One of the new IBM i software vendors exhibiting at next week’s COMMON conference in Austin, Texas, is CM First. The Swiss company opened its US office in Austin two years ago, and sees a favorable market developing for its products, including change management and Web and mobile development tools for CA 2E and Plex customers.

CM First develops application lifecycle management (ALM) and Web/mobile development tools aimed at helping IBM i and mainframe customers modernize their applications. In 12 years of business, the company has attracted about 400 customers, most of which are located in Europe and have

Help/Systems yesterday announced that it has acquired several ShowCase business intelligence products from IBM. The transaction gives Help/Systems possession of one of the most storied brands in the history of IBM i analytics. However, it does not include the IBM i port of the Essbase online analytical processing (OLAP) tool, which has died on the IBM vine.

Terms of the deal between Help/Systems and IBM were not disclosed. The transaction is done, and some of IBM’s ShowCase customers are now Help/Systems customers. “I’m pleased to add the ShowCase software products to the Help/Systems family,” stated Help/Systems CEO Janet Dryer

RPG is probably not the first language that pops into most IT people’s minds when they think about mobile application development. But for IBM i shops like Braum’s Ice Cream and Dairy Stores, the capability to code mobile apps in the language they know best–good old Report Program Generator–is a major advantage. In fact, it was the main reason Braum’s chose LANSA‘s LongRange to build a series of mobile apps for its employees.

Braum’s Ice Cream and Dairy Stores is something of a local institution for people who live in the south central portion of the United States. In

DocPath last week unveiled a new release of its document management software that has been rewritten in Java. DocPath CEO Julio Olivares says the Java rewrite not only boosts performance, but allows the software to run equally well in IBM i, Windows, Linux, and Unix environments. While the technological core of the new DocPath server runs on Java, the company chose Microsoft .NET for the new document designer.

DocPath sells two lines of product, one for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and another for enterprises. The SMB offerings are traditional document management products that allow companies to generate professional-looking forms

Linoma Software last week unveiled GoAnywhere OpenPGP Studio, a free tool for encrypting and decrypting files on desktop computers running Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Unix operating systems. The software is aimed at users who periodically need to encrypt files, and will give Linoma the chance to sell additional automation capabilities via its managed file transfer (MFT) solutions.

OpenPGP Studio is based on Open PGP, a free and open source encryption program that itself is based on the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption program that Phil Zimmerman released to the world in 1991. (That got Zimmerman into hot water

COMMON is now holding elections for its board of directors. Four candidates are battling for three open slots. Members of the IBM i user group can vote electronically through April 9, and the winners will be announced the following day at a meeting at the COMMON conference in Austin, Texas.

The COMMON slate includes two incumbents on the board of directors, Pete Helgren and Kevin Mort, and two new candidates, Yvonne Enselman and Todd Spight. Helgren and Mort were elected to the board for the first time in 2010, and must defend their posts against the new challengers.

Short biographies

EXTOL International, the provider of EDI and B2B data integration tools for IBM i and other platforms, is now in the managed file transfer (MFT) software business as the result of a new partnership with Italian software maker Primeur.

As part of the partnership, which was unveiled last week, Pennsylvania-based EXTOL will add two Primeur products, Spazio MFT/S and File Governance, to the portfolio of its flagship product, Integrator. Primeur has also added Integrator to its list of offerings.

According to Primeur, Spazio MFT/S is aimed at helping companies to centrally manage multiple third-party file transfer products, utilizing

Computer Guidance Corp. (CGC), the developer of IBM i-based ERP software for construction companies, last month unveiled a new iPad app that will boost customers’ capability to track work and workers in the field.

The new Mobile eCMS suite delivers an iPad interface for CGC’s popular RPG-based Construction Management System (eCMS), and will give foremen and supervisors a new tool for managing employees and projects while on site. Three main apps are available now with Mobile eCMS, including Remote Payroll, Field Reporting, and Time & Attendance apps. The app is designed to run on iPads, and is available on Apple

Velocity Technology Solutions, a managed service provider (MSP) that manages customers’ ERP systems in addition to providing the private clouds on which they run, will begin providing management of Oracle‘s E-Business Suite (EBS) ERP software as the result of its acquisition of UK-based MSP velos-IT.

In a recent interview, Velocity CEO Tom Bruno strongly hinted that his private equity-backed New York City company would be making more acquisitions (it bought WTS in October 2011 to gain JD Edwards expertise).

Bruno also said that it was likely Velocity would find a way to get into the management of

Attachmate last month unveiled two updated managed file transfer (MFT) products that work with data on IBM i and other platforms, including Reflection for Secure IT Web Edition 8.0, which delivers a new Web client for MFT activities, and FileXpress FileShot 1.9, an update to its enterprise-class MFT offering for offloading bulky email attachments.

Reflection for Secure IT (RSIT) Web Edition is a new addition to its Reflection for Secure IT suite. The software enables users to initiate secure file transfers utilizing the Secure Shell (SSH)-based FTP (SFTP) functionality of the product directly from a Web browser. Previously, the suite