• Prepare Now for Volatile Supply Chains, IBM Study Says

  March 3, 2009 Alex Woodie

  IBM is urging companies to take steps now to deal with the instability of supply chains in the years to come. The recommendations–including more widespread use of RFID and GPS sensors, deeper B2B integration, and better predictive analytics–were included in the Global Chief Supply Chain Officer Study, which details the results of interviews with 400 supply chain executives, and which was released last week. While globalization brings the promise of greater revenue for the manufactures, distributors, and retailers that operate supply chains, increased cash flow comes with a substantial risk of disruption that didn’t exist before. This abstract risk becomes

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• CDW Taps Linoma for Database Encryption

  February 25, 2009 Alex Woodie

  When CDW needed a way to encrypt the data in its i5/OS business applications, the computer retailer turned to Linoma Software and its Crypto Complete offering. While the product provided a relatively straightforward method for automating the encryption of fields in DB2/400, the real challenge for CDW was determining which System i programs and users should have access to the decrypted data. CDW is a longtime and satisfied user of the IBM System i midrange server. The company, primarily operates as an a direct sales, Internet sales, and catalog retailer of technology solutions for business, government, and education, shipping hundreds

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• Speedware Says RPG-to-.NET Code Converter Is the Real Deal

  February 24, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Want to get from RPG to .NET without a lot of muss and fuss? You might be able to, now that Speedware is reselling and servicing Sykora-ML‘s ML-iMPACT code converter in the North American market. Skykor-ML claims the tool can convert 100 percent of RPG functions into fully maintainable C# or Java. That’s quite unusual and special for a code converter, according to Speedware officials, who have decades of experience in the IBM midrange and mainframe migration business. The ML-iMPACT tool is one of the most advanced code converters that Speedware director of marketing Chris Koppe has ever seen.

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• Tripwire Adds i OS Support to Configuration Control Software

  February 24, 2009 Dan Burger

  Regulatory compliance, increased accountability, and providing audit-ability have tightened the screws on some otherwise sloppy corporate practices. It’s also put pressure on IT departments to take care of a lot of the messes. And once again, we have issues relating to monitoring multiple platforms in an effective manner. Moving a step closer to cracking this nut, Tripwire has added support for IBM i (formerly i5/OS and OS/400) to its change control software called Tripwire Enterprise. Many organizations that have been wrestling with compliance issues looked first to the quickest way to compliance, which often took platform-specific approaches. Every silo had

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• Automated Routing Streamlines Deliveries, Lowers Distribution Costs

  February 24, 2009 Andy Hedrick

  When Southland Sod Farms decided to automate its fleet routing operations, the company knew that two years worth of coding mathematical algorithms and integrating various geographic tools were not in the plans. The order data needed for planning delivery routes was already in place on the AS/400. The goal was adding an optimization tool that would streamline route planning and reduce the miles and hours needed for making deliveries. Among the options was Appian Logistics‘ Direct Route system. It became the choice partly because of its track record: two decades in the transportation business and more than 800 locations

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• iEnterprises CRM Goes On-Demand with Help from IBM

  February 24, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Hope springs anew in the IT business. For the last five to 10 years, there’s been plenty of hope in the areas of software as a service (SaaS), open source software, service oriented architecture (SOA), CRM, and mobile computing, but it mostly failed to live up to the hype. Now, as a result of a partnership between iEnterprises and IBM, System i shops may gain access to advanced CRM software that utilize these technologies, without incurring the costs of building it themselves. iEnterprises is a Murray Hill, New Jersey-based CRM software developer that was founded by John Carini, who

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• iWay Debuts New Information Management Suite

  February 24, 2009 Alex Woodie

  iWay Software last week announced the Enterprise Information Management (EIM) suite, a new product that aims at solving the disparate IT integrations tasks that are required to support standard batch-oriented reporting needs, which tend to be well defined, as well as real-time reporting requirements, which has a wider scope that varies according to need. As a subsidiary of business intelligence (BI) software vendor Information Builders, iWay Software is accustomed to using its assortment of data integration tools in support of data warehouses and data marts. However, as the requirements for BI have evolved from the batch-oriented extract, transform, load

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• New Encryption Key Management Standard Posited by Vendors

  February 24, 2009 Alex Woodie

  A group of vendors last week unveiled the Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP), a new encryption key management standard that they hope will solve some the interoperability problems surrounding encryption–namely, making it easier to retrieve encrypted data–which ultimately will lead to greater adoption of encryption. The companies intend to submit KMIP to the standards body Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) for approval. KMIP is designed to provide a single, comprehensive protocol for communication between enterprise key management services and encryption systems. It was originally formulated by Hewlett-Packard, IBM, RSA Security, and Thales (formerly

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• BI Vendor QlikTech Celebrates Success

  February 24, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Times are tough for companies across the world. But one business that’s having the time of its life is business intelligence software vendor QlikTech. The Swedish-born American company and its products were recently given the top ranking by Aberdeen, which went like champagne with its caviar announcement that business in the United States increased by about 50 percent in 2008. When Aberdeen recently published its findings about how the major business intelligence and performance management vendors stacked up across various customer-driven metrics, there was one company all alone at the top of the heap: QlikTech. QlikTech was the

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• Lawson Debuts Another M3 BI Tool

  February 24, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Lawson Software recently rolled out two new packages of business intelligence and performance management for users of its M3 suite of ERP products, which are typically deployed on IBM System i servers. The new offerings, M3 Analytics and M3 Analytics for Manufacturing, carry the promises of quick implementations and improved decision making for manufacturers and distributors. The new M3 Analytics product contains about 70 pre-built key performance indicators (KPIs) and 50 scorecards for basic business processes encountered in manufacturing and distribution businesses, including sales, finance, procurement, and warehousing and logistics. Customers that choose the M3 Analytics for Manufacturing get additional

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