Magic Software will offer the complete suite of MicroStrategy‘s business intelligence offerings as part of an alliance the two software company’s announced last month. The MicroStrategy BI solution is a good fit for IBM i and JD Edwards shops because of its relatively low overhead and openness, according to Magic, which will also be helping IBM i shops build DB2/400-based data marts using its iBOLT integration tool.

MicroStrategy has not traditionally been one of the BI vendors that IBM i shops look to when contemplating the implementation of a BI solution. While the Vienna, Virginia, software company and its

It’s a problem that has perplexed business intelligence tool builders for some time: How do you give users the capability to customize and personalize their reports, without burdening them with too many features and complicated options? The folks at Information Builders think they have found the perfect balance between functionality and simplicity with InfoMini, which allows administrators to expose as much or as little of the underlying query toolset as their users demand.

InfoMini is a new component of InfoAssist, the ad hoc query tool that’s part of Info Builder’s BI suite, WebFOCUS. InfoMini essentially lets administrators choose which features

Mixing social networking with business objectives has a great upside, but before get all giddy about this, let’s call it a potential upside. Even though it’s already taken on the more serious, buttoned-down name of social business, it’s not yet the game-changer that’s it’s predicted to be. At IBM’s Lotusphere conference, being held this week in Orlando, social business is the biggest star and Lotus software is your ticket to the moon.

Just yesterday IBM set loose the balloons and confetti on new software and services designed to integrate social media and business processes. The promised benefits can be found

Oracle yesterday announced new packaged offerings for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, including a new Oracle Business Accelerator that streamlines installation of the ERP system. The world’s largest business software company also touted the growth of its Oracle Accelerate solutions, which provides implementation and customization services to EnterpriseOne customers around the world through its partner network.

Oracle describes its Oracle Business Accelerators as “powerful, easy-to-use rapid implementation tools” that are designed by Oracle itself, or by partners. They are available for the full breadth of Oracle software, spanning business intelligence, CRM, supplier management, human resources, and ERP. The offering includes all the

The folks at mrc last week announced the overhaul of the graphing function of m-Power, its versatile application development environment that’s often used to create dashboards, business intelligence, and other Web-based applications on the IBM i server. Users should see much faster graph creation, among other improvements.

The old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” is perhaps even more true in today’s super competitive business intelligence market, where BI software companies are gung ho to deliver detailed and actionable information that is as pretty and easy-to-consume as possible.

Chicago-based mrc, while not a true BI software vendor, nevertheless

IBM last week unveiled a new version of Cognos Express, its business intelligence suite designed for mid-sized businesses. With version 9.5, IBM added a new budgeting and forecasting module designed to simplify the planning process, and eliminate reliance on manual planning.

Cognos Express is based on the TM1 in-memory OLAP database that Cognos obtained with its acquisition of Applix before IBM acquired Cognos. IBM rolled out Cognos Express in September 2009 with the aim of serving mid-size organizations that can’t justify the more powerful (but more difficult to use) enterprise BI products, such as the full-strength Cognos line or its

Every company should have a security policy. Does yours? If your IBM i shop hasn’t yet taken the time to craft a customized security policy, a good place to start is PowerTech‘s IBM i security policy template, which is available free of charge.

PowerTech’s 13-page security policy provides examples for how the IBM i OS should be configured for security. It also provides some general-purpose guidelines, such as the fact that the server should be located in a secure room. The recommendations are just a starting point, though, and most administrators will want to tweak the recommended settings to

IBM i software developer Computer Guidance recently announced it has signed contracts with three customers, including Herzog Companies, Sterling Boiler & Mechanical, and D.W. Nicholson, for its construction management software.

Computer Guidance’s flagship product, called eCMS, provides integrated financial accounting, project management, and bidding capabilities to mid- to large-size contractors and other companies in the construction industry. The application runs exclusively on the IBM i (OS/400) platform, and is available via perpetual license or software as a service (SaaS) subscription.

Herzog Companies elected to expand its use of eCMS. The St. Joseph, Missouri, company looked at other solutions to run

IBM i shops looking for a forms solution to meet their 2010 tax needs may want to consider the offer unveiled by Quadrant Software last week. The Massachusetts company announced that it’s slashing $500 off the price of its 2010 Tax FormsPack, which enables organizations to immediately start generating tax forms, such as W2s.

Quadrant’s Tax FormsPack is a collection of pre-designed tax form templates for the quick production of W2, 1099, and 1096 tax forms. The Tax FormsPack was designed to eliminate programming, and it’s already been mapped to the most popular IBM i-based ERP systems like JDE Edwards,

MVP Systems Software recently unveiled a new release of its cross-platform job scheduler and file transfer solution that should make it easier for customers to control specific applications. The new jobs library in JAMS 5.2 includes dozens of application-specific sample jobs that customers can use to build out their schedule.

JAMS is a .NET-based job scheduler used primarily to coordinate and control the execution of batch jobs across Windows, Unix, Linux, and OpenVMS environments. The company unveiled an IBM i agent in 2009 to allow it to control jobs on System i and Power Systems servers. The product can also