• Linoma Joins iManifest U.S. to Help Spread the i Word

  January 5, 2010 Alex Woodie

  Linoma Software became the latest System i software vendor to join iManifest U.S., the grass-roots initiative founded last year to promote the System i in the United States. With last month’s pledge, Linoma joins close to 100 other companies around the world in the drive to spread the word about the System i platform. Linoma joined iManifest to help shed more light on IBM i, says Bob Luebbe, chief software architect for the Ashland, Nebraska, software company. “Any company that uses an IBM i understands its proven abilities, reliability, and speed,” Luebbe says in press release. “I think the

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• IBM Delivers Better Online Meeting Experience with Sametime 8.5

  January 5, 2010 Alex Woodie

  Organizations that use IBM‘s Lotus Sametime software for real-time communication and collaboration will find several new features with version 8.5, which became available in late December. Notably, the online meeting portion of the software has been enhanced, the audio should sound better thanks to updated codecs, and there are updated Sametime browser-based clients for iPhone, Blackbettery, and Windows Mobile smart phones. Lotus Sametime is IBM’s entry into the “unified communications” software category for sharing voice, video, and data. The product delivers several ways that users can communicate in real-time, including via the product’s instant messaging (IM) client or through

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• Varsity Logistics and Island Pacific Team Up in an i Formation

  January 5, 2010 Alex Woodie

  Varsity Logistics and Island Pacific, two enterprise software vendors from California that have made their living in the IBM System i ecosystem, established a new partnership recently that will see each company leveraging the i-based strengths–as well as the customer lists–of the other. The newly announced partnership between Varsity Logistics, a developer of i OS-based transportation management software based in South San Francisco, and Island Pacific, a developer of i OS-based retail and warehouse management software based in Irvine, is all about the “i.” As the companies note, both vendors have a long history of providing System i-based enterprise

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• Raz-Lee Lands Security Contract with Israel’s Fifth Largest Bank

  January 5, 2010 Alex Woodie

  The First International Bank of Israel (FIBI) has standardized its System i security on software from Raz-Lee Security following a successful trial period, the vendor announced last month. The announcement marks another customer win for Raz-Lee, whose R&D organization continues to distinguish itself with innovative products. Founded nearly 40 years ago, FIBI is the firth largest banking group in Israel, and today operates 175 branches in the country, as well as FIBI Bank branches in England and Switzerland. Through its various subsidiaries, the group provides an array of financial services, including deposits, commercial and private lending, securities trading, pension consulting,

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• First National Bank Chooses Jack Henry Outsourcing

  January 5, 2010 Alex Woodie

  First National Bank, a $274 million bank in Hope, Arkansas, has elected to replace an aging and cobbled-together banking system with a new i OS-based core banking system from Jack Henry & Associates, the software vendor announced last month. And instead of running the CIF 20/20 software in house, First National has elected to let Jack Henry run it for them. First National Bank was facing a crossroads when it came to its information technology systems. The bank, which operates six branches in Arkansas and Texas, was coming to the end of its contract with its existing application provider,

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• Wolf Construction Taps CGC for Outsourced ERP

  January 5, 2010 Alex Woodie

  Wolf Construction, a mid size general contractor in Topeka, Kansas, has elected to adopt an outsourced implementation of Computer Guidance Corp.‘s i OS-based Construction Management System (eCMS), the software vendor announced last month. eCMS provides mid- to large-size contractors and other companies in the construction industry with a integrated platform for financial accounting, project management, and bidding capabilities. The application, which runs exclusively on the IBM i (OS/400) platform, has been offered via the software as a service (SaaS) delivery method since CGC rolled out its outsourcing business model last summer. Wolf Construction signed a license with CGC

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• Power Systems i: The Windows Conundrum

  January 4, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We all live with Windows, and I don’t mean the ones in our walls that let us see outside. By capitalizing the word, and not the Word (which should mean Logos, not a word processor, but that is a different story. . . . ), you all knew I meant Microsoft Windows, a desktop and server operating system, and not the glass panes. Windows is a fact of life in data centers of the 2010s when it was but a dream of Microsoft’s in the 1990s. But running Windows applications does not necessarily mean having to put up with

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• Maintenance Contract Reduction a Good Resolution for 2010

  January 4, 2010 Dan Burger

  Are the handcuffs on your IT budget cutting off your circulation? When the bulk of your expenditures are tied up in maintenance-related costs and day-to-day operations, and one more “do more with less” speech from the boss makes you punch a hole in the wall, you need a fresh idea with a workable, realistic opportunity for success. Renegotiating your hardware maintenance and software subscription contracts could be your new money tree. How this works can take several paths. Let’s begin with the money tree. The way this most often works is that savings from maintenance costs are moved into new

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• CCSS Offers Flexible Pricing for Service Providers

  January 4, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In tough economic times, like those we have lived through for nearly two years now, companies look to outsourcing and other managed services as a way of maintaining and improving their IT operations while cutting costs at the same time. While this is great for IT shops and their companies’ chief financial officer, monitoring and managing complex i setups takes the right tools, and it can be expensive to acquire them under perpetual licenses. Not any longer, at least for the service providers who choose Power Systems i monitoring tools from CCSS. After The Four Hundred went on holiday

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• Mad Dog 21/21: If Trees Were Free, Would the Press Be?

  January 4, 2010 Hesh Wiener

  Cities that once had several newspapers now have just one, if any. Even the strongest of those remaining seem to be in grave danger. Their plight was a key theme of The Press a 1961 collection of A. J. Liebling’s essays from the New Yorker. Liebling’s love of newspapers was recalled by his widow, Jean Stafford, in 1975 as she introduced a third edition of the classic. Stafford is long gone, too, but Liebling’s “wayward concubine” is still with us amid its lingering death. For the press, the future, if any, depends on American Internet policy. Liebling’s The Press

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