BlackBerry, meet your iSeries. Epoch Integration, a developer of management software for the wireless BlackBerry devices made by Research In Motion, recently launched a new version of its NeedTEXT Shell terminal emulation software that allows users to access, monitor, and manage OS/400 servers through a secure command line interface displayed on their BlackBerry screens.

Epoch’s NeedTEXT Shell customers historically have been Unix and Linux users, but some of its customers had OS/400 servers they wanted to access or manage through their BlackBerries, say Epoch officials. The company responded with NeedTEXT Shell Version 3.0, which introduces a new feature

Acknowledging that integration application problems can effect small and midsized businesses as well as large enterprises, IBM last month announced WebSphere Business Integration Server Express, a new software product for streamlining business processes from disparate applications and databases running across OS/400, Linux, and Windows servers. IBM also introduced three new Express offerings for specific integration problems, including UCCnet data synchronization, sending and receiving message queues, and connecting to electronic trading networks.

WebSphere Business Integration Server Express 4.3 is a pre-packaged integration broker offering designed to make it easier for small and midsized businesses to gain the advantages of internal application

eStorage, the only independent provider of internal disk for OS/400 servers, last week announced three new 70 GB iSeries disk drives. The new drives include one 15K RPM model, one 140 GB, 10K RPM drive that has been “shortstroked” to boost access time, and one standard 10K RPM model that eStorage says is 65 percent less expensive than the comparable 70 GB disk from IBM.

The Irvine, California, storage vendor says that its new 4327-15K, 4327F-10K, and 4327-10K disk drives are the industry’s first third-party 70-GB internal disk solutions for the OS/400 server. IBM introduced its own 70

ASNA this month will start shipping the second release of its flagship product, ASNA Visual RPG for .NET, or simply AVR for .NET, a “superset” of the familiar RPG language that plugs into Microsoft‘s Visual Studio 2003 development environment and compiles to native .NET code. The company, based in San Antonio, also announced DataGate Component Suite for .NET, which provides .NET programmers with optimized access to DB2/400.

ASNA’s tools have always provided a unique value for companies that have invested in RPG and DB2/400 and are looking to extend those investments to the Web or to new Windows clients.