Business Computer Design Int’l. yesterday unveiled a beta version of WebSmart Mobile, a new component of its WebSmart development environment. The new software, which was announced at the COMMON conference in Austin, Texas, uses jQuery Mobile to enable IBM i developers to create Web-based mobile apps that deploy to smartphones and tablets running iOS, Android, Windows 8, and Blackberry platforms.

BCD customers have been creating IBM i-powered mobile apps using WebSmart for some time. After all, BCD added jQuery support in early 2011, which gave customers the capability to generate Web clients that use the latest HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

Application development tool vendor Profound Logic has taken its user interface framework open source citing benefits such as increased capability for users to control their own software, improved integration between the IBM i and other platforms, no-cost opportunities for companies and developers to test the application modernization waters, and a route to development that avoids vendor lock-in. It’s Profound’s latest step in providing IBM midrange shops with an RPG tool that is more open and transparent.

Customer feedback has always been important in software development. Software companies develop products that are believed to be a good fit for a broad

United Computer Group is hoping to give private IBM i clouds a run for their money with the IBM i Solution Edition for VAULT400, which was unveiled yesterday at the COMMON conference in Austin, Texas, and combines UCG’s data vaulting software with Power Systems servers. In the near future, UCG plans to unveil a menu of IT services that it says will give IBM i shops many of the advantages of moving to a private cloud, without giving up physical ownership of the box.

UCG’s new IBM i Solution Edition for VAULT400 provides a pre-loaded copy of UCG’s electronic data

It’s been nearly a year since TEMBO Technology Lab launched its flagship database modernization tool, called Adsero Optima Foundation, in the US market. Since then, the product has garnered interest from dozens of American IBM i shops, who are intrigued with the prospect of migrating from old DDS to the SQL engine. While the folks at TEMBO would have preferred a warmer reception–and a quicker sales ramp-up–they understand that there’s a need for greater education on the topic of database modernization.

Make no mistake about it: TEMBO is in the database modernization business to make money. It is true that

The development of Web and mobile applications in IBM midrange shops is at the intersection of tools and talent. Companies with the talent are looking for the right tools. Companies that are short on talent, or have the talent but the talent doesn’t have the time, are looking for turnkey solutions. Either scenario is good for companies like looksoftware, which this week announced the soon-to-arrive version 10 release of its design and development environment known as newlook.

For companies with the talent to do this work in-house, newlook version 10 is worthy of reconnaissance. For those who want the

By all accounts, Rich Loeber is a good and decent man. He doesn’t leave dogs in parked cars on hot days. He pays taxes. There are no reports of stealing candy from babies. He may be a Yankees fan, but we’ll let that slide. However, when Loeber announced last week that he has an IBM i server that he leaves unprotected on the Internet–and then admitted that it’s been there for 18 years–it naturally leads to certain questions.

In 1995, Loeber decided to do an experiment. He would leave an AS/400 out on the open Internet without the benefit of

JDA Software last week unveiled JDA eight, a new cloud-based platform designed to help companies with a range of supply chain activities, including planning, forecasting, optimization, analytics, and logistics.

JDA eight is based on 30 pre-existing products from JDA, including software from its E3, i2, and Manugistics acquisitions. JDA rewrote the products for delivery via the cloud and to give them new “consumer-level” interfaces.

JDA CEO and president Hamish Brewer provided some insight into JDA eight in a video posted to the JDA website. In the video, Hamish says JDA eight is “much more than a typical product release,”

Quadrant Software recently issued a new release of its forms management software that supports the Quick Response (QR) codes that can be used to communicate Web hyperlinks through a camera on a smart phone.

Quadrant says that QR code support was added to Formtastic version 5.4.5, which shipped more than two years ago. Formtastic can now add QR codes to forms generated from IBM i spooled files, thereby boosting internal and external communications.

Quadrant also announced that it has improved its intelligent mail barcode functionality to comply with a requirement by the United States Postal Service for customer eligibility

IBM i systems management software developer Help/Systems last week unveiled InterMapper App for Splunk Enterprise, a network analytics and visualization tool designed to work with the data collection software from Splunk.

Splunk is an up-and-coming company based in San Francisco that develops software for searching, monitoring, and analyzing big data. The company’s main product, also called Splunk, helps organizations to capture, index, and correlate large amounts of data, and use it to develop graphs, reports, alerts, and dashboards, all from a Web-based interface.

Help/Systems’ product builds on the core data collection and manipulation capabilities of Splunk by delivering network

One AURA Equipements product you will be hearing about more in the future is SQLiPlug, a piece of software that allows IBM i applications to access external databases in real time.

SQLiPlug is not a new product, and it hasn’t been enhanced lately. But according to AURA Equipements CEO Sylvain Rubele, AURA will be doing a lot of work with SQLiPlug in the future, as the company looks to enable database access to and from the IBM i server.

SQLiPlug runs the on IBM i server and facilitates a direct connection between DB2 for i and third-party databases, such as