NetManage addressed nagging performance and printing issues in its Web-to-host product line this month with the release of OnWeb for iSeries version 7.2.5. On the performance front, support for AJAX will dramatically boost the screen response time of customers that have elected to move their emulators to the Web. And a new feature called “iPrint” will finally give OnWeb for iSeries customers the capability to print PDF documents on local printers without resorting to messy modifications and custom development.

On November 15, NetManage refreshed its entire product line with the delivery of OnWeb Server and OnWeb for iSeries version 7.2.5,

Collecting insurance payment information from hospital computer systems was often a tedious and time-consuming process for Medical Reimbursements of America (MRA). When the company could convince the hospital’s IT staff to run some reports, things went smoothly. But in many cases, MRA representatives sitting behind terminal emulators had to navigate through hundreds or thousands of screens to gather the necessary information. That began to change 11 months ago, when MRA installed the Verastream Host Integration product from Attachmate, which automated much of this work.

The billing departments of most hospitals are well equipped to deal with standard patient accounts,

System i shops that rely on Help/Systems‘ Robot systems management tools recently obtained the capability to manage several aspects of their Linux servers, when the software company announced support for Linux servers with Robot/CLIENT, its open systems extension to the System i-focused Robot world. Help/Systems also unveiled a new release of the Robot Browser Interface, a product that puts an HTML view on top of several popular Robot products, including the job scheduler and the message management and alerting tool.

For years, Help/Systems has sold Robot/CLIENT, a product that enabled its customers to control certain aspects of Unix and

The new release of VAI‘s ERP system contains a little bit of new functionality for all of its customers, including the distributors that make up the bulk of its customer base, manufacturers, and even retailers. And with S2K version 3.7.6, which was officially unveiled at the VAI user conference earlier this month, retailers can continue to use their point of sale (POS) systems even when the System i or the network connection go down.

From its headquarters in Ronkonkoma, New York, Bog Vormitagg’s company continues to buck the trend when it comes to midrange ERP vendors. While many ERP

A month ago, we ran a story in this newsletter about how Lawson Software had finished converting its S3 suite of ERP application to run in 64-bit mode on Unix operating systems, but how the i5/OS operating system would have to wait a while longer. As it turns out, S3 was already running as 64-bits on i5/OS, providing a lesson for both Lawson and IT Jungle on the architecture of the System i.

In early October, Lawson announced that Lawson 9–another name for S3, which stands for “staff, source, and serve”–was available to run in 64-bit mode on the AIX

Midrange Performance Group this month launched a new release of Performance Navigator, a Windows-based tool used to analyze the performance of System i servers over time, and for sizing hardware against workloads. With PerfNav version 13, MPG has added a new executive-level report that is viewable through a Web browser, and supports the latest release of the WebSphere Application Server.

Since it was introduced in 1998, PerfNav has been helping business partners and large System i shops align their growing application workloads with the latest in midrange hardware. The Windows-based software uses IBM‘s PM/400 data collection facility to gather

CYBRA recently launched a new release of MarkMagic, the company’s software for designing barcode labels, RFID tags, and electronic forms for printing from System i servers. With version 6.1, the New York company has given customers the option of using a new Print Manager component that CYBRA says will provide greater control over document management activities.

The Print Manager component of MarkMagic lets the user define certain rules based on information in the spool file. At run time, Print Manager automatically processes these rules and changes printing instructions to follow them. In this way, users can let their print jobs

Excel Program Inventions recently launched Database Assistant version 2.2, a new release of its field-level change and impact analysis tool designed for speeding database maintenance projects for RPG applications. With the new release, the tool gains the capability to track changes made to CL, and to generate SQL for any changed files.

From time to time, programmers run into situations where they need to expand the fields in their applications, or add entirely new fields to support the growth of the company or compliance initiatives. In these situations, it’s advisable to use some type of tool to automate as much

TeamStudio recently launched Teamstudio Edition 24, a new release of its suite of development and productivity tools for Lotus Notes and Domino developers. With this release, Teamstudio delivers support for Notes and Domino version 8, and delivers several other enhancements.

The Teamstudio suite is a collection of client- and server-side utilities that provide Notes and Domino developers with a variety of useful functions for designing, programming, maintaining, and fixing their applications. The suite is made up of a handful of individual products, including Analyzer, CIAO, Delta, and Snapper, all of which now support the latest release of Notes and Domino

AMR Research predicts spending on ERP software among large companies will grow about 5 percent in 2008 compared to 2007 levels, a decent rate of growth, but a bit off of the pace of growth over the past three years.

In the paper “The Enterprise ERP Spending Report, 2007-2008,” AMR analysts Simon Jacobson, Jim Shepherd, and Bob Kraus slice and dice the predicted ERP spending for the new year. The findings were based on about 200 interviews with IT decision makers at companies with more than 1,000 employees in the U.S., the U.K., and Germany. A report for smaller companies