• Hong Kong Company Supports i5/OS with Backup Product

  August 28, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  iSeries and System i shops can now use Leb Shama‘s Ahsay Online Backup Suite to protect their OS/400 and i5/OS servers, the company announced recently. With Ahsay Online Backup Server (OBS) version 5.2.2.5, the Hong Kong company added the System i to a long list of supported servers. The Ahsay Online Backup Suite Provider Edition is a collection of utilities designed for use by Internet and application service providers (XSPs). The suite includes the core Ahsay OBS engine, which supports Unix, Linux, Windows, Mac OSX, NetWare, and all other Java-supported operating systems. Other components of the suite include the

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• Valid Tech Supports Windows Terminal Services with Biometric Authentication System

  August 28, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Valid Technologies, which develops a fingerprint authentication solution that supports i5/OS, this month unveiled a new release of its Valid Secure System Authentication (VSSA) solution that supports Microsoft Windows Terminal Servers. Valid Tech delivered one of the IBM midrange server’s first biometric authentication systems in 2005, when it launched VSSA version 1.4. The Boca Raton, Florida, company’s development kit included the code necessary for embedding VSSA into existing applications developed in RPG, COBOL, C++, Java, and Visual Basic. VSSA itself runs on i5/OS V5R3 or higher. With VSSA version 2.3, the company has expanded the product to support applications

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• InfoPrint Solutions Launches Two Color Printers

  August 28, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  InfoPrint Solutions Company, the joint venture between IBM and Ricoh formed earlier this year following the sale of IBM’s printing division to Ricoh, announced the launch of two new color multi-function printers (MFPs) last week. Like all MFPs, the new InfoPrint Color 1759 MFP and 1769 MFP allow users to copy, scan, fax, and print from a single device. And while the new products offer both color and monochrome capabilities, they offer only “light production” color capabilities, which means it shouldn’t be your everyday color production printer. The InfoPrint 1759 prints black-and-white jobs at the rate of 40 pages

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• English Consultancy Launches Application Modernization Initiative

  August 28, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Northdoor has launched a System i application modernization service, the London System i consultancy announced last week. The company plans to use LANSA‘s Rapid Application Modernization Process (RAMP) product and methodology to speed the integration of RPG logic with Java and Microsoft .NET. “Despite the limitations of System i applications, many companies are rightly reluctant to replace them, as they are reliable and encapsulate extensive and proven business logic,” says David Ballard, Northdoor’s director. “But there is a way to extend the life of these investments for many years to come. System i applications can now be modernized to

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• Homebuilder Taps LANSA for Lead Management System

  August 28, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Maronda Homes, a homebuilder that does business across the Midwest and the southern states, has installed a lead management system, based on LANSA‘s Windows and System i application development technology, to help it sell new houses, LANSA announced last week. Maronda uses a unique approach to sell houses that involves marketing its homes by using directories and Web sites. However, this approach generated leads that the company sometimes had a difficult time utilizing to its full potential, according to LANSA. That is what led the company to ask LANSA to build the Active Lead Management (ALM) system to organize

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• Infor Updates i5/OS-Based Distribution Solution

  August 28, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Infor last week launched a new version of ERP A+, an i5/OS-based application designed for companies in the distribution business. With the new version, Infor has integrated ERP A+ with some of its other products. According to Infor’s A+ announcement, the new version of A+ delivers two new features: integration with other Infor products, including Infor SCM Demand Planning and “document management,” and a new interface that is so easy to use that employees will learn it “in record time,” the company says. Customers purchasing the new version of A+ and using it with SCM Demand Planning can expect to

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• DB2/400 Support for Domino 8 is Missing in Action

  August 27, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As we reported in our Four Hundred Stuff newsletter last week, IBM is now shipping Version 8 of its Notes/Domino groupware stack. The software, which is a kicker to the Domino 7 software that IBM delivered in September 2005, offers the usual improvements in scalability, reliability, performance, and new gadgetry. But apparently what it will not offer is the ability to store Notes and Domino data natively in the DB2/400 database on i5/OS and OS/400 servers. The capability of storing Notes and Domino data in DB2 databases was first delivered with Domino 7, but only DB2 Universal Data Base, the

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• Server Sales in Q2 Reach Heights Not Seen Since 2000

  August 27, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The box counters at both IDC and Gartner have taken the pulse and blood pressure of the server market for the second quarter of 2007, and as far as they can tell, their patient hasn’t been this healthy since the peak of the dot-com boom seven years ago. Server revenues are matching levels not seen since 2000, and shipments are continuing to grow, even if more slowly than in past quarters. According to IDC’s estimates, worldwide server sales rose by 6.3 percent to $13.1 billion in the second quarter of the year, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of quarter-to-quarter revenue

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• VMware ESX Server Support for the System i Is Imminent

  August 27, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  A month ago, I told you that IBM had initiated a Redbook Residency program to solicit volunteers to help Big Blue write up documentation on forthcoming support for VMware‘s popular ESX Server virtual machine hypervisor on System x and BladeCenter servers configured as a hybrid combination with System i servers. As it turns out, IBM sort of announced this capability on July 24, and will be delivering it on September 14, the same date that the new Power6-based System i 570 and the i5/OS V5R4M5 patched operating system for that box is also available. The announcement that IBM would

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• The X Factor: Economic Recession Is the IT Innovator’s Ally

  August 27, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  With the private equity markets drying up and the stock markets suffering from a bad case of jitters thanks to a financial crisis brought about by the writing of heaven knows how many bad home mortgages in the world, it is natural enough for everyone in the working world, as well as those who are retired, to be worried about economic recession. But not everyone will be worried. IT vendors looking to take on entrenched incumbents will, if history is any guide, do pretty well if a recession results from these financial shenanigans. While it is difficult to establish a

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