• Townsend Adds Open PGP Encryption to MFT Software

  October 25, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Townsend Security‘s managed file transfer (MFT) software for IBM i now sports OpenPGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption capabilities, the company announced last week. Alliance FTP Manager version 5.3 gives customers the option of using the new open source PGP feature or the pre-existing enterprise-level PGP feature based on software licensed from PGP Corp. (now owned by Symantec). Better reporting and file-scan features round out this release. Alliance FTP Manager is a well-established secure file transfer solution that has been providing MFT capabilities to IBM i shops for years–well before the term “MFT” became so popular. The software historically

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• UNIT4 CODA Asserts Itself with ‘Destination: Control’ Release

  October 25, 2011 Alex Woodie

  There’s nothing worse than loose or wobbly financials. Your company’s core business could be running along great, just the picture of order and efficiency, yet be overshadowed by the mess that is your general ledger, AP, AR, and related processes. UNIT4 CODA, which touts itself as a provider of best-in-breed accounting software, hopes to help its customers get a handle on their financials with the 12th major revision of its flagship Coda Financials software, codenamed “Destination: Control.” Coda Financials is a Java-based application that includes general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, project accounting, billing, budgeting and forecasting, spend management,

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• Coglin Mill’s ETL Makes Data Warehousing on IBM i More Attractive

  October 25, 2011 Alex Woodie

  When it comes to data warehousing, there are still some in the IBM i community who think that workload belongs on Windows or Unix boxes. But with its integrated database, huge scalability, and fair DASD costs, there are no good reasons today why the IBM i server can’t perform this function. And with the latest release of its extract, transform, and load (ETL) software, the folks at Coglin Mill are giving customers an important tool for enabling the IBM i server to be the workhorse of their data warehouses. There’s no better way to get Alan Jordan’s goad than to

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• Where’s the IBM-Based IBM i Cloud Offering?

  October 25, 2011 Alex Woodie

  It was with great fanfare earlier this month that IBM unveiled its updated Power Systems hardware and software lineup. Updated servers with better memory, I/O, and networking connections, along with a Technology Refresh of the IBM i OS and supporting software cast gave IBM i customers a lot to chew on. And there was even a new Power Systems-based cloud solution unveiled. Could this finally be the AS/400-based cloud everybody’s been waiting for? Alas, no. The great white hope from Big Blue remains just that: all hope and no reality. Dig a little deeper into IBM’s October 12 cloud announcement

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• Vision Expands Sales and Marketing Efforts with New Team

  October 24, 2011 Jenny Thomas

  It’s been said that there’s no “i” in “team,” but high availability software and services provider Vision Solutions may take issue with that expression. Vision recently made several new appointments to its sales and marketing team, and Bob Johnson, who was tapped as executive vice president sales and marketing, has his eye on the IBM i platform. “The System i is our heritage and still represents the majority of our revenue stream,” said Johnson. “You might be surprised to hear me say this, but I am as excited as I’ve ever been about the future of the i.” And he

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• CUoD Processor Activation Prices Cut In Half for Big Power7 Iron

  October 24, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As we report elsewhere in this issue of The Four Hundred, the high-end of the new Power7-based Power Systems line did particularly well on the growth front in the third quarter (albeit against some easy compares), and IBM wants more in the fourth quarter. Late last week, in announcement number 311-155, Big Blue snuck out a Power7 Capacity Upgrade on Demand (CUoD) discount promotion that offers customers with Power 770, 780, and 795 machines that were installed as of October 1. Under the deal, IBM is cutting the price of activating cores on certain processor cards used in

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• IBM Chooses Power Systems Champions

  October 24, 2011 Dan Burger

  Real innovation and emerging trends can get lost in the IT world where buzzwords show up and disappear like the phases of the moon. The IBM Power Systems universe is no different. Maybe the buzz isn’t as deafening and maybe the innovation and trends sometimes get buried under the weight of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” status quo–a place where “No Innovation” signs are nailed to all the fence posts–but the Power Systems users have their moments of glory. Giving the innovators a bigger stage is the idea behind the IBM Champions, a group of IT professionals, developers,

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• IBM i Technology Refreshes and PTFs: Be Careful

  October 24, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Starting last year, IBM started doing what it calls Technology Rrefreshes for the IBM i operating system that provide support for new systems and peripherals as they come to market. These Technology Refreshes are numbered–TR3 came out on October 12 with the new Power Systems servers–so you can keep track of them. But it may not be entirely obvious how you should deal with them if you are used to patching your system with PTFs. Doug Bidwell, who puts together the System i PTF Guide that is published at IT Jungle, offers some insight and advice: The latest technology

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• IT Spending Growth To Slow In 2012, Says Gartner

  October 24, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It is very difficult for IT spending to grow faster than gross domestic product in any country or globally for very long. While the economies of the Western world are by and large still growing, at least at the crudest levels that we can measure with the economic tools we have, that growth is slowing. And consequently, the people who make a living calling the IT market are beginning to think that growth will slow a bit in 2012. Gartner hosted its Symposium/ITxpo last week, and Peter Sondergaard, a senior vice president at Gartner and the head of its global

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• RPG Open Access Availability Expands Modernization Efforts

  October 24, 2011 Dan Burger

  Earlier this month, looksoftware became the third IBM i ISV to set up a distribution program for IBM‘s Rational Open Access: RPG Edition that coincides with the purchase of the company’s lookserver Open Access, a product that provides the integration layer for creating composite applications, generates XML clients, and supports browser-based devices. By distributing Rational Open Access: RPG Edition, looksoftware is avoiding the complicated and frustrating ordering process that companies have experienced when attempting to order the ROA product from IBM. Other application modernization tool vendors, Profound Logic and ASNA, have previously taken the step to handle distribution

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