERP environment.

As part of its External Cloud Services offering, Lawson disclosed that its three main product lines, including

System i users in Asian countries will now be able to use Original Software‘s i/OS utilities to test their double byte character set (DBCS)-enabled applications, Original announced last week with the launch of TestBench for System i version 7. This is good news for large global customers of the U.K. software vendor who are moving into Japanese and Chinese markets. The new version also brings more granular support for independent auxiliary storage pools (iASPs), which should improve application resiliency.

In the hierarchy of Original test products, TestBench occupies the bottom tier, next to the databases that underpin business applications

Bsafe Information Systems recently announced the availability of a major new release of its security suite for i/OS. With Bsafe/Enterprise Security version 6.1, the company is now offering a new Identity Management module that gives administrators more powerful and finer grained control over access to System i resources. The new version also includes new multi-system capabilities, as well as a redesigned Report Generator that makes it easier to create custom security and audit reports.

Bsafe specializes in tools that help administrators manage and control the security of their i/OS and z/OS servers, although it does offer some capabilities for Windows

DealerTrack, a developer of i/OS-based software for automobile dealers, has selected Information Builders and its WebFOCUS software to create a new business intelligence (BI) offering that its customers can access over the Web, the vendors announced last month.

DealerTrack is a publicly traded company based in Lake Success, New York, that develops software and services used by thousands of companies in the North American retail car industry, including automobile dealers, lenders, OEMs, agents, and aftermarket parts providers. Some of the offerings of the company, which had $225 million in revenue last year, include an online credit application and checking

Baulderstone, one of Australia’s largest construction companies, has reduced network congestion and improved data transmission times for a range of critical business applications, including its MIMIX i/OS high availability software, as the result of its use of Riverbed Technology network acceleration appliances, the vendor announced last month.

If you’ve seen the Sydney Opera House, you’ve seen the work of Baulderstone, one of the most respected building and engineering firms in Australia. The company, which was founded in 1926 by Manuel Hornibrook, today is owned by the German construction giant Bilfinger Berger AG, and rakes in $1.5 billion Australian dollars ($1.38

Oracle last month announced a new integration between its JD Edwards EnterpriseOne ERP system and Primavera Contract Management. The new integration is designed to help JDE shops in the construction, engineering, and oil and gas industries get a tighter grip on costs and keep jobs on schedule.

Primavera Contract Management is part of an integrated suite of project management products Oracle obtained with its acquisition of Primavera in October 2008. According to Oracle, Primavera Contract Management excels at tracking documents and costs in the construction industry projects. Of particular interest is its capability to keep the different players–including various managers,

BCS Group, a provider of System i high availability expertise, will begin reselling i/OS systems management software from Halcyon Software as the result of a new partnership, the companies announced recently.

BCS Group is a full service provider of business continuity services for IBM i/OS and Microsoft Windows platforms. In addition to helping customers plan their high availability or disaster recovery strategies, the company installs and sets up HA and DR environments, and even manages its customers HA systems, whether they’re at the customer’s site, or one of BCS Group’s co-location facilities around the country.

With its customers’ System

Associated Computer Systems, an IBM hardware and software reseller serving the Upper Midwest, has joined the reseller ranks of document and content management system vendor ACOM Solutions, the software company announced last week.

From its headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, ACS sells System i, System x, and BladeCenter hardware, WebSphere and Lotus software, datacenter infrastructure, and networking and telephony gear to customers from Minnesota to Missouri. The company was looking to broaden its range of software offerings when it discovered ACOM, according to David Backstrom, vice president of sales and marketing for ACS.

“ACOM’s offerings fit extremely well

The battle for supremacy among providers of so-called “core banking” systems for community banks and credit unions continued last week when Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) announced it has landed six more customers of its i/OS-based HORIZON core banking system in just the first three months of the new year.

Competition in the de novo banking sector is starting to heat up as expectations of a big federal crackdown on the largest banks shifts attention and capital to smaller banks that could see a surge of new customers. The System i platform is well represented in this industrial category, with