• Seacore Grows Business with VAI on IBM i

  September 11, 2012 Alex Woodie

  Seacore Seafood, a Canadian wholesale distributor and retailer of fresh and frozen seafood, attributes the recent improvement in sales and business operations to its implementation of VAI‘s IBM i-based ERP software, which replaced largely manual, error-prone processes. Seacore Seafood started out 22 years ago with a small building, one truck, and half a dozen employees, who fulfilled wholesale orders for a variety of fresh and frozen fish and live lobsters. Since then, it has grown considerably, and now employees more than 100 workers and runs a dozen trucks out of its 75,000 square foot distribution center in the Toronto

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• SEQUEL Brings Parity to Web and Desktop Interfaces

  September 11, 2012 Alex Woodie

  SEQUEL Software is giving customers more reasons to interact with its reporting tool using a Web browser instead of the Windows-based interface. The Help/Systems subsidiary says its new version of the SEQUEL Web Interface (SWI) is nearly indistinguishable from ViewPoint, its Windows interface. SEQUEL is one of those multi-threat IBM i utilities that can do all kinds of handy things for all different types of users. It’s best known as a reporting tool, but it also provides form design, data and database conversion, and Web enablement, too. SEQUEL’s real forte is reporting and business intelligence. It features its own easy-to-use

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• Kronos Goes Mobile with iSeries Central 6.2

  September 11, 2012 Alex Woodie

  Managers and employees will be able to access key human resources and time card functions from mobile devices with the latest release of Kronos‘ iSeries Central. Version 6.2, which shipped earlier this summer, introduces several new mobile interfaces, as well as support for the latest Web-based management console, called Navigator. Kronos doesn’t talk a whole lot about its iSeries Central suite, which is composed of iSeries Scheduler, iSeries Timekeeper, iSeries Absence Management, iSeries Activities, and iSeries Gaming. That’s too bad, as several thousand organizations use the IBM i-based software to manage their workforces. The software company once again chose

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• Tango/04 Distills IBM i Operations Knowledge into New Module

  September 11, 2012 Alex Woodie

  It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Tango/04 Computing Group, the IBM i systems management software developer. While the Spanish company hasn’t been super active in the PR department the last couple of years, it has continued the hard work of product development, and the fruits of those labors are being rolled out with the introduction of a new IBM i monitoring solution, called the Operations Knowledge Module for IBM i, and a slick new user interface that runs on tablets. The new Operations Knowledge Module for IBM i is a collection of software that aims to speed

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• New Mobile and Cloud Software from IBM is Really Neat, But Doesn’t Run on IBM i

  September 11, 2012 Alex Woodie

  IBM last week unveiled nifty new releases of software that give customers super advanced platforms for social and mobile computing. However, neither of the new products, including IBM Connections 4.0 and IBM Mobile Foundation 5.0, run on the IBM i server, despite the fact that there is some demand, and that they can (or will) both run on System z mainframes. IBM Connections is a member of the Lotus Notes and Domino family of collaboration tools from IBM. The Web-based product, which IBM originally launched as Lotus Connections in 2007, allow teams of users to collaborate through Web spaces, blogs,

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• Oracle Completes DB2/400 Support in Data Replication Tool

  September 11, 2012 Alex Woodie

  Oracle last week unveiled GoldenGate 11g Release 2, a new release of its real time data integration tool, which is commonly used to load large amounts of data, often for business intelligence or disaster recovery purposes. The new release adds support for data capture from DB2/400, which may be useful for organizations looking to move data contained in their IBM i applications to other IBM i servers or other platforms. The product already could load data into DB2/400. GoldenGate is a high speed data integration and replication tool that Oracle acquired in 2009. The tool is based on changed data

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• Oracle Changes Course in SAP Case, Opts for Appeal Over Retrial

  September 10, 2012 Alex Woodie

  Oracle is moving ahead with an appeal of a district court’s 2011 decision to reduce paid damages by $1 billion in its patent infringement and corporate theft case against SAP and its defunct TomorrowNow third-party ERP maintenance operation. As part of that legal maneuvering, Oracle entered into a $306 million settlement agreement with SAP in early August, and then promptly appealed it. It would seem strange, at first glance, to plan to appeal a settlement before actually signing the settlement agreement. But nothing moves linearly in the legal world, and this little case of “yes I do, no I don’t”

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• App Dev Outsourcing Up, Satisfaction Down

  September 10, 2012 Dan Burger

  Contrary to what some people have been saying, outsourcing IT is on an upward trend. Indicators leading to the forecast for long-term growth in IT outsourcing can be seen in the latest report from Computer Economics. Based on outsourcing as a percentage of IT budget, the gradual climb has moved from 6.1 percent in 2009 to 8.6 percent in 2012–not exactly monumental change, but a trend nonetheless. When the topic of outsourcing is discussed, you better hold on to your hat. This is a hot button topic, particularly when the conversation centers on the high cost of application development

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• Big Power7 Boxes Get Fat Memory Rebates, Too

  September 10, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM is not just giving system-level discounts to customers who buy Power 740 Express configurations with fairly beefy main memory configurations, as we report elsewhere in this issue. The company is also giving rebates on main memory bought for larger Power 750, 770, 780, and 795 systems. I would guess that IBM is chopping memory prices on its Power7-based midrange and high-end boxes for two reasons. First, it is charging ridiculously lower prices per gigabyte on the exact same memory modules in some cases used in its PowerLinux Linux-only machines. IBM is doing this to make the Power line more

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• IBM Offers Summertime Deal On Power 740 Servers

  September 10, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If you are in need of some new processing capacity and you can’t wait for the forthcoming Power7+ servers to come to market later this year, then Big Blue has a deal on a Power 740 Express server that it wants to make–provided you get the deal done a week before the third quarter financials close so it can ship the box and book the revenue. I don’t know why the Power 740 Summer Promotion did not come into my inbox with the other announcement letters on July 11, but in announcement letter 312-079 and subsequently modified in announcement letter

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