• Echo Cuts Waste with SPLTOOL Investment

  September 25, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Five years ago, report distribution was a manual task at Echo, the Lake Zurich, Illinois, manufacturer of chain saws and other outdoor power equipment. Then the company made a paltry investment of a little more than $200 in the an automated spool file distribution utility for the iSeries called SPLTOOL from BVS/Tools, and the company has been reaping the rewards ever since. As a subsidiary of the Japan-based Kioritz Corporation, Echo makes a range of professional- and consumer-grade outdoor power equipment, ranging from leaf blowers and line trimmers to brush cutters and edgers. Since it was founded 30 years

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• Arcad Delivers Free Emulator, Tester for WDSc

  September 25, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Arcad Software, the up-and-coming provider of programmers’ tools for the System i platform, recently announced that it’s giving away two pieces of software: a 5250 emulator that plugs into IBM‘s WDSc development environment, and a utility for testing System i objects. Arcad says its new plug-in, called the Arcad 5250 Emulator for Eclipse, is handy for opening emulation sessions and working with 5250 objects from within the WDSc development environment. Instead of leaving the IDE and opening a separate window, developers can access native 5250 resources without leaving the environment. Users can open an unlimited number of sessions

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• CCSS Concentrates on European Expansion

  September 25, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Over the last 18 months, English System i systems management software vendor CCSS has focused much of its attention on building its business in the United States and the Far East. Now, the company is shifting its sights to capture more business closer to home, in mainland Europe. “Last year was significant for us in relocating some of our senior members of staff from the UK to the US,” says Ray Wright, managing director of CCSS. “Coupled with this, we launched CCSS Asia in the Philippines to more directly serve System i customers in the Asia Pacific region. Now, by

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• Gaylord Picks’ i5/OS System for National Harbor Convention Center

  September 25, 2007 Alex Woodie

  The Gaylord Entertainment Company will stay with what it knows in outfitting its newest convention center with IT capabilities. Last week, Agilysys announced that Gaylord will use a suite of software anchored by its i5/OS-based Lodging Management System (LMS) to run its new 40-acre Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, which is scheduled to open in the new community of National Harbor, Maryland, next April. Gaylord is a big System i customer, as it uses LMS and other Agilysys products to manage its other properties. These include the 2,800-room Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee (site of

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• Clearview Boosts 5250 Screen Navigation for Smartphones

  September 25, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Clearview Software International, a software development firm based in Amherst, New Hampshire, recently started selling a new version of its 5250 and Unix emulator for Windows smartphones and PDAs, Co*STAR Mobile Release 2.0. With this release, Clearview has focused on improving user navigation of System i screens from small displays, such as those on PDAs. According to Rich Lowney, CEO of Clearview Software, the new release of the Co*STAR product, announced Sunday, stemmed from the needs of several customers who requested improvements be made to their PDA user interfaces when connecting to iSeries applications. “With the additional features, we

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• ICS Updates FormSprint

  September 25, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Integrated Custom Software recently updated its FormSprint suite of document management software with several new capabilities, including improvements to its PDF archive system, support for the U.S. Postal Service’s new bar codes, and new spool file extraction capabilities. ICS is based in Connecticut and has sold FormSprint to more than 1,000 customers, who have used the product with every OS/400 and i5/OS-based ERP system imaginable. The company’s offerings handle a range of document-related needs, from merging form-overlays with spool file data to generating MICR and barcode printing to electronic distribution of documents (via hooks into Computer Keyes e-mail and fax

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• B&L Releases Cost Estimating Wizard

  September 25, 2007 Alex Woodie

  B&L Releases Cost Estimating Wizard B&L Information Systems, the Bridgeman, Michigan, developer of ERP products for the metal and die-casting industries, unveiled a new cost estimating wizard this month that works with both its i5/OS-based BLIS400 and its Windows-based Odyssey product lines. The new cost estimating wizard helps customers by allowing them to create their own cost calculations, even for user-defined fields, B&L says. For example, users can create their own calculations for yields, tooling costs, or overhead allocations. Another benefit of using the new software is being able to define your own screens. The capability to add fields,

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• SAP Plants Its Flag in Mid-Market Territory with SaaS Apps

  September 24, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Application software giant SAP certainly is not the first company to bring hosted applications to market on a subscription basis to the midrange market, but the German company’s top executives made it clear at the launch in New York last week of the forthcoming “A1S” product line, officially called Business ByDesign, that SAP intended to dominate the mid-market much as it currently does for applications aimed at the largest enterprises in the world. The stakes are high, and SAP took great pains to explain why it has moved slowly and deliberately as it chases the mid-market with a software as

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• A1S Is to Applications What AS/400 Was to Systems

  September 24, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Product demonstrations by IT vendors during product launches are by necessity short, sweet, and convincing to whatever point that the vendor is trying to make. Provided there is not a system or software crash, of course. Instead of going to Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco this week, which I would normally do, I decided to sit tight in New York and attend the launch of SAP‘s project “A1S” software suite, the company’s first Web-based, online, full application suite for midrange businesses. I know that I only saw as much of the A1S product, which will be sold under

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• EGL: At Least It’s Not Java, But It Ain’t RPG, Either

  September 24, 2007 Brian Kelly

  As soon as I read the article, EGL: The Future of Programming for the System i?, from last week, I knew there is nothing I can do but complain. I am upset–very upset, in fact–that I have to use PHP and the other stuff that is used on other platforms in order to get my System i shops to the Web. It did not have to be this way. From years of observation, I know that IBM is very stubborn, often arrogant. And when IBM digs in, it is usually incorrect. In choosing to create a new language for

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