There is a resurgence of interest in delivering virtual tape library (VTL) solutions to System i shops, and one of the companies driving that resurgence is Crossroads Systems. Crossroads develops and sells a VTL appliance called the Virtual TapeServer (VTS) that offers close integration with the IBM i OS server (Power Systems). An OEM to tier-one storage providers for many years, the Austin, Texas, firm is now counting on the VTS to help drive its new sales strategy.

Crossroads has a long history in the enterprise storage market. Much of its business has been based around its core technology,

Information Builders (IBI) unveiled a new release of WebFOCUS last week at its annual user conference in Nashville, Tennessee. The vendor says it has included more than 100 new features in the release, including a new predictive analytics and data mining module called RStat, and the capability to view activity such as cash register transactions in real time through a new module called Activity Monitor. This release also brought enhancements to the InfoAssist ad hoc reporting tool, and the Active PDF navigation tool.

WebFOCUS is a mature, Java-based business intelligence platform that runs natively on the IBM i OS (i5/OS)

Application modernization continues to be one of the top goals of IT shops during this economic recession. But navigating the maze of spaghetti code that often underlies legacy applications hasn’t gotten any easier. To help CIOs and tech managers get the most out of modernization projects, Micro Focus recently launched Modernization Workbench version 2.1, which consolidates several of the company’s tools aimed at understanding legacy code.

Modernization Workbench is a collection of tools that help organizations gain a greater understanding of the inner workings of legacy applications in preparation for modernizing the application using newer technology, or migrating it to

xTuple this month opened an online store aimed at making it easier for partners and users to buy and sell add-on products that work with its open source ERP software suite. If it attracts just a fraction of the Internet traffic enjoyed by Apple and its consumer-focused AppStore, xTuple’s new e-commerce Web site, called the xChange, will be a huge hit, and could encourage other enterprise software vendors to follow suit.

xTuple (formerly OpenMFG) is one of a handful of companies trying to make a living making and selling ERP software under the new “commercial open source” development and delivery

QlikTech, arguably the fastest growing company in the business intelligence market the last few years, further etched its mark on the BI market last week with the debut of QlikView version 9. The new release, which doesn’t run on i OS but will work with DB2/400 data, offers support for two of the IT industry’s most compelling trends: cloud-based computing and free tools.

It’s hard not to like QlikTech, as the Swedish-born vendor has uprooted many of the BI market’s sacred cows since it stormed onto the scene in the early 2000s. By coupling an intuitive front-end interface with

System i shops that are looking for alternatives to tape-based backup processes were given another option yesterday when Concentric announced its new hosted backup service. The Silicon Valley firm is using online backup technology from i365, formerly EVault, and now part of Seagate Technology, to power its new service.

Companies of all sizes are looking for new ways to protect their data as backup windows shrink and data volumes grow. Virtual tape libraries (VTLs) are one way to speed up backups, but this requires companies to install another device into their data centers that must be managed. Small

There are boatloads of retail companies that depend on the IBM AS/400 (iSeries, System i, IBM i) to run all, or at least a big majority, of their business applications. These are highly functional, highly customized programs that tend to be not only industry-specific, but also very company-specific. They are prized for their features, their functionality, the speed at which they run, and the dependability of the platform they run on. Yet many companies struggle with the integration of these backend apps and new Web-based front ends that interface with customers, suppliers, and all those who are outside the AS/400

Inventive Designers, a Belgium-based company that designs and markets a multi-platform document reformatting and routing engine and a front-end interface for designing documents, has partnered with RAZAR Technologies, which will sell and implement Inventive Designers’ IBM i-based solutions in the United States.

RAZAR distributes electronic content management software and provides installation and implementation services, placing an emphasis on green technologies and reducing costs. Tom Levesque, chief solution specialist, is a former representative for Inventive Designers, so his knowledge of the ID product line runs deep.

“Scriptura was a perfect fit for our product set because of its positive

Western Power Sports, an Idaho-based distributor of parts for motorcycles, ATVs, snowmobiles, and watercraft, is using the RPGsp Web development tool to power its e-commerce Web sites, Profound Logic announced last week. Since adopting RPGsp, the company reports that online sales have increased five-fold to $250,000 per day, and now account for half of the company’s revenues.

The folks at Western Power Sports were just about ready to give up on running the company’s e-commerce Web site themselves, according to a Profound Logic case study. Since 2000, the company had done Web site development using another development tool. But it

Being alerted to the presence of bugs is an essential part of the application development cycle. However, without a centralized way to hunt down and neutralize the little buggers, they risk falling through the cracks and ending up in production systems. To help eliminate this possibility, Elementool last week unveiled version 1.1 of Test Case, an updated component of its suite of software as a service (SaaS) offerings.

Test Case is a Web-based test management product that’s designed to be used by development chiefs and other managers in charge of programming and quality assurance teams. The software, which was first