The general availability of MarkMagic 8 this month marked the end of a journey for CYBRA, which several years ago had embarked on an ambitious plan to overhaul its label and forms management software for IBM i and open-system servers. The Yonkers, New York, company has implemented all of the features it originally set out to develop when it began its “black-belt challenge of conditional printing,” say company executives, who may next tackle world peace.

It all started years ago when two CYBRA employees called on one of the biggest AS/400 customers at the time. “We dreamed up the

It’s 2012 and application development that is reliant on tools and techniques from 10 years ago or more no longer fit into the present of future business plans of organizations that consider it important to adapt to a changing IT environment. In the community we refer to by the platform-specific name IBM i, where IT entanglements often are tied to systems known as the iSeries and AS/400, graphical application development has become much more common, primarily because it’s become a whole lot easier.

A good example of this is 21st Mortgage Corporation, a midsize company that underwrites, originates, and services

It’s been almost five years since Software AG acquired the rights to Jacada‘s application modernization and Web enablement tool for IBM i and z/OS environments, called the Jacada Interface Server. Over that time, the German software giant has continued to invest in the software, which it now calls webMethods JIS. Early next year the company expects to launch a major new release of webMethods JIS that will keep the product relevant in our mobile world.

Jacada was one of the early leaders in the Web-enablement business as the Internet started to bloom in the 1990s. When the company launched

Raz-Lee Security this month unveiled a powerful new IBM i security tool that gives administrators the power to prevent users from issuing control language (CL) commands. The new product, called Command, is the most complete CL control product on the market, the company claims.

Securing IBM i servers can be a complex process that requires taking several different approaches. Exit points must be monitored to ensure no untoward activity is taking place via FTP or another network access route. Authority levels must be properly configured and continuously watched. Encryption, journaling, and passwords are other areas to consider.

But one area

IBM i shops that run the latest release Robot/NETWORK software from Help/Systems got a nice little surprise this month: the general availability of the new Performance Center, which displays all sorts of IBM i server- and Help/Systems product-related performance statistics, in graphical and textual formats. The new capability was added to Robot/NETWORK version 11, which shipped just over a month ago.

It’s arguably more important to keep track of the performance of one’s IBM i server than a typical open systems server. For one thing, companies that run IBM i typically keep their most critical applications and sensitive data on

Rocket Software announced recently that its BlueZone and PASSPORT terminal emulators now support Microsoft Windows 8. Rocket is one of the first, but not the only, terminal emulation vendor that supports the new Windows OS.

Even though Windows 8 won’t officially ship until this fall, software vendors are able to test their wares against the Windows 8 Release Preview, which is currently available. Getting older emulation suites to run on Windows 8 is expected to be about as difficult as it was to get them running on Windows 7. The previous OS, Windows Vista, was much more difficult and posed

The California-based software company GroundWork last week announced that it is offering free licenses of its enterprise system management tools to all qualifying municipalities that go bankrupt. The company says the program is aimed at helping cities and towns manage their IT infrastructure without incurring additional costs.

GroundWork is a San Francisco company that develops open source systems management tools designed to irritate the likes of the “Big Four” in this category, which includes BMC, CA, HP, and IBM. The company’s products are largely based on dozens of different open source products and standards, including the

IntelliChief has recently announced two Infor ERP customers, including Chelsea Milling Company and Douglas Machine, are using its document management and workflow software.

Chelsea Milling Company, the maker of “Jiffy” baking mixes, selected Infor IntelliChief, the prepackaged bundle of software that IntelliChief puts together specifically for Infor customers. In Chelsea Milling’s case, the IntelliChief software will be hooked into its Infor ERP LX (BPCS) application system, and will even allow company employees to access IntelliChief functions directly from their ERP screens.

The IntelliChief software will be used by the 120-year-old Chelsea, Michigan, company to capture and store documents created from

Zend Technologies yesterday released Zend Server for IBM i 5.6.0 Hotfix 3. The release fixes problems with the IBM i server stack only for those running PHP 5.3.

Zend Server for IBM i 5.6.0 Hotfix 3 (PTF Z4ZC0010) resolves unspecified file issues with the PHP server stack, and updates the PHP to version 5.3.14 and updates the Zend Framework version to 1.11.12. The hotfix is only for those IBM i shops running PHP 5.3. There is also a version of Zend Server for IBM i that includes PHP 5.2, but the package has been “deprecated,” which means the PHP functions

Jimi Hendrix has his experience. Now IBM has its Intranet Experience. But instead of aiming to expand one’s perception, Big Blue’s new software suite is aimed at helping companies to “transform the digital experience” and better present themselves to employees, customers, and “fans,” for fun and profit.

Intranet Experience is a bundle of Web, mobile, social networking, and analytics software designed to help companies build better connections with their audience, including internal employees and external customers. IBM says the software pulls together company information and data, personalized content and news, and social media and analytics, and enables employees to connect,