• New Version of AFP Unveiled

  August 16, 2011 Alex Woodie

  The AFP Consortium unveiled a new version of the Advanced Function Presentation (AFP) printing protocol this month. IS/3, as the new version is called, features operational improvements, support for new fonts and graphics, and greater interoperability among AFP-using products, the group says. AFP is a high-end printing architecture primarily used by large organizations that need a great deal of control over their high-volume, variable-data printing environments. The software is often driven by IBM mainframe and IBM i servers, although AFP versions also exist for Windows, AIX, and other platforms. At the core of AFP is MO:DCA-P, which stands for Mixed

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• Tally Offers Replacement for Withdrawn InfoPrint Printer

  August 16, 2011 Alex Woodie

  InfoPrint Solutions‘ recent decision to stop marketing serial and line matrix printers, thermal printers, and workgroup printers by the end of the year, and instead focus on high-end printers has spurred its competitors to fill the gaps. Last week, Dascom Americas announced that it’s ready to fill the void left by the withdrawal of the InfoPrint 4247 printer with the Tally “iSeries” 4247 series. In April, Ricoh, the corporate parent of InfoPrint Solutions (the former IBM printing division) announced its intention to exit the market for lower end and general office printers, and instead focus on making and

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• Magic Spreads Native .NET with uniPaaS 2.0

  August 16, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Magic Software is giving its IBM i customers a path to generating native Microsoft .NET code with the latest release of its application framework, uniPaaS 2.0, which shipped in July. A new server runtime engine in uniPaaS 2.0 generates fully compliant .NET applications, while reliance on the Windows Forms gives a new look to uniPaaS apps. The publicly traded company also announced a 27 percent increase in quarterly revenue. uniPaaS is Magic’s flagship application development tool and runtime environment for creating rich Internet applications (RIAs) that run on IBM i, Windows, Linux, and Unix servers. The tool uses a high-level,

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• Application Modernization Priorities Meet Simple Solutions

  August 16, 2011 Dan Burger

  Complex problems are not always solved by complex solutions. To think otherwise is setting a trap for ourselves. Application modernization is a great example. Most times it’s not as intimidating as it’s made out to be. For instance, Valley Power Systems, a $180 million distribution company, was handcuffed with a business to business gateway that relied on Telnet sessions. Its modernization project, using looksoftware, took off the cuffs and took advantage of the Internet, smartphones and tablet devices. Valley Power Systems is a dealer and distributor for engine, transmission, and equipment manufacturers. Its customers are in industries such as

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• Open Source CMS No Stranger on IBM i

  August 16, 2011 Alex Woodie

  There are a lot of options available to IBM i shops looking for a software package that allows them to run a website on their favorite box. But one class of tools that seems to be gaining lots of traction these days is the group of open source, PHP-based content management systems (CMS). The big three in this category include Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress, and you might be surprised to learn about some of the prominent IBM i industry websites that are using these systems. The rise of the open source CMS on the IBM i server

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• IBM Goes Dojo with HATS V8

  August 16, 2011 Alex Woodie

  IBM i developers got new tools for creating modern Web 2.0 style interfaces last week when IBM started shipping Rational Host Access Transformation Services (HATS) version 8. Chief among the cool new features is support for the Dojo Toolkit, which gives developers a collection of pre-cast widgets for rapidly building interactive websites. Other notable new features include JSR286 support, type-ahead capabilities, iPad support, and generation of RESTful Web services. IBM also launched Host Integration Solutions (HIS) version 8. HATS is a rules-based screen transformation engine that turns 5250 and 3270 screens into graphical Web clients, Java- or Lotus-based rich

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• VAI Gets Social with New Release of S2K Sales Force

  August 16, 2011 Alex Woodie

  VAI recently issued a new release of S2K Sales Force, a WebSphere Portal-based solution that augments the company’s core IBM i-based ERP and CRM offerings. With the update to S2K Sales Force, the company has added a blogging capability, which is the first of several social media features the company plans to add. The new version also brings email-related enhancements and new analytic dashboards. S2K Sales Force is a relatively new addition to VAI’s enterprise lineup that was added in late 2010. The software provides a management system that tracks and records every stage in the sales process, from initial

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• JDA Software App License Sales Stall In Q2

  August 15, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  At the end of July, before the debt crisis and renewed worries about the economy had taken hold last week, retail and supply chain application software vendor JDA Software reported its second quarter financial results and was pretty optimistic about the rest of the year despite disappointing sales in Q2. It is important to remember that correlation is not causation, but the timing with the swoon on Wall Street in the wake of U.S. government credit getting a downgrade by Standard and Poors is spooky. And not necessarily meaningful except in hindsight several quarters from now if business doesn’t pan

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• IBM Paints X64-Based BladeCenters Sky Blue With Clouds

  August 15, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Sometimes I wonder if IBM really wants Power Systems machinery to compete with X64-based servers–be they its own System x and BladeCenter machines or those of its competitors. Last week, IBM announced some preconfigured bundles of BladeCenter blade servers called Foundation for Clouds. I am getting the feeling that Big Blue’s marketeers are falling under the same hypnotic spell as all of the cloud vendors that sell hypervisors and their cloudy management extensions on X64-based machinery. That is, cloud has become synonymous with X64-based machinery. If it ain’t on X64, then it ain’t a cloud. This is, of course, perfectly

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• WANTED: Unemployed IBM i Professionals

  August 15, 2011 Jenny Thomas

  We all know it’s a tough job market out there, and job seekers need to stand out in the crowd to land a new position. Manta Technologies has a new idea to help a lucky few get that edge. Manta is looking for approximately a dozen unemployed and underemployed IBM i professionals who would like to participate in the beta test of the next generation of Manta’s training delivery software, EasyTutor 7.0. “Lately I’ve been getting so many requests from people who have come to the conclusion that their skills aren’t up to date, and that’s why they aren’t employed,

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