U.K.-based Halcyon Software, a developer of systems management software for i OS and other platforms, is growing its presence in the U.S. with the goal of attracting new customers. But instead of concentrating on individual AS/400 shops, Halcyon will primarily target outsourcing firms that run large data centers, which in turn will use Halcyon’s software to manage the individual clients’ systems. It’s a practice that has already provided successful for the software company in the U.S.

Halcyon Software was at the recent COMMON conference in Reno, Nevada, to announce the expansion of its office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the

When IBM introduced the AS/400 in 1988, it was clearly ahead of its time with regard to its report and query capabilities. But business intelligence has advanced while IBM depended on Query/400 for too long. IBM stepped forward with DB2 Web Query, the replacement for Query/400, and ISVs such as Coglin Mill–with RODIN, its ETL software–have also stepped up to advance database technology.

The major enhancement in Release 6 of RODIN is the capability to capture data in real time. In the previous releases, the change capture functionality was limited to running in batch mode and most users scheduled

AS/400 shops that are looking to modernize their core applications may want to check out the latest release of the Valence Web Application Framework from CNX. Last week, the Chicago, Illinois, software developer officially unveiled Valence version 1.2, which brings several new features aimed at easing the creation of AJAX-style interfaces from i OS apps, without branching much beyond the core RPG skill-sets already in place at most AS/400 shops.

Valence is an i OS implementation of Ext Js, which is a collection of open- and closed-source JavaScript classes for building rich AJAX-style Web applications. The developers at CNX

For many companies, managing an EDI environment can be a major hassle. Sure, it provides the conduit through which orders come and go. But because EDI is a requirement in many industries, it doesn’t bring the user any new business advantage–it just gets them back to par. The developer of the MegaXML EDI package, a company called Task Performance Group, is positioning its EDI hosting business as a cost- and headache-reducer for AS/400 shops that don’t want to manage EDI any more.

Task Performance Group launched MegaXML a decade ago to take advantage of the flexibility of XML. On

Veryant recently delivered a new release of isCOBOL, its Eclipse-based IDE aimed at COBOL developers who are looking to modernize their applications with Java. With isCOBOL 2009, the company is now enabling Java programs to directly access data residing in COBOL applications, which should streamline the application modernization process. The new release also introduces full support for DB2/400, and new language localizations.

Veryant’s approach to application modernization is a unique one. The company develops the isCOBOL IDE that provides a COBOL compiler and other COBOL development functionality, all within the comfortable confines of the Eclipse framework, which is heavily

ACI Worldwide uses a bunch of different IBM servers to power its outsourced electronic payment processing network, which is used by hundreds of banks, retailers, and processors around the world. Doing the heavy lifting for ACI are a collection i OS (AS/400), AIX, and mainframe servers. But getting all these different systems to work together was a challenge for ACI, so it brought in UC4 Software, which specializes in cross-platform job scheduling software.

The diverse array of computing platforms was an obstacle to day-to-day job scheduling at ACI Worldwide, according to Dmitriy Ilyin, ACI’s software architect. “Our original job

Following an intensive 16-month review process Whitney National Bank, a $12 billion bank based in Louisiana, has decided to install the i OS-based SilverLake application as its core banking platform, SilverLake’s developers, Jack Henry & Associates, announced last week.

The selection of a core banking system is one of the biggest decisions a bank can make. To make sure it picked the right system, Whitney National hired a consultant to oversee the selection process, which involved an intensive review of many different banking applications and their technological underpinnings.

After careful consideration, Whitney National made the decision to replace its

Developers who use DB2 Connect to access databases running on System i midrange systems and System z mainframes from applications running on Windows, Unix, and Linux systems will gain better support for triggers and stored procedures, among other enhancements, with the latest release of the software, version 9.7, which IBM announced last week.

DB2 Connect is a piece of data access middleware that is used to access DB2 databases running on System i and System z servers. The software gives remote applications the capability to create, update, control, and manage DB2 databases running on host systems using a variety of

The economy may be in the dumper, and initial public offerings (IPOs) of technology stocks may be a lean trickle of what they used to be. But last week was apparently the right time for SolarWinds to go public. The Texas-based developer of affordable systems management software for mid size businesses raised $151 million on the New York Stock Exchange.

SolarWinds is one of a growing number of company that offers a lower-cost alternative to the systems management software from the “Big Four” vendors–BMC Software, CA, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM. The vendor, which was founded in

Speedware is the latest ISV to join the Midrange Alliance Program, Microsoft‘s program for consultants and ISVs who are interested in advocating a .NET approach to modernizing OS/400 programs, and migrating them off the platform to Windows.

Speedware is a Montreal, Quebec-based company that has been helping AS/400 shops modernize their applications for the last 10 years. In addition to modernizing their systems, Speedware has developed a collection of tools to help automate the process of migrating AS/400 shops and their RPG code off the proprietary midrange platform entirely. This makes Speedware a good fit for Microsoft’s MAP program,