It has recently become easier to access business documents stored in ACOM Solutions EZContentManager, the affordable Windows-based archival system designed to work with i5/OS applications and data. In December, the Southern California company announced two new capabilities for EZContentManager, including the new EZRetrieve module for searching the document store from Windows or 5250 screens, and a new module for managing the store from Blackberry smart phones.

Long Beach, California-based ACOM Solutions has been involved in document management technology for the AS/400, iSeries, and System i servers for a long time, primarily with its EZeDocs/400 and EZPayManager/400 line of software, which

You’ve lugged them around for years, dragging them with you when you move, even though they don’t serve much of a purpose anymore. No, we’re not talking about old luggage here, but unused pieces of RPG source code. While it’s not the scourge of the universe, having unneeded RPG code in your programs slows down recompiles and makes general maintenance more time consuming. Now, Linoma Software is helping you clean up your act with a new Clean RPG Source command in its RPG Toolbox.

Originally released by Linoma in September 2001, the RPG Toolbox gathers several of Linoma’s RPG programmer

System i developers should gain better control over their development environments as a result of new utilities revealed by Aldon last week. The change management software vendor unveiled new plug-ins that connect its Lifecycle Manager software with the Eclipse and WebSphere Development Studio Client (WDSc) development tools, and which bring new compare and merge capabilities, promotion of code functionality, and better navigation, among other enhancements.

Over the last few years, developers of programmer utilities have evolved their product packaging to take advantage of the new Eclipse-based integrated development environment (IDE) that has become predominant on the platform. In the case

Raz-Lee Security has re-jiggered the packaging of its collection of i5/OS security products into two main suites, the vendor disclosed recently. System i shops looking to clamp down on their server’s exposure to network-based threats will be pointed to the new Prevention Package, while Raz-Lee will sell the Compliance Package to customers needing to prove compliance with SOX, HIPAA, PCI, and other government and industry regulations.

Over the years, Raz-Lee, which is headquartered in Israel and has U.S. headquarters outside of New York City, has put together a comprehensive collection of more than a dozen i5/OS security modules that address

IBM last week announced it has added the WebSphere Portlet Factory to WebSphere Portal Express version 6.0, which shipped in February 2007. The move gives IBM customers another reason to buy WebSphere Portal Express, which runs natively on i5/OS, and should make it easier for customers to develop customized, JSR-168 compliant portlets for use in their company Web portals.

The WebSphere Portlet Factory, which IBM obtained with its acquisition of Bowstreet a little over a year ago, is a Windows-based tool designed to simplify the development of J2EE portlet applications and eliminate the need for direct coding. Instead of requiring

SafeData signed up six companies in December to use its hosted i5/OS high availability (HA) service, the company announced yesterday. SafeData says the new deals indicate the need for managed i5/OS HA is quite high at the moment, especially considering that the bulk of the HA software is controlled by a single company.

Since SafeData launched its hosted HA and DR service in 2005, the company has been touting the benefits customers receive by offloading their DR and HA setups to the Warwick, Rhode Island, company.

Usually the customer accolades would arrive one by one. But yesterday, SafeData revealed no

BOSaNOVA has given a speed boost to its low-end and top-of-the-line thin clients alike. Last week, the Phoenix, Arizona, company announced that its 1300 line of Windows and Linux thin clients are now equipped with VIA chips running at 1.5 GHz. The low-end RBT also received a faster new VIA processor.

Unveiled a year ago, the Windows-based XTC-1300 and the Linux-based LTC-1300 featured VIA processors running at 1.3 GHz. With the new 1.5 GHz processor and an 8X AGP graphics accelerator card, unveiled last summer, BOSaNOVA is making sure users don’t have to compromise graphics when making the

PowerTech has joined the PCI Security Standards Council as a participating organization, providing another i5/OS voice in the continuing evolution of the standard.

As one of 384 participating organizations, PowerTech will work with the group to evolve the PCI Data Security Standard (DSS) and other payment card data protection standards backed by financial giants like American Express, Discover Card, JCB, MasterCard Worldwide, and Visa, which took the initiative in creating the DSS.

“We are pleased to be accepted as a participating organization in this important security standards organization,” says Jon Scott, president and CEO of PowerTech. “The IBM System i

A Swiss company, iscoord, is the first IBM business partner to receive certification ensuring compatibility between a software-based IP phone and the System i IP Telephony solution jointly offered by IBM and 3Com.

In late December, iscoord announced it successfully completed interoperability testing between its isphone and 3Com’s VCX platform, which is the basis for the System i IP Telephony Solution that became available last year. The testing was conducted as part of 3Com’s Open Network Program, and iscoord received the 3Com Solution Validated certification for its efforts.

The isphone was written in Java and uses the session

SugarCRM last month announced the general availability of Sugar 5.0, the first major release of the open source CRM package since the company announced support for the System i server last summer.

The Sugar CRM package is part of a new class of open source enterprise applications written for the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) architecture that’s making headway against the traditional closed-source, platform-centric development process.

Last summer, IBM and SugarCRM announced a partnership to port Sugar to i5/OS, thereby providing iSeries and System i users with another option for CRM on the platform.

By late summer,