CYBRA last week unveiled EdgeMagic, a new edge server product designed to enable i5/OS shops to incorporate radio frequency identification (RFID) tracking technology into their own applications. Due out this summer with support for J.D. Edwards and VAI‘s S2K, EdgeMagic is expected to be the first and only native i5/OS RFID server product on the market.

CYBRA has been in the RFID business for years, but until now, its offerings have been relegated to developing software that controls the printing, or “encoding,” of data onto RFID tags. That product, called MarkMagic, is based on the same technology that CYBRA

In a perfect world, high availability would be completely automated, and System i servers would fail over to backup machines without any input from operators. Obviously, we don’t live in a perfect world, and failovers are often fraught with uncertainty. Just the same, while fully automated failovers are still largely a pipe dream, there is the potential for autonomic technologies to take some of the fear out of hitting the “go” button during failovers, which is the tact that Lakeview Technology is taking with the just-released MIMIX version 5.

Make no mistake: Lakeview could enable i5/OS customers to implement automated

Automated software testing solutions have been around for more than 20 years but successful implementations are few and far between. Most organizations continue to execute the majority of their testing manually. Industry analysts peg market proliferation at just five percent, with 30 percent being the most extreme estimate. One reason for this damning failure is that users were promised that test automation could address 100 percent of their quality assurance requirements, but bitter experience has shown that total success was far more elusive.

For these reasons, it can be said that anyone who tells you that software testing can be

While it’s nice to have utilities to help you manage a stand-alone System i server, systems management tools really start paying dividends when there’s more than one server to manage. That is where Robot/NETWORK from Help/Systems comes into play. With the latest version of Robot/NETWORK, the company has developed a new graphical user interface (GUI) to make it even easier to track the goings-on of multiple System i servers.

Robot/NETWORK is used to connect multiple System i servers or logical partitions (LPARs) into a single chain, with a single “master” machine and a string of underling “nodes.” When a given

Infor yesterday announced plans to acquire Workbrain, a publicly traded developer of workforce management software, for about $227 million (or $196 million in U.S. Dollars).

Workbrain, which is based in Toronto, Ontario, was founded seven years ago, and quickly became one of the leading developers of software that helps big companies manage workforce processes. Its Windows- and Unix-based offerings included labor forecasting, employee schedule optimization, time and attendance, workforce analytics, and employee self-service, and it counted several large companies as customers, including British Airways, General Mills, and Target.

While Workbrain grew revenue and profits consistently over its seven-year life,

Are you feeling challenged by the Canadian Payments Association’s (CPA) new check specifications, and the “strong suggestion” to meet them by June 30? If so, you might want to check out Quadrant Software, which last week released a new ChecksPack that enables companies to generate CPA-compliant checks from the Formtastic electronic forms software running on OS/400 and i5/OS servers.

The CPA is making several changes to its standards for check (or “cheques,” as the organization calls them), to boost the capability to electronically capture check images, and to increase security.

The CPA’s changes include adoption of one of three

Integration through open standards and service oriented architecture (SOA) is the name of the game for IBM, which last week updated its WebSphere RFID Premises Server. With version 6, IBM has delivered a new “device model” based on Eclipse that should widen the range of compatible radio frequency identification (RFID) readers. At the same time, IBM has delivered a new SOA “foundation” that should make it easier to feed RFID data into business applications.

RFID Premises Server functions as the brains of an RFID implementation, providing the filtering and correlation necessary to make sense out of the tidal wave

Esker last week unveiled Esker Fax Services for SAP, a new on-demand offering designed to enable SAP ERP users to send faxes directly from their SAP screens, without buying any hardware or software.

With Esker Fax Services for SAP, users can fax directly from their Business Workplace workflow inbox, or set up automated production faxing from any SAP module. When a fax command is sent from Business Workflow or one of the modules, the documents are securely transmitted (over the Internet) to one of three Esker production facilities, where the faxes are actually sent. All fax activity is tracked by

Zephyr is close to gaining certification from Microsoft that its PASSPORT 2007 host emulation software–due for release this summer–is compatible with the new Windows Vista operating system, the vendor announced this week.

PASSPORT is one of a number of terminal emulation programs that enable users to access AS/400, iSeries, and System i programs from Web, Windows, and mobile interfaces. In addition to 5250 support, PASSPORT supports mainframe (3270), and UNIX (VT, SCO ANSI, and Wyse) connectivity, and comes with its own FTP client.

When PASSPORT 2007 ships later this year, it will be certified for Vista. Currently, only two other

ProData Computer Services owner Allen Hartley’s hobby of racing one of the world’s fastest vehicles put him and the Hartley Racing Team in the racing world’s spotlight last weekend. Hartley’s son, Joe, drove their top fuel dragster to a second place finish at the O’Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals in Houston, Texas. Hartley came within a whisker of making the winner’s circle–losing in the final round by only 4/100ths of a second. Hartley’s quarter-mile time was 4.645 seconds and his top speed was 307.79 mph compared to 4.603 and 313.80 mph for the winner, J.R. Todd.

The Hartley racer qualified ninth