• U.S.A. Gets New OS/400 Systems Management Suite from SEA

  November 2, 2004 Alex Woodie

  Software Engineering of America wants to shake up the market for OS/400 systems management software. The 22-year-old software vendor from Long Island has traditionally focused on providing utilities for the mainframe. But now, through a partnership with an Australian software firm, the company has launched a suite of nine OS/400 utilities that it calls the REV Suite for AS/400, and it intends to capture its share of the U.S. market. The Rev Suite for AS/400 was originally developed by RevSoft, a company based in the Australian Gold Coast city of Nerang that provides OS/400 software and services. RevSoft started

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• Stampede’s Web Performance Software Goes to Market

  November 2, 2004 Dan Burger

  As more companies migrate to Web-based applications, the realities of high costs and mediocre performance become apparent. Much of the performance drain is related to bandwidth and network issues. Naturally, the speed at which business-critical applications are delivered has an impact on productivity, and correspondingly the bottom line costs. But the issue of performance is measured in both application speed and the timeframe to implement a Web-based system. Complexity can be a resource hog on the Web and on the implementation schedule. Obviously, faster is better. But it comes with a price. It factors into not only application delivery, but

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• Visara Launches ICON Line for Console Consolidation

  November 2, 2004 Alex Woodie

  Big OS/400 shops looking to consolidate the number of consoles used to manage their collection of AS/400s and iSeries servers may want to check out the new twinax consoles that Visara International launched this month. Visara (formerly Memorex Telex) introduced the ICON-20T, a rack-mountable Lintel computer that serves up to 20 browser-based green-screen console sessions for OS/400 servers, and ICON-1T, which provides a single console session. While server consolidation has been a big driver for the iSeries in recent years, nobody talks much about console consolidation. When OS/400 servers start to proliferate in data centers, having a dedicated management console

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• PeopleSoft Updates Its Other World

  November 2, 2004 Alex Woodie

  PeopleSoft last week introduced a service pack for its World A8.1 product line that features a new HTML interface, among about 250 other enhancements. Service Pack 6 implements the same new capabilities that PeopleSoft brought to its more widely used World version A7.3 product line in March. However, some within PeopleSoft consider A8.1 to be a “hidden gem” because it’s not talked about much, and it contains some advanced functionality you won’t find in A7.3. In 1997, J.D. Edwards’ flagship World product line diverged into two separate releases, says PeopleSoft’s director of product strategy for the World product, John Schiff.

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• PFSweb Launches XML Connector for Real-Time iSeries Transactions

  October 26, 2004 Alex Woodie

  PFSWeb launched a new middleware product last week, called the iS Connector Toolkit, which exposes iSeries transactions, in real time, as XML. The company had sold the technology as part of an e-commerce software suite that it introduced this spring. But PFSweb, a publicly traded company whose day job is providing fulfillment services to Fortune 1000 manufacturers, discovered that iSeries shops were actually more interested in the XML connector. PFSweb, which stands for Priority Fulfillment Services, has been an OS/400 shop from day one, since 1988. Today, the $280 million, Plano, Texas, company uses an iSeries server to run a

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• Bytware’s StandGuard Anti-Virus Now Detects Patched OS/400 Programs

  October 26, 2004 Alex Woodie

  To combat the security risk posed by allowing patched programs to run on OS/400 servers, IBM and Bytware have collaborated to include the capability to detect patched programs through a new release of Bytware’s StandGuard Anti-Virus software. While most patched programs are not dangerous, they can be written to wreak havoc, and the fact that OS/400 shops unknowingly run patched programs provided by ISVs presents a serious breach of good security practices, IBM’s OS/400 security architect says. When Bytware announced StandGuard Anti-Virus, in June of 2003, it was a public admission by IBM that the iSeries has a serious problem

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• BCD Announces RPG Code Converter, Outlines Web App Enhancements

  October 26, 2004 Alex Woodie

  When BCD Int’l starts shipping ProGen WebSmart Version 5 next year, it will include a new RPG code converter designed to jumpstart iSeries shops’ Web development projects using the WebSmart development environment. The code converter in WebSmart 5 is just one of the announcements BCD made at the COMMON conference last week, including an upcoming release of its Spool-Explorer/400 product and new features in its Nexus Web portal. If one were to draw a triangle with WebSmart, Nexus, and the combination of Catapult and Spool-Explorer/400 at each point, the center of that triangle would represent the thrust of BCD’s development

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• New BOSaNOVA Tool Integrates iSeries Data with Windows, Office

  October 26, 2004 Alex Woodie

  OfficeVision/400 stragglers take note: BOSaNOVA introduced a tool at the COMMON conference last week that automatically merges iSeries data with Microsoft Office programs and documents. There are many other iSeries-to-Windows integration capabilities of OLE-based Launcher/400 Office, for which BOSaNOVA gained exclusive distribution rights in North America from its French developer. BOSaNOVA also used the show to flesh out its thin client lineup with two Windows-based, touch-screen, wireless tablets and a low-end, bargain-basement Linux device. Launcher/400 uses OLE to allow OS/400 servers to control and place data in Microsoft Windows and Office applications, as well as any other OLE-compliant program, such

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• PowerTech Security Survey Says Most IT Departments Could Do Better

  October 19, 2004 Dan Burger

  Maybe your idea of bad security is leaving the front gate open at San Quentin. Although the prison guard responsible would likely get a harsh reprimand for such an error, there are iSeries and AS/400 security failures that are the equivalent of leaving the prison gate open 24/7. And if you think it doesn’t happen very often, you might want to read a white paper just released from PowerTech Group that was based on survey information collected during the past 18 months. How bad is security on the iSeries? Let’s just say it’s not a pretty story. But it’s not

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• Curbstone Native OS/400 Credit Card Software Makes Debut

  October 19, 2004 Alex Woodie

  About 12 years ago, Ira Chandler wrote the industry’s first credit card transaction processing software that ran natively on OS/400. The software, which was eventually marketed and sold by ROI, was a hit, but then Chandler watched as ROI eschewed the native approach and pushed a cross-platform credit card processing application instead. Two years ago, Chandler left ROI and launched his own startup, called Curbstone, but now he’s “back in the business,” writing native OS/400 credit card software again. When ROI acquired GO Software, in 2000, Chandler was not happy to see ROI’s credit card software, the Java

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