• The Economy Gives Oracle a Slight Haircut

  June 29, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The continuing lethargy in the global economy put pressure on revenues and profits at software giant and perhaps soon hardware vendor Oracle in its latest quarter, but the numbers are not as bad as some IT vendors have shown. That is for sure, and a testament to the mini-monopolies that Oracle has been able to build for itself over the years. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 ended May 31, Oracle’s revenues were $6.86 billion, down 5 percent from the year-ago period. Not surprisingly, new software license sales in the quarter fell by 13 percent to $2.74 billion, but

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• Dumb Behavior Spreads as Smart Devices Proliferate

  June 29, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Do you think it’s appropriate to use your Blackberry in a toilet stall? Or to send a tweet from your mobile phone while attending a funeral service? Your mother probably never taught you that these specific activities were naughty because they didn’t even exist 10 years ago. Unfortunately, common sense apparently hasn’t stopped Americans from practicing poor etiquette with their new-fangled smart devices. And according to a new Harris Interactive survey, most of us are tired of it already. Harris Interactive conducted a “Mobile Etiquette” survey in April to see where people stand on their acceptance of public use of

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• V6R1 Run SQL Scripts: Print and Save Result Sets

  June 24, 2009 Skip Marchesani

  The ability to print a Run SQL Scripts result set and/or save it in Excel spreadsheet format has been on my wish list and that of others for a long time. V6R1 has fulfilled these wishes and by doing so has made Run SQL Scripts more functional and easier to use. Print capability is now a standard function when a result set is displayed. However the Run SQL Scripts option to “Allow Save Results” must be selected to be able to save a result set in Excel or other file format. To select this option, click on Options in the

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• No More Global Variables!

  June 24, 2009 Ted Holt

  Last December, I shared four ways to avoid problems caused by the use of global data in RPG programs. I mentioned that a discussion of i 6.1 (or as I call it, V6R1) data-localization features would have to wait for another day. Well, that day is here. With V6R1, it is possible to write programs that have no global identifiers. (By identifiers, I mean variables and constants. By variables, I not only mean scalar variables, but also arrays and data structures.) You only need to change two programming practices. First, lose the RPG cycle. It breaks my

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• Reader Input: /QOpenSys Redux, PC5250 Popup Keypads, and Even Farther Beyond Replication

  June 24, 2009 Hey, Joe

  It looks like the links that you detailed in the Matryoshka Doll article on nested QOpenSys links probably occur after installing PASE on the iSeries. Check out this IBM document that very briefly discusses recursive /QOpenSys links in the AS/400 IFS. IBM doesn’t say why this happens, but at least it points the finger at what causes the problem. –Bill Speicher Earlier this year I wrote this article and a tip on one of the great mysteries of the AS/400 Integrated File System (AS/400 IFS). The purpose of the article was to explain why there are multiple /QOpenSys symbolic

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• IBM to Offer Free EGL Tool for Web 2.0

  June 23, 2009 Alex Woodie

  “Free” is not typically a word that’s associated with IBM, especially when it comes to System i and System z programming tools, which can carry seven- or eight-figure price tags for the biggest customers. But Big Blue is making a big gamble that a free version of its EGL tool for creating Web 2.0 applications, tentatively named EGL Community Edition, will pay off in the long run by establishing a large community of users who are familiar with EGL, and provide an alternative to PHP and Ruby on Rails. IBM announced plans to deliver a free, unsupported version of

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• Infor Spurs Customer Upgrades with ‘Flex’ Incentives

  June 23, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Infor yesterday unveiled a new program that seeks to make it easier and less expensive for customers to upgrade to the latest release of their software, or to migrate to the latest release of an equivalent Infor product. The program, called Infor Flex, is aimed at addressing a problem faced by Infor, along with its big ERP competitors: The fact that many customers are running on very old releases of software, and have no easy way to get current without incurring lots of risk and big fees. Flex addresses those pain points, Infor says. Infor succeeded in becoming one of

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• Application Maintenance Becomes a Service at vLegaci

  June 23, 2009 Dan Burger

  Before the recession, organizations looked to cut costs by extending equipment upgrade cycles and trimming staff. Globalization increased competitiveness and then the recession intensified the requirements for success. In IBM AS/400 (iSeries and System i) IT departments, this plays out in decisions to delay system upgrades and make staff reductions, just like other departments are faced with similar situations. Given this reality, Steve Kilner at vLegaci, believes he has a tool that fits in well. Kilner, who is president of vLegaci, has a product called Codelyzer. Its introduction was covered in Four Hundred Stuff in an article titled “Codelyzer

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• Companies Put PHP to Work With BCD’s WebSmart

  June 23, 2009 Robert Gast

  The benefits of Web-based applications for purposes such as online shopping and order entry can reduce personnel costs and other bottlenecks when working with suppliers and customers. In IBM i shops, the interest in PHP has been surprisingly vigorous. Two companies that recently went live with IBM i PHP applications are Midwest Fuel Injection (MWFI) and American Foods Groups (AFG), both of which chose WebSmart PHP from Business Computer Design. Interestingly, the technicians responsible for PHP development at each company have very different programming backgrounds. MWFI’s Tony Kudrys has lots of Web experience but only basic IBM i knowledge,

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• ASCI Adds i OS Support to Job Scheduler

  June 23, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Advanced Systems Concepts (ASCI) last week announced that it has added support for four operating systems with its cross-platform job scheduling software, called ActiveBatch Job Scheduling and Workload Automation, including IBM i, Hewlett-Packard‘s NonStop Kernel, SuSE Linux, and SCO Group‘s SCO Unix operating environments. Advanced Systems Concepts is a software development company based in Morristown, New Jersey. It’s not to be confused with the Chicago, Illinois-based Advanced Systems Concepts that Help/Systems bought in October 2006. The company says its customers have installed its products 200,000 times in 36 countries around the world, including about 1,300 installations for ActiveBatch.

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