The reason application modernization gets as much attention as it does in the IBM System i market is directly related to two widely believed drivers. Executives see it’s possible to improve business performance and reduce application and infrastructure costs. How to reach those goals is another issue. Moving RPG applications to Microsoft .NET is one tactic, and it’s brought a new vendor into the System i community. Fujitsu has begun to market a service it calls Progression.

No tools to buy, no annual software licensing and maintenance fees, and very little impact on the IT staff are benefits that Fujitsu

Users of LANSA‘s visual business process integration (BPI) tool, Composer, can expect to see a smoother installation, better performance, and improved manageability with version 2.0, which recently became generally available. The software–which automates common integration tasks and office grunt-work (such as re-keying an order from Word into a 5250 application) using customizable workflows created in a drag-and-drop editor–also gains more EDI and document output functionality, as well as support for Windows Server.

LANSA launched the first version of Composer a little over a year ago as a way to simplify common integration tasks in the back offices and IT

SkyView Partners this week will begin delivery of a new release of its SkyView Risk Assessor product that includes new checks for the Payment Cardholder Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requirements. By comparing a System i shop’s security settings against the PCI standards, the tool can make the difference between the company passing a PCI audit and continuing to process credit card transactions, or failing an audit and paying thousands of dollars in fees–or worse.

It’s been almost four years since the PCI standards went into effect. Since then, several high-profile cases of mass identify theft, such as the

“You are lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry, Clementine.” System i shops that relied upon SPSS‘ data mining software suite, Clementine, may be heard humming this old song to themselves following the vendor’s recent decision to end support for the System i server with the latest release of the product, version 13. The Chicago software company also changed the product’s name to PASW Modeler as part of a company-wide move to the Predictive Analytics Software name.

Earlier this year, SPSS started the process of changing the names of all of its products to Predictive Analytics Software, or PASW. Its

ASNA, one of the oldest names in the AS/400 independent software vendor community, is about to disappear. Just the name, mind you, not the company or its products and services. As of May 1, ASNA officially becomes the System i Division of its parent company BluePhoenix Solutions. According to Greg Schottland, whose title changes from president of ASNA to vice president and general manager of the BluePhoenix System i Division, nothing else changes.

In an e-mail, Schottland says, “Our business is strong and–as a result of the merger with BluePhoenix–our reach is greater than ever.” He also says

You don’t need a postcard to know that printers aren’t high on the list of environmentalists’ favorite products. But with Earth Day coming up next Wednesday, even paper-loving printer makers like InfoPrint Solutions Company are positioning their products as more eco-friendly. Last week, the Ricoh–IBM amalgam announced two new entry-level printers that even a tree-hugger could embrace.

InfoPrint Solutions Company claims the environment was “top of mind” when it developed the InfoPrint 1930 MFP and InfoPrint 1940 MFP, two entry-level multifunction printers designed for smallish groups of five to 10 users and that cost $966 and $1,159 respectively.

Au Naturale, a chain of 40 clothing and houseware stores in the U.K., has moved onto its parent company’s i OS-based merchandise management system (MMS), MMS developer Island Pacific Systems announced last week. Despite being run on the same system, the Island Pacific MMS is able to keep the two chains’ accounts and operations separate.

Au Naturale was taken over last May by Ethel Austin, a 300-store clothing company that itself had just been bought by Elaine Gray, a respected player in the British clothing store industry. After the acquisition, Gray disclosed plans to sell some of Au Naturale’s success

PFSweb will provide comprehensive order fulfillment services for the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), the organization charged with running exchanges on U.S. Army and Air Force bases around the world. The five-year contract, which is valued at $15 million, calls for PFSweb to manage inventory and ship orders originating from AAFES’ e-commerce Web site and catalog operations.

The AAFES was created in 1895 by order of the U.S. Government’s War Department to set up a market or store at every military post, where practical. Over the next 114 years, the organization has evolved to meet the changing needs

Hospitals and doctor’s offices that use CPU Medical Management Systems‘ i OS-based medical billing and revenue cycle management software, MED/FM, were given a new option for healthcare EDI last month when CPU struck a deal with Gateway EDI, a provider of electronic data interchange solutions for the healthcare industry.

MED/FM is a comprehensive practice management solution for medical practices and medical billing services that’s used by more than 10,000 doctors across the country. The software, which runs exclusively on i OS (it’s also available as a service over the Internet), helps to automate a range of common healthcare

Global Software and Visual South last week announced a partnership that will see Global’s spreadsheet automation software being offered to users of Infor‘s ERP Visual, which is the market that Visual South targets.

“We are pleased to introduce the Global Software, Inc. spreadsheet automation tools to our customer base,” said Jack Shannon, president of Visual South, which sells and implements Infor’s ERP Visual software suite around the country. “Global’s ability to turn Microsoft Excel into a powerful VISUAL dashboard will allow our customers to view key performance indicators in a familiar environment.”

Infor ERP Visual is a collection of