Year after year, surveys point to iSeries customers being the most satisfied with their chosen server, compared to other shops and their dominant platforms. Just the same, the move from iSeries to Windows is a simple reality at many shops, for a variety of reasons. Organizations looking to migrate their RPG applications from OS/400 to Windows have new options available in Monarch 2.0, which ASNA announced last week.

While evidence shows the vast majority of OS/400 shops are satisfied with their choice of server, the move from OS/400 to Windows is not a matter of choice in many cases. Some

IBM last week announced WebSphere DataStage TX version 8.0, a new release of data integration middleware designed to support the complex EDI transformation services required by companies operating in regulated industries. This release benefits from progress made in the Serrano and Hawk data-integration projects currently underway at IBM and Ascential Software, which is operating as an IBM subsidiary, and makes it even easier to integrate complex data from virtually any source across OS/400, mainframe, and distributed platforms, according to Big Blue.

WebSphere DataStage TX–the new name that IBM has given to Ascential’s DataStage TX product–is an EDI-centric version of

Listed separately, the new features that Quadrant Software added to its Formtastic document management software aren’t earth-shattering. But taken as a whole, the additional items and enhancements, including advanced query options, generation of RFID tags, generation of searchable PDF files, new image manipulation capabilities, and enhancements to its Formatter spool file preprocessor, point to Formtastic version 5.3.1 being a solid new release.

Quadrant Software is best known for its FastFax line of fax solutions for the OS/400 server. But the Taunton, Massachusetts, company also offers an array of electronic document management solutions, including a Windows-based design tool, an e-mail distribution

In another example of the importance of cross-platform benefits, companies can now pull up iSeries documents and reports from Questys Solutions‘ Windows-based document management and imaging software. The new capability to use the OS/400 platform as a file storage server results from a technology partnership that Questys formed with inFORM Decisions, a developer of native OS/400 document management systems.

Questys Solutions is a Southern California company that has been developing PC-based document management and imaging systems since 1980. Today, its products, including Questys Pro and Questys Enterprise that have been retrofitted for iSeries connectivity, run on Microsoft Windows