Tango/04 Computing Group is embarking upon a new IT discipline with the latest release of its systems management suite for iSeries and Windows. With VISUAL Message Center 6.0, the company is now providing business service management (BSM), a relatively new strategy for melding the monitoring of IT infrastructure, applications, and business processes to create a more wholesome view of how these interdependencies affect service levels. Tango/04 seeks to provide an affordable BSM framework with VMC 6.0, which its chief calls “Tivoli for the rest of us.”

You will likely hear more about BSM as the march into the services phase

When eBusiness Solution Pros introduced its Stay-Linked emulator two years ago, the company primarily targeted warehouses and retail operations that needed terminal emulators to connected wireless barcode scanners with iSeries servers. With the explosive growth of wireless “Wi-Fi” 802.11 networks, eSP has identified a need for a new class of product that manages the range of devices that organizations want to turn into mobile host terminals. It has dubbed this new class of product “terminal session management.”

There are many terminal emulators for barcode scanners on the market, and Stay-Linked is not unique in this respect. But what is unique

ProData Computer Services recently announced the general availability of DBUnifier, a new menu-driven tool for creating interactive applications from DB2/400 database files, without any programming. With the capability to create selection lists (F4-lists processes), work with subfile processes, and create inquiry and file maintenance applications with field- and record-level validation, ProData says, DBUnifier gives OS/400 shops a reason to send IBM‘s Data File Utility packing.

Omaha, Nebraska, based ProData put itself on the AS/400 map many years ago with its Database Utility (DBU) product, which provides programmers with an easy way to work with data in the DB2/400 database.

Help/Systems last week launched a new interface that allows its Robot/SCHEDULE job scheduling software for OS/400 servers to work with PeopleSoft‘s EnterpriseOne ERP system. With the new Robot/SCHEDULE EnterpriseOne Interface, OS/400 shops can manage all EnterpriseOne batch jobs from within the Help/Systems product, resulting in increased automation.

Robot/SCHEDULE was designed to imitate the actions of an onsite operator. In much the same way that commercial pilots fly airplanes with the aid of an autopilot, Robot/SCHEDULE carries out certain tasks for the modern computer operator, freeing him to do other things.

Once Robot/SCHEDULE has been set up, the software can