• Oracle Launches ‘Business Accelerator’ for J.D. Edwards EnterpriseOne

  November 13, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Oracle last week introduced a new Business Accelerator product aimed at speeding the implementation of the J.D. Edwards EnterpriseOne ERP software. According to Oracle, its Business Accelerators are a series of tools, wizards, and workflows that help business partners and consultants perform “rapid, best-practice implementations.” The software enables partners to develop “interactive questionnaires” that help narrow the exact requirements of the ERP customer, while retaining a maximum degree of flexibility, Oracle says. Oracle previously offered a Business Accelerator for its E-Business Suite, and with the addition of the Business Accelerator for EnterpriseOne version 8.12, it now has two. In other

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• BCD’s WebSmart PHP Goes GA

  November 11, 2007 Alex Woodie

  This month marks the official launch of WebSmart PHP, a new variant of the WebSmart development environment from Business Computer Design Int’l that’s intended to make development of PHP applications easy and intuitive for System i programmers. For a license fee of about $4,000, System i developers can have their PHP generated for them, while they bone up on PHP functions by reading BCD’s extensive documentation. WebSmart PHP speeds PHP development by using a series of templates and wizards to guide users through the development process, and providing users with detailed descriptions of 5,000 PHP functions, including “instellisense” prompting. As

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• XAware Takes the Open Source Plunge

  November 6, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Data integration tool vendor XAware yesterday announced it’s leaving behind the world of propriety software development and a direct sales force, and staking its future on the commercial open source business model. As part of the move, the company is giving away licenses to XA-Suite version 5 (which was just released), launching an open source development community at www.xaware.org, and hitching its horse to database maker MySQL, whose success in commercial open source software XAware will do its best to emulate. XAware is a Colorado Springs, Colorado, company that has been developing a collection of XML-based data integration

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• Quadrant Refines PPM Offering with IntelliChief 2.0

  November 6, 2007 Alex Woodie

  A potpourri of improvements were delivered last week by Quadrant Software for IntelliChief, the paperless process management, or PPM system, aimed at improving the workflow of documents at medium- and large-size System i shops. With IntelliChief version 2.0, users should be able to pull documents from a wider variety of computer systems, verify the accuracy of the data more quickly, and route it within their organization more effectively than with previous releases. From new Web services interfaces and an audit log to more intelligent workflow processes and batch scanning capabilities that use barcodes, IntelliChief version 2.0 provides more refined ways

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• ARTech Nearly Done with ‘Rocha’ Rewrite of GeneXus 4GL

  November 6, 2007 Alex Woodie

  We’re still about three months away from seeing the general availability of “Rocha,” the codename for the 10th version of the fourth-generation language (4GL) development tool, GeneXus, from ARTech. But to hear company executives talk about it from last week’s North American user conference in Chicago, Rocha is ready for users to start using to develop next-generation Web 2.0-style applications, and even to put them into production on System i machines. Since it was founded in 1988, GeneXus has been helping companies around the world develop business applications that run on the AS/400. Since the Uruguayan company rolled out

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• VAULT400 Offers Free Insurance with ‘Quick-Ship’

  November 6, 2007 Alex Woodie

  There’s nothing like a good disaster to make one realize the value of insurance and planning. Without putting in the time, money, and effort to prepare, there can be no assurance that things will turn out well on the other side. United Computer Group, which is in the disaster recovery business with its VAULT400 online backup service, gave its iSeries customers the equivalent of a free insurance policy last week when it unveiled its new Quick-Ship program. It’s been just over a year since UCG formally launched its VAULT400 online backup business, which is based on technology it OEMs

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• 3Q Holdings to Buy IPMS for $16 Million

  November 6, 2007 Alex Woodie

  The Australian software company 3Q Holdings Limited will purchase the Island Pacific Merchandising System, an ERP-type application used by multi-channel retailers that runs exclusively under i5/OS, Island Pacific announced last week. As we reported two weeks ago, Island Pacific was close to announcing the name of the company that had agreed to buy IPMS for $16 million. Last week, the Irvine, California, company announced it had a signed agreement from 3Q Holdings to buy the aging i5/OS-based MMS, along with other assets that make up the IPMS division. As it turns out, 3Q Holdings, which was formerly known as

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• English Clothing Maker Taps looksoftware for System i Modernization

  November 6, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Alexandra, the English manufacturer of uniforms and other clothes for workers, has successfully service-enabled its back-end RPG application to provide a way to access the application over the Web, looksoftware announced last week. Since Alexandra was founded in 1958, the company has been providing clothing to workers in England’s hospitality and healthcare industries, first via catalog, then through stores, and finally across the Web. In 2002, the company was granted a royal warrant of appointment to the Queen of England, providing another valuable source of business. The company currently relies on the System i server to run critical back office

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• Centerfield, S4i Offer Deal on System i Performance Tools

  November 6, 2007 Alex Woodie

  As part of the deal unveiled by partners Centerfield Technology and S4i recently, System i shops can save 40 percent off the cost of the DASD-Plus and disk/HUNTER performance tools when they buy them together. If you work in an iSeries or System i shop that’s struggling to keep disk use from getting out of hand, it may be worth taking a look at DASD-Plus and disk/HUNTER. After all, without a minimum level of open DASD available, application performance can come to a screeching halt, and it could even put your IBM midrange server in danger of crashing. DASD-Plus, from

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• IBS Partners with Global for Excel Software

  November 6, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Integrated Barcoding Systems (IBS) and Global Software have entered into an OEM agreement that results in IBS reselling Global’s software, which integrates Excel with i5/OS applications, as an add-on to its data collection software, the companies announced last week. IBS is an Adrian, Michigan, software company that specializes in the development of middleware that extends ERP application screens to data collection equipment, mostly wireless barcode scanners, but also some radio frequency identification (RFID) equipment. The company’s flagship product, QuikTrac, has been used to connect popular i5/OS-based ERP systems like XA, BPCS, System 21, J.D. Edwards, and Movex, with a variety

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