Things have been busy over at ASNA these days. In addition to setting up a new technical services operation and establishing new partnerships with offshore development organizations, ASNA has been preparing a new release of its flagship development product, ASNA Visual RPG (AVR), that will work with the new version of Visual Studio that Microsoft is creating. It’s also working on a new version of Monarch, its code analysis and conversion tool for moving RPG assets to Windows and .NET, and getting ready for ASNApalooza 2007.

ASNA is a unique company with a unique place in the midrange. With a

In the global IT market, having a good software product with an accurate foreign language translation can mean the difference between gaining solid traction in the new country and fruitlessly spinning one’s wheels in an attempt at breaking new ground. Sometimes, the margin for error is as thin as the tail at the end of an apostrophe. And when it comes to navigating the wily world of i5/OS application translation, few have as much experience as Interpro Translation Solutions, which has worked with some of the biggest application providers in the midrange.

There are a number of companies offering

What happens when an experienced RPG developer is asked to create Web service interfaces to a production insurance system using a development tool he’s never used before? If the developer is consultant Weems Hutto, the client Texas-based RVOS, and the development tool Business Computer Design Int’l‘s WebSmart, then the answer is: less than an hour to develop a successful Web service interface.

RVOS Farm Mutual Insurance Company of Texas is an insurance company that operates as a not-for-profit Farm Mutual insurance provider. Its focus is to supply insurance products to homeowners, farmers and ranchers in Texas. Since RVOS is

EDI and business-to-business (B2B) integration software developer Boomi last week announced its entry into the software as a service (SaaS) industry with Boomi On-Demand, a new hosted service that can move data among other hosted apps as well as ERP systems residing behind firewalls. With a per-connection fee that starts at less than $100, Boomi claims its new service will open up a new world of application integration for small and mid size businesses and how applications get integrated.

The new Boomi On Demand service will give customers the capability to build the same types of custom integrations among applications

Printer buddies IBM and Ricoh last week announced the addition of Intelligent Printing Data Stream (IPDS) capabilities to two multifunction laser printers that didn’t previously support the high-end printing technology.

As part of last week’s announcement, the InfoPrint 1552 and 1572 multifunction printers (MFPs) can now support the IPDS data stream that funnels Advanced Function Presentation (AFP) print jobs. IPDS support is offered as part of the M40 MFP option with the InfoPrint 1552 and 1572 and as an out-of-the-box feature on the MFP version of the InfoPrint 1572. These products did not have IPDS capability previously.

The product opening

The Bank of Utah, a privately owned bank in Ogden, Utah, has undergone an eServer iSeries-based technology refresh that significantly boosted the headroom on its transaction system, saved it $100,000 per year, and increased its flexibility to adopt new workloads, IBM recently reported in a case study published on its Web site.

In late 2004, the Bank of Ogden had just about run out of capacity on its old server that powered core financial applications, so it began looking for a replacement. According to CFO Doug DeFries, the bank’s primary goals were to maximize internal efficiency, automate business processes, and

Interested in sampling IBM‘s flagship product for unified communication and collaboration (UC2)? Then you might be interested in a deal Big Blue announced last week for free 90-day trial copies of Lotus Sametime 7.5.1, its platform for instant messaging (IM), Web conferencing, point-to-point video, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

As the centerpiece of IBM’s UC2 strategy, Lotus Sametime incorporates a single product to allow people and organizations to share words, images, and sound without getting bogged down opening and managing multiple-point products. Also, through hooks into IBM’s Java tools and the Eclipse development framework–not to mention integration with

Mrc last week highlighted the success that one of its customers, Bosselman Energy of Grand Island, Nebraska, had using its M-Power development tool to build a Web-based dashboard application that accesses data from its J.D. Edwards ERP system.

Bosselman Energy is a privately company that owns and operates a series of gas stations, convenience stores, restaurants, motels, and truck stops across a swath of the heartland extending from Kentucky to New Mexico, in addition to other ventures. At the center of the company’s IT operations was an Oracle J.D. Edwards ERP system. But with such a dispersed operation and only

Interested in learning how you can get from i5/OS to Web 2.0? Nexaweb Technologies and Inkriti will be sharing their AJAX modernization tips for System i servers today during a free Webcast starting at 11 a.m. PDT.

Nexaweb, a provider of Java-based application modernization tools that plug into the Eclipse development framework, claims to have thousands of Web 2.0 deployments under its belt. Now the Burlington, Massachusetts, company is sharing some of that knowledge through its eConference Series of online Webinars and presentations.

Today, the company is holding an eConference titled “iSeries/System i Modernization with AJAX.” The presentation will offer

Infinite Software (formerly California Software), a provider of tools for migrating i5/OS applications to Windows, Unix, and Linux, will participate in an upcoming Aberdeen Group report on iSeries and zSeries modernization, the company announced last week.

Infinite will be a “Jumpstart” sponsor for Aberdeen’s “Legacy System Modernization Report,” which is scheduled to be published later this month, the company says. “We are very pleased to have been invited to participate in this project,” says Bruce Acacio, the CEO of Infinite Software. “Their reputation as a global research and analyst firm speaks for itself.”

In other news, Infinite Software, which is