• m-Power Generates Consistent Reports Across the Board

  December 11, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Companies that use mrc‘s m-Power development tool to create reports can be assured that all reports generated by their m-Power applications, whether they’re in PDF, Excel, or HTML format, will have the same look and feel, mrc announced last week. m-Power is collection of development tools mrc rolled out several years ago for creating Web applications, reports and queries, dashboard interfaces, and business intelligence apps on top of existing databases. The software relies heavily on JavaScript and works on System i and other major server platforms. One of the key components of m-Power is m-Painter, a WYSIWYG editor for

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• Agilysys to Sell J.D. Edwards Apps for Oracle

  December 11, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Agilysys and Oracle unveiled an agreement last week that will see Agilysys reselling several of Oracle’s enterprise software products, including the J.D. Edwards EnterpriseOne and World and PeopleSoft Enterprise ERP suites, Siebel CRM, and Hyperion business intelligence software. Agilysys, which used to be one of three distributors for the IBM System i server, is in the midst of a shift in its business strategy as it moves to develop closer relationships with the consumers of business IT. In January, Agilysys sold its distribution business to Arrow Electronics for $485 million, leaving Arrow and Avnet as the only System i distributors.

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• IBM Adds iSeries Support to WebSphere Dashboard Framework

  December 11, 2007 Alex Woodie

  IBM last week announced that the WebSphere Dashboard Framework, a tool for creating composite application screens that are delivered as Web-based dashboards, is soon to gain support for i5/OS V5R4 running on the iSeries server, in addition to the mainframe running Linux. The WebSphere Dashboard Framework is an extension of IBM’s WebSphere Portlet Factory that’s designed to allow developers to rapidly build and deploy pattern-based interfaces to existing business processes. Once these dashboards are deployed, employees and other users are able to record transactions, update customer information, or make other changes to applications residing on a bevy of back-end servers

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• Group 1 Launches E-Mail Marketing Software

  December 11, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Group 1 Software, the Pitney-Bowes subsidiary that specializes in helping organizations get the best postal rates, introduced a new product called e-Messaging last week that’s aimed at helping companies conduct e-mail marketing campaigns. e-Messaging is designed to be used by call centers that are transitioning to become multi-channel contact centers that also handle customer communication via e-mail and short messaging service (SMS). Customers that already use Group 1’s DOC1 and e2 products to produce and send paper-based communication can use e-Messaging to transition the documents to electronic formats, without the need to redesign the documents for electronic delivery. The

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• BOSaNOVA Earns Storage Proven Cert from IBM

  December 11, 2007 Alex Woodie

  System i shops looking to boost the security of their data through the use of encryption can feel good about going with BOSaNOVA‘s Q3 encryption appliance now that the product has received the Storage Proven certification from IBM. Q3 is a rack-mounted appliance that BOSaNOVA introduced earlier this year to help companies protect their sensitive data. The product, which sits between the server being backed up and the backup device or devices performing backups, uses dual-interlaced 3DES encryption engines that split the data into two streams that are encrypted separately using 112-bit keys. Obtaining Storage Proven status for

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• Now’s the Time to Review Business Continuity Strategy, SunGard Says

  December 11, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Hurricane season is over, but that doesn’t mean businesses should stop thinking about their disaster recovery (DR) plans. Last week availability services provider SunGard laid out a list of steps companies can take to keep their business continuity programs in “exceptional fitness,” all year long. When hurricane season approaches in the spring, it’s natural for companies to start thinking about their business continuity plans, says William DiMartini, senior vice president of professional services for SunGard Availability Services. “Yet, we see a general sense of complacency grow as we move into the fall months, particularly following a slower than usual storm

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• Database Tool Maker Joins the System i Market

  December 10, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  They say you learn something new every day. But when you have been in the AS/400, iSeries, and System i market for 6,732 days, as I have been, you don’t necessarily learn big new things every day. But when a vendor called Resolution Software, which makes database design and maintenance tools for other platforms, said last week that it was coming to the System i space, the company’s tools made me aware of database issues I had not really known existed before. The brilliance of the design of the System/38 and its progeny–the AS/400, the iSeries, and now the

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• State of the System i: Other Software Makers Weigh In

  December 10, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As we wind down 2007 and get ready to take on 2008, now is a good time to take stock of the state of the i5/OS and OS/400 ecosystem. So for the past several months I have been talking to companies large and small in the ecosystem who peddle hardware, software, or a mix of the two to see how business has been in 2007, what they are hearing from i5/OS and OS/400 shops in terms of products and budgets, and what they expect their own businesses to do in 2008. The good news, at least as far as the

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• IDC Says Server Buyers Weigh Economy and Power in Q3

  December 10, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Everybody, with the possible exception of the head bean counter at the company, likes shiny, new servers. New servers have more bandwidth to support larger workloads, which makes transaction volumes go up and response time go down; they also tend to be more energy efficient these days, which is a good thing. But whenever the economy is not roaring along, people get concerned and they do not want to shell out money for new iron. Right now, the economy is doing OK and the desire to have more powerful and efficient machines is offsetting the jitters among server buyers. Market

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• As I See It: What’s Past Is Prologue

  December 10, 2007 Victor Rozek

  Just beyond the holiday season lurks 2008, carrying the prospects of a fresh start and the baggage of past performance. New years are like that; full of hope and promise, but tempered by what went on the year before. For IT professionals, 2008 will be shaped by the confluence of powerful forces themselves molded by the recent past. The most critical of those forces, as always, is the economy, and how it will fare depends on who you believe. I’ve consulted the psychic hot line, and reshuffled the Tarot cards, but the future is still a bit murky. So to

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