• SugarCRM Updated with Version 5.5 Beta

  June 2, 2009 Alex Woodie

  System i shops are among the companies being encouraged to take a look at the beta of SugarCRM version 5.5, a new release of the open source customer relationship management software unveiled last week by SugarCRM. Better collaboration among team members is a central theme of new features in the release, which is expected to become generally available sometime during summer. Last week, acting CEO Larry Augustin, who took over after the sudden resignation in early May of chief executive John Roberts, opened the barn door and let out a beta of version 5.5. This release brings several new

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• MQ Security Tools from Capitalware Now Available for i OS

  June 2, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Capitalware is now shipping a set of three WebSphere MQ security tools for i OS. The Markham, Ontario, company announced the general availability of the i OS versions of the three products, which close several security shortcomings with default installations of WebSphere MQ, last month. Despite its reputation as a bullet-proof platform for the exchange of transactional data across different operating systems, WebSphere MQ (MQ Series) offers surprisingly little default security, according to Capitalware president Roger Lacroix, who has years of experience with the product. To properly secure their out-of-the-box WebSphere MQ implementation, users must either write their own security

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• D&B Global Helps Companies Calculate the True Cost of EDI

  June 2, 2009 Alex Woodie

  D&B Global Helps Companies Calculate the True Cost of EDI Does it make sense for you to outsource your EDI environment? That’s the question that D&B Global Services, a new company that was recently founded by former EXTOL employees, is trying to get companies to ask. The New Jersey company recently posted a checklist on its Web site that helps companies to think critically about their EDI environments. D&B Global Services was founded earlier this year by Dennis Bonagura, the former president and COO at Pottsville, Pennsylvania-based EXTOL. He, along with longtime marketing man Steve Rosen, left Extol to

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• Ferrosan Outsources i to IBM, Eliminates Expense and Complicatedness

  June 2, 2009 Alex Woodie

  The Danish manufacturer Ferrosan will no longer have to deal with the expense and complicatedness of managing an i-based Power Systems and System x server environment as the result of a new seven-year outsourcing deal it has entered into with IBM. Ferrosan is a privately held manufacturer of medical devices, pharmaceuticals, vitamins, and food supplements that are sold primarily in the Nordic countries of Europe. The company has revenues the equivalent of $250 million last year, and employs 800 people, according to IBM. In 2006, Ferrosan signed a three-year IT outsourcing deal with IBM. In February of this year,

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• Vision Offers Web-Based Training for HA

  June 2, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Vision Solutions yesterday announced that it is offering training for its high availability products over the Web. The new Web-based training will allow customers to learn how to use iTera HA, MIMIX HA, ORION HA, and other products, either at their own pace or with the help of an instructor. Vision Solutions University has added a handful of Web-based training courses to its catalog. There are currently 14 self-paced courses that users can access over the Web, ranging from basic MIMIX operations to how iTera HA uses journaling. Each class costs between $150 and $250, and users can get discounts

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• VAI Brings Two More Companies Onto the i OS Platform

  June 2, 2009 Alex Woodie

  VAI recently announced two new customer wins for S2K Enterprise, its suite of i OS-based ERP software. The two companies moving to S2K include NAFECO, a distributor of firefighting equipment based in Alabama, and Mytel International, an office products distributor and services provider in California. Mytel International and its sister company, GNM Financial Service, chose the combination of S2K ERP software running on 64-bit IBM Power Systems hardware to replace its previous computer system, which ran on an HP 3000 server–a platform that was killed off years ago by Hewlett-Packard. “We understood that GNM and Mytel needed a technology

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• Are You an IT Action Hero? Aldon Wants to Know

  June 2, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Acts of IT heroism are rarely acknowledged outside the data center. Your superior skill set, situational awareness, and stick-to-it-ive-ness routinely save your company many times the meager salary they pay you as a programmer. You’re not in the habit of nominating yourself for employee of the week, but now that Aldon has announced its IT Action Hero Awards, you can take off that cape, remove the mask, and take a short respite from your day-to-day routine of sheer, unrepentant awesomeness to get the recognition you deserve. Unveiled yesterday, Aldon’s 2009 IT Action Hero Award is designed to honor and reward

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• IBM Makes the Case for Power Systems SSDs

  June 1, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Thank the explosion in the use of digital cameras and send a condolences card to Polaroid, the maker of instant cameras. One of the most useful technologies to come along in years for servers is flash-based solid state disk drives, or SSDs. While SRAM and DRAM versions of SSDs have been around for ages, they were so awfully expensive that only the most serious workloads could ever have them and they never even came close to going mainstream. But now SSDs are going mainstream, and they are going to change the way servers are configured. As I detailed in the

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• Server Sales Breakdown Bigtime in the First Quarter

  June 1, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If the server business had a flat tire in the in the fourth quarter of 2008, when the economic meltdown was in full blaze, then two tires went flat and the muffler bracket broke, leaving metal scraping down the highway, with sparks a-flying and making a terrible racket, in the first quarter of this year. It’s a tough market right now, which makes it a buyer’s market to a certain degree. But companies are nonetheless hesitant to spend budgets. According to the box counters at IDC, which tracks factory revenue coming out of the server makers, $9.9 billion in

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• COBOL at 50: Same Age as Barbie, But More Like Rodney

  June 1, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Last Thursday, May 28, was COBOL’s 50th birthday. If you didn’t gather around your data processing device to celebrate this technological milestone, don’t feel too bad about it. Chances are, few of your IT business associates celebrated COBOL’s birthday, either. But backers of COBOL, such as Micro Focus, are a little miffed that the language doesn’t get more respect. After all, the vendor points out, you don’t see Barbie, who also turns 50 this year, being relied upon to run billions of dollars worth of transactions every day, do you? COBOL may share the same age as Barbie, that

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