• Mainline Buys BI Services Firm

  January 22, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Mainline Information Systems last month acquired Software By Design Inc. (SBDI), a firm that specializes in implementing business intelligence solutions. The acquisition will bolster the Business Analytics group of Mainline, which is one of the largest resellers of IBM Power Systems, mainframes, and System x machines in the country. SBDI has provided business intelligence solutions to customers of all sizes since it was founded in 1999. The company maintains a staff equipped with BI developers and solution architects who are versed in the BI products from IBM (both Cognos and Cognos Express), Oracle‘s SPSS, Microstrategy, and SAP.

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• JDA Tackles Omni-Channel Challenge with Cloud Offering

  January 22, 2013 Alex Woodie

  JDA Software showed that it’s hip to omni-channel times with the release of Customer Engagement Cloud, a new solution designed to help its traditional retail customers transform themselves into “omni-channel” retailers. In case you missed it, omni-channel was the big buzz word at last week’s National Retail Federation (NRF) conference in New York. The term omni-channel is the next iteration of multi-channel, and refers to the new ways in which retailers are responding to the new ways that consumers are buying stuff. Whereas a multi-channel retailer had to worry about satisfying demand originating from the Web, mail order, phone, and

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• Infor Places Interaction Advisor on Salesforce.com

  January 22, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Infor last week announced that the customer interaction management component of its Epiphany CRM suite, a product called Interaction Advisor, will soon be available on the Salesforce.com platform as software as a service (SaaS) offering. Interaction Advisor is an inbound marketing application that’s designed to allow businesses to predict customer behavior based on their real-time activity and past responses to interactions, while aiming to improve cross-sell opportunities, reduce churn, and bolster the bottom line. The software helps to ensure there’s consistency in the offers and promotions that a company makes to its customers across a variety of IT touch points,

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• Manufacturer Augments IBM i ERP with Cognos Express

  January 22, 2013 Alex Woodie

  When Mestek, a metal manufacturing conglomerate based in Massachusetts, needed to streamline its financial reporting process, it faced two choices: either replace its highly customized IBM i ERP system with a new ERP system with integrated analytics, or augment its investment in IBM i with an add-on reporting tool. Faced with the risks and costs of the first choice, the company chose to augment with IBM‘s Cognos Express. Mestek and its numerous subsidiaries manufacture a variety of products in the areas of heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC), metal-forming, and architectural products. The privately owned company employs 1,800 people in

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• Manhattan Associates Goes In-Store for ‘Omni-Channel’ Solution

  January 22, 2013 Alex Woodie

  In the supply chain management world, Manhattan Associates is synonymous with warehouse management systems. The company built a solid reputation on the back of its IBM i-based WMS, which is still used by many of the nation’s biggest retail chains. Last week, the company revealed it’s been working quietly for two years to build an “omni-channel” software package that will allow individual stores to fulfill Internet orders–that is, to function like mini warehouses. The term “omni-channel” was ubiquitous at last week’s annual National Retail Federation (NRF) conference in New York, like white on rice. You could not read any news

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• New BVS Tools Hook IBM i to Google Apps

  January 22, 2013 Alex Woodie

  BVS Tools has rolled out a collection of new software called GreenTools for Google Apps (G4G) that enable users to connect various Google Apps with data and applications residing on IBM i servers. Two G4G apps, including G4GGCP and G4GGCAL, connect IBM i data with Google Cloud Print and Google Calendars through Google’s APIs, and more apps are on the way. Today’s IT environments have become extremely heterogeneous, and demand extreme flexibility on the part of IT experts and users. In the old days, IT pros may have felt a sense of accomplishment at having hooked an IBM i application

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• New HiT Software Moves Data To Google App Engine

  January 22, 2013 Alex Woodie

  HiT Software last week unveiled a new version of its data replication software that’s designed to keep customers’ Google cloud apps in synch with their on premise relational databases. DBMoto Cloud G Edition automatically pushes data from any backend database, such as DB2/400, into the Google App Engine Datastore using the Internet giant’s Web service APIs, providing another way for companies to present their valuable data to new Web and mobile apps. Google App Engine (GAE) is a platform as a service (PaaS) cloud offering that Google first rolled out as a beta in 2008 and as a fully supported

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• ASNA Gives Legacy AVR Customers an Extension

  January 22, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Having customers on a legacy product will make you do funny things. For IBM, it meant bowing to pressure and keeping i5/OS V5R4 around for seven years. Microsoft almost doubled that with Windows XP, which will be 13 years old when support ends next year. ASNA also has a legacy customer base that’s dependent on Windows XP-era technology, but a recent update will give them some breathing room as they modernize their systems. ASNA recently shipped the first new version of ASNA Visual RPG (AVR) in many years. AVR, of course, is ASNA’s flagship product that allows programmers to

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• Steampunk Will Be The Next Big Rage, So Saith IBM

  January 21, 2013 Jenny Thomas

  If “IBM” was the only word in that headline that made any sense to you, you’re not alone. While IBM has spent the last 100-plus years making a name for itself in the computing world, it is probably not even on the list when it comes to discussing pop culture trends. Let’s start with the obvious question. Steampunk is defined by IBM as a sub-genre inspired by the clothing, technology, and social mores of Victorian society. Wikipedia provides a more detailed description of steampunk as a type of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works, which can include

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• SAP Profits From HANA Appliance, Cloud, And Plain Old Software

  January 21, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If Oracle thought it had killed archrival SAP, it looks like the German application software giant was only sleeping. In the December quarter, SAP booked €1.94 billion in software license fees, up 9 percent, and within this segment, the company’s cloud software business, driven by acquisitions and organic growth, was up a stunning 2,000 per cent to €126 million. Software and related services revenues accounted for €4.23 billion, up 14 percent year-on-year. Total sales came to €5.02 billion, up 12 percent. Operating profits fell by 5 percent to €1.59 billion. On a full-year basis, SAP’s revenues came in at

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