iMessaging Systems today announced significant changes to its System i telephony products and its business model that are aimed at making it easier and less expensive to integrate System i applications with phone systems. First, the company eliminated the PC hardware requirement for its iNspire suite, which is now a software-only product running entirely under i OS. Second, it overhauled its relationship with IBM, making the IBM the sole distributor of iNspire and opening the product up to Big Blue’s vast partner channel.

iMessaging Systems is a New Hampshire company that develops software that connects corporate phone systems (either

Let’s face it–sometimes it can be difficult to get excited about a new terminal emulator. As the graphical extravagance of the Web 2.0 revolution trains us to consume data via a million exotic widgets and colorful gadgets, the green-screen 5250 display begins to look a little old. One wonders, then, what Attachmate could do to spark interest in its new terminal emulator suite, Reflection 2008, which was publicly announced yesterday. As it turns out, there’s plenty of room for innovation.

As director of product marketing and management for Attachmate’s three terminal emulation lines, Michael Miller has pondered these very questions:

System i shops that have been thwarted from utilizing e-mail to its fullest extent due to the lack of support for e-mail authentication in IBM‘s i OS may want to check out a potential solution unveiled by System i software developer DRV Technologies last week. The company says it developed a way to support e-mail authentication from the System i, thereby reducing the chance a customer’s Internet service provider (ISP) will return e-mail and the critical business correspondence it contains.

E-mail authentication is growing in popularity as a way to reduce the amount of spam and phishing attempts polluting

ACOM Solutions has added support for the two-dimensional MaxiCode barcode standard to its EZeDocs/400 suite of document and forms management software for the IBM i Power Systems (AS/400) server. MaxiCode barcodes enable companies to store much more information about the package, and in some cases can be more easily read than traditional one-dimensional barcodes. The enhancement was made with the release of EZeDocs/400 version 8.1.

The MaxiCode barcode was introduced in 1992 by United Parcel Service to help the shipper more easily track the movement of packages. The barcode can store more information by arranging optical marks in a horizontal

IBM is reaching out to customers for ideas on how to improve EGL, the fourth-generation language (4GL) programming language that IBM brought to the System i last year from the System z. The outreach effort, which is hosted on the EGL Café Web site, is called EGL Jam 2009, and you have until the end of the week to make your opinion heard.

What would you have IBM to do with EGL? Where do you want Big Blue to take it? Maybe you want IBM to make EGL an open standard? Or perhaps you would like it to generate RPG

BOSaNOVA last week announced the formation of a reseller partnership with ThinPrint, a German developer of software that claims to speed, secure, and simplify the process of initiating print jobs on servers (including System i servers) from thin client terminals. ThinPrint’s offering, called .print, will be distributed by BOSaNOVA with its line of thin client terminals.

ThinPrint’s software gives organizations more control over their printing environment–especially when print jobs are sent over the network to printers attached to thin clients. Because large print jobs can suck up a large percentage of total network bandwidth, it can be critical to

Last week’s inauguration of President Barack Obama heralded a new age of hope and change for America. And for Medalcraft Mint of Green Bay, Wisconsin, the event marked the beginning of sales for the official presidential inaugural medallion for Obama, which go for about $60 each. For the first time in a long time, Medalcraft’s orders and manufacturing process will be handled not by AS/400 hardware, but via NetSuite‘s on demand ERP system, which the company recently migrated to.

According to NetSuite, when Medalcraft came under new ownership in 2007, the new owners decided to “believe in change” and

Manhattan Associates‘ System i-based warehouse management system (WMS) has been the standard of the distribution industry for over a decade. In recent years, the company has been heavily promoting its Windows- and .NET-based WMS and transportation solutions–to the detriment of its System i marketing. But as a cache of recently published case studies show, ManH’s i-based WMS still rules the roost.

Between July 2008 and January 2009, Manhattan Associates published more than 50 case studies showcasing some of its largest customers, which can be found in the library at www.manh.com/library/case_studies.html. A quick read of the studies shows the

The e-mail and records compliance software developed by AXS-One will support the latest release of Lotus Notes/Domino by the end of the quarter with the launch of AXS-One Compliance Platform version 3.8, the company announced last week.

The AXS-One Compliance Platform helps organizations administer their electronic records and minimizes their legal exposure by indexing, archiving, and managing retention for all electronic records, including e-mail and instant messages. AXS-One supports major messaging platforms, including Notes/Domino and Microsoft Exchange, and can be extended to other environments, such as SAP and file management systems, through versions of the AXS-Link product.

Bill Lyons, CEO

The environmental benefits of using electronic documents are well known. Fewer trees cut down for pulp and less waste and pollution in our landfills and our skies. And now, inFORM Decisions has further extended the benefits of electronic documents by joining an Arbor Day Foundation program that will result in 10 trees being planted every time a customer buys IFD’s i OS document or payment management software.

For years, IFD has been a proponent of environmental benefits of electronic document management technology. The Southern California company even maintains a “Green Page” on its Web site (at www.informdecisions.com/green.asp) that describes