IBM i shops that have relied on, and grown to appreciate, the old PHP Toolkit that IBM is replacing with a new open source solution will be pleased to hear that AURA Equipments is keeping the product alive. In fact, the French software company is rolling out a new release of the “classic” PHP toolkit–now called EasyCom for PHP–that addresses some of the shortcomings that led IBM to banish it in the first place.

Five years ago, AURA and Zend Technology formed a partnership whereby AURA’s client-server integration technology, called EasyCom, was OEM’ed and packaged into the PHP offerings that

The results from PowerTech‘s latest State of IBM i Security report are in, and the results are mixed. While the software company’s survey shows signs of improvement in some areas, such as the average number of users with unfettered system access, there are still areas of grave concern to security professionals, who have almost come to expect a lackadaisical approach to security from IBM i customers.

Each year, PowerTech publishes a State of IBM i Security report that summarizes the results of hundreds of system audits the company performs on the IBM i servers of customers and prospects. For

SQL is not shorthand for squirrel. And if that’s just about all you know about it, you need to get out a little more often. Companies that haven’t changed the design, configuration, and implementation of their database systems since the cell phone was invented have a few lessons to learn about IBM DB2 for i (DB2/400) and SQL. Coincidentally, that’s what the folks at System i Developer had in mind for a new conference called DB2 for i Directions.

System i Developer is the same group that has presented the popular RPG & DB2 Summit conference twice a year since

A new installation framework in the forthcoming WebSphere Application Server (WAS) version 8 will provide customers with faster load times and simpler implementations of Java applications. WAS version 8, which IBM plans to ship the third week of June, also offers support for Java version 6. For IBM i shops, WAS version 8 marks the first release of the middleware that doesn’t work with the old Java virtual machine.

For many years, “WebSphere” was a four-letter word to IBM i shops, who found the Web application environment slow, expensive, and a burden to use compared to the RPG environment they

SEQUEL Software says users can get one-click access to DB2/400 data with the update to its business intelligence (BI) tool’s Web-based interface. The Help/Systems subsidiary says users will find the new Explorer component that ships in Web Interface version 10 more intuitive and easier to use. It should also streamline access to existing reports, as well as DB2/400 data.

SEQUEL Software launched its Web Interface offering three years ago to provide users with the same level of graphical and drill-down capabilities from a Web browser that SEQUEL Software had provided for years through its thick-client Windows interface. The add-on basically

ARCAD Software made a big change of product strategy last month when it announced an integration with IBM‘s Rational Team Concert change management software. The company also announced a reorganization of its product offerings, and said it will look for growth from three products.

ARCAD has been moving toward more openness and platform support with its suite of tools for a while. In recent years, the company has moved beyond its original IBM i marketplace to deliver application lifecycle management (ALM) tools for Windows, Linux, and Unix users.

The big change with ARCAD’s version 8.10, which it just released,

Connectria, a provider of managed hosting services for IBM i servers, last week announced a new remote monitoring service for IBM i. Starting at $795 per month, customers can hire Connectria’s tech support staff to keep an eye on their in-house IBM i servers.

Connectria has more than a decade of experience running IBM i servers for some of the best-known brands, including Louis Vuitton, Things Remembered, Ecko Unlimited, and Gulfstream. The St. Louis, Missouri, company has more than 1,000 customers, and operates data centers in its St. Louis headquarters and in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The company’s new System i

Oracle will provide technical support for the current releases of the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and World ERP products through November and May 2015, respectively, the vendor announced at last week’s Collaborate user conference.

Oracle apparently decided to be more generous with product support timelines for the current releases of the JDE products, including EnterpriseOne 9.0 Update 2 and World A9.2 Update 1.

The world’s largest business software says that, by setting the start date for its “premiere support” service as the general availability date for those two products (November 2010 for EnterpriseOne 9.0 Update 2 and May 2010 for World

Data Storage Corp. (DSC), the Garden City, New York, company that bought SafeData last year, yesterday announced an upgrade to one of its data centers that will enhance SafeData’s capability to provide data vaulting and disaster recovery services.

DSC has been providing hosted network solutions since it was founded in August 2001. Prior to the acquisition of SafeData last year, the company served open system platforms with a variety of services, including backup and recovery, archiving, virtual hosting and standby data recovery, e-discovery, email archiving, and hosted exchange.

The data center upgrade announced yesterday will allow DSC to offer

Quadrant Software last week announced the launch of a new customer outreach initiative that’s aimed at keeping customers happy and maintaining satisfaction ratings at the upper end of the spectrum.

Good customer service has traditionally been a major goal of IBM i software vendors (see “Customer Service is Serious Business for IBM i Software Vendors”). Whether it’s delivering a quick response to a product problem or answering a general question about IBM i, many of the independent software vendors (ISVs) in the IBM i arena can stand proud knowing they provide superior service.

You can count Quadrant Software among