• Reporting Tool Works with i5/OS Trucking Software

  April 24, 2007 Alex Woodie

  i5/OS trucking software developer Innovative Computing recently announced Scriptor, a new data access and reporting tool that works with Innovative Enterprise Software (IES), the company’s flagship fleet management system for the System i server. Scriptor was designed to provide IES users with quick access to important information such as load, billing, and equipment information. The software also brings predefined reports providing IES users with key performance indicators (KPI) measuring equipment productivity and utilization, customer service, and revenue analysis, among other performance measurements. Innovative hopes that, by making this information available from a graphical interface navigated with a mouse as opposed

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• Help/Systems Issues Another Update for Robot/SCHEDULE

  April 24, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Help/Systems last week rolled out an update to Robot/SCHEDULE version 10 that allows it to fully leverage the new capabilities in the latest release of Robot/NETWORK, its cross-product systems automation solution for organizations with multiple System i servers. Robot/SCHEDULE is Help/Systems job scheduler for i5/OS and OS/400 systems. In late 2006, the company rolled out Robot/SCHEDULE 10.0, which introduced a new Java-based management console, called the Robot/SCHEDULE Explorer, which provided streamlined access to information about jobs and their schedules. Then, earlier this month, the company launched version 10 of Robot/NETWORK, which also brought a new Java-based Explorer interface. While the

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• Power6: Later in 2007 Rather than Sooner?

  April 23, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  There is some hubbub in the server market that IBM‘s Power6 processors have shifted to a later ship date than perhaps Big Blue had planned. It is hard to say for sure exactly what is going on, since IBM does not provide future ship dates for products that are not announced and has vagued up the product roadmaps it shows partners and customers in recent weeks. But IBM’s press relations and top executives have said repeatedly that Power6 will ship in systems in the second half of 2007. A few months ago, a typo in a press release said

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• Slowing U.S. Sales Hurt IBM’s First Quarter

  April 23, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2007 last Tuesday, kicking off the earnings season for the year for the major players in the IT market. Big Blue’s sales were just a hair over $22 billion, up 6.6 percent, with net income of $1.8 billion, up 8 percent. The interesting news is that sales were flat in the United States, and as you might expect, sales in the booming Asia/Pacific region helped give IBM growth. Europe, which is often a problem area when it comes to growth for IBM, helped out this time, too, thanks in large

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• Reader Feedback on User-Priced System i Boxes

  April 23, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It is hard to say for sure how the new user-priced System i 515 and 525 servers will do in the market. I am optimistic that the machines can do a better job of competing in certain situations, particularly among customers who might otherwise install ERP-style software on Windows machines or, worse still, move off the System i5 to a Windows box as part of an ERP upgrade. Having not done the math yet myself on how the boxes compare, I think it is appropriate to share with you some of the initial reader feedback we have received. Oh, yes!

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• As I See It: Induced Labor

  April 23, 2007 Victor Rozek

  I’ve been reading a lot lately about the great American labor shortage. Boomers are beginning to retire and expire, the theory goes, and corporations are scrambling to find sufficient legions of white-collar professionals to fill the void. Having looked in all the closets and finding no professionals lurking within, they have little choice but to continue outsourcing high-tech jobs and taking reluctant advantage of foreign labor through the H-1B program. And it sounds so probable too, except for that free market thing. A funny thing is supposed to happen in a free market economy when there is a labor shortage:

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• Merrill Lynch Takes a Closer Look at IBM’s Server Sales in Q1

  April 23, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  When it comes to server sales, the first quarter is never a particularly fun one for IBM. For IBM’s historical and IT budgetary reasons–it is hard to say which one is the chicken and which one is the egg in that situation–companies with enterprise systems have tended to do a lot of their shopping in the latter half of a year, particularly as the year is ending and budget funds will evaporate if they are not spent. Similarly, having shot their budgets in Q4, they are not in a position to consume more gear in Q1, so they tend

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• Marywood University Offers Five-Day RPG Crash Course

  April 23, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If you have a newbie programmer that you need to get up to speed on RPG, you might want to check out a new introductory crash course in RPG programming from Marywood University. The university, which is located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, is offering a 3-credit, 5-day course that runs from June 4 through 9 called Introduction to RPG and RPG IV. Marywood is a business and managerial science college that offers bachelor of arts in business administration degrees with a focus on Business and Information Technology from within its Arts College. It is also one of the few

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• IBM Goes Vertical with Chip Designs

  April 23, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  When you are trying to limit the distances between any two points, one way you can do that is to move from two to three dimensions and thereby pack things in vertically. This is what humans discovered as they went from caves to homes to McMansions and from towns to cities to megalopolis. So it is only natural that IBM researchers have worked out ways to stack electronic circuits, thereby making the distances between the components shorter. This is important for two big reasons. First, by going 3D with chips, the shorter distances mean that electronic signals can travel faster

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• JDA Has a “Flying Start” in the First Quarter

  April 23, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  JDA Software hosted its annual Focus user conference in New Orleans last week, and took the occasion as springboard to talk about preliminary financial results for its first quarter ended March 31. And the numbers, which have been driven by JDA’s acquisition of supply chain software provider Manugistics last year, are continuing to improve. JDA said that it expects sales for the quarter to be between $89.7 million and $90.7 million. Software license sales during the quarter will be $17 million in the quarter, with $4.2 million coming from the formerly independent Manugistics, which contributed $36.5 million to the top-line

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