Many of the 1,800 attendees visit COMMON's 92 Expo vendors this year in Nashville.
COMMON 2008 by all standards was a very good show in the eyes of vendors who greatly help to support it. It didn't matter that Nashville was deluged by a series of thunderstorms during the show because all of the 1,800 attendees and 92 vendors were well-protected under the glass dome of the Gaylord Opryland Hotel complex, an amazing environment with all the hotel rooms, exhibit halls, restaurants, and nightspots enclosed inside a biosphere-type environment that is adorned with plants, walkways, rivers, and streetlights. The main complaint visitors had was that it was so large and complex they were constantly getting lost.
Apart from the great educational curriculum that COMMON offers members, attendees generally come to find out what new solutions are available and to wander the Expo floor to get more information about the latest hardware and software for their System i. If you weren't among those fortunate enough to attend this year's convention and exposition, we've listed a few product highlights below that we gleaned from talking to vendors at the conference. While this is not a complete list of all new products, it includes those that exhibitors brought to our attention either through press conferences or when we stopped by their booths. They are listed by vendor in alphabetical order.
Originally based in France, ARCAD Software entered the U.S market a little more than a year ago with offices in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and now has representatives in California, Oregon, and Texas. Marketing Director Mary Langen says the company has done extremely well since it began introducing its suite of applications for analysis, testing, and change management into a mature market.
The ARCAD Software suite is now in Version 8.07 and includes a collection of applications such as the ARCAD customer help desk, Qualifier, Skipper, and Observer. ARCAD just finished a redesign of ARCAD Qualifier, a module of three applications for test automation that handle extraction of coherent production data for testing, coverage measurement, and regression test scenarios.
ARCAD Skipper, its multi-platform change management application, has been enhanced to allow for while-active updates. ARCAD Observer helps solve the problem developers have of trying to understand an application's internal architecture by showing all the components associated with an application whether native System i or residing on another platform.
Aura was promoting a free license for its Launcher 400 Excel product that allows users to create Excel workbooks from System i native applications with formulas, graphs, and complex objects. The company's document and report solution allows for complete interoperability between the System i and native programs in Windows and MS Office.
Business Computer Design (BCD)
BCD introduced an exciting new product, WebSmart Presto, that allows for instant Web-enabling. The company says it can greatly accelerate and simplify 5250 application modernization. With general availability planned for June, Web Smart Presto uses advanced Web-enabling technology to instantly create a browser-based interface over all RPG and COBOL applications. The solution completes BCD's ClearPath integrated modernization suite that also includes Web Smart PHP and Web Smart ILE, Clover Query, Smart Charts, Catapult, and its centerpiece, Nexus Portal.
Biscom showed off new features of FAXCOM Fax Server that allow for attaching a Windows document. It has added email CC and BCC fields to its FAXCOM address book along with other enhancements.
BOSaNOVA displayed its latest release of Linux thin clients that sport Linux firmware. The Linux operating system gives the clients an embedded Vista-type GUI look and feel. The company also displayed its new 410XP BOStablet, a wireless thin-client tablet that has an AMD Geode LX800 processor, an embedded Microsoft XP operating system, and full-screen 5250/3270 emulation. The tablet is IP53-compliant, meaning it is resistant to water and dust.
Bytware showed a new module for its StandGuard anti-virus solution that scans IBM Lotus Domino mail. In addition to database scanning, the optional module includes a quarantine feature, real-time alerts, automatic updating of anti-virus databases, scheduling and logging.
CodeGear demonstrated its Delphi/400 and Delphi for PHP products. Delphi/400 allows for building modern graphical Windows applications with minimal coding and gives all the benefits of rapid visual development with full access to the databases, services, and programs of the System i. Delphi for PHP eases Web development with a completely integrated visual rapid application development approach and framework for PHP. The suite includes an editor, a debugger, visual development tools, out-of-the box connectivity with MySQL and InterBase, and an integrated VCL-for-PHP reusable component class library.
Coglin Mill announced the release of several new RODIN editions designed for SMB businesses that may have felt too small to consider a full data warehouse or datamart solution. With RODIN Select Editions, the company has taken several advanced features and functions of RODIN Enterprise and split them into optional modules.
Extol demonstrated EXTOL Business Extenders, which provide affordable and easily implemented solutions to send and receive POs and invoices in spreadsheets, utilize XML data and processes, exchange data between applications by flat file, and respond to demands for Web Services.
Fax*Star featured its MAX400 product that automatically tunes interactive jobs on the System i to minimize the interactive commercial processing workload (CPW) resources required. The product releases constraints to allow for maximum performance from the system without having to purchase additional interactive features to cater for peaks in the interactive workload.
Halcyon Software launched Version 3.0 of its Job Scheduler systems management application for the System i. It is designed to enable systems operations of all levels to create and run advanced scheduling patterns tailored to suit a company's specific business operations. One improvement over earlier versions includes the ability to convert IBM-standard Job Scheduler entries into Halcyon Groups and Jobs using a simple command.
Information Builders announced its roadmap for enhancing its product offerings around DB2 Web Query. The new enhancements will begin to be delivered in April and will be complete by the end of this year. They include the following:
- Web Query Run Time User Licensing Option: A new option, where user licensing of DB2 Web Query can be based on a set of reports being made available instead of the number of users who will access them
- Web Query Report Distributor: A new product to support the distribution of report output generated via DB2 Web Query in any format by email and printer
- Web Query Web Services API and SDK: A new capability designed to allow application developers to embed DB2 Web Query content in any application and drive DB2 Report Distributor execution from any business process
- Web Query Excel Plug-in: Provides a capability for a user to pull data into an Excel spreadsheet by allowing DB2 Web Query reports to be executed from within a spreadsheet
This provider of document automation and electronic banking solutions released V4.03 of iDocs. The new version is able to support dynamic macros and remote signature pads to customize output and upload signatures. It also released V3.0 of iPDF, its native PDF generator that includes a powerful new engine enhancement and new user interface facilitating spool file browsing. OutQ Monitor has been added to iPDF to automatically generate PDFs and send them to a predefined out queue. Also new is V4.0 of iView Document Archive-Retrieval System, which now includes virtual folders, network-enabled archiving, and the ability to export archived documents to any remote FTP server on the System i.
The company showed its DataThread VSSA solution for System i that allows for strong user authentication with configurable, cascading electronic signatures onto System i legacy applications. The associated small thumbprint scanner plugs into any USB port.
Linoma demonstrated its new GoAnywhere product that is a centralized solution to automate data retrieval, translation, encryption, compression, and distribution throughout the enterprise. The solution was just released last February and allows users to forego using a mixed collection of products and techniques and consolidate all their data transmission and processing actions under one solution with a single point of control and administration. The company of course offers its well-known Crypto Complete to protect sensitive data on the System i.
The company announced its SNAP solutions designed to allow traditional applications to be plugged into popular front-ends, including Outlook, SharePoint, Notes, and WebSphere Portal, as well as open portals, such as Google. SNAP provides rapid integration of back-end RPG and COBOL applications with the user's choice of front-end.
Maximum Availability demonstrated its noMAX suite of products to users looking for a high availability or disaster recovery solution.
The company announced the launch of a new demonstration Web site that displays live data-driven Web 2.0 m-Power-built Web applications with numerous new features.
NGS took users through the features of NGS-IQ, its enterprise performance management, reporting, and analytics solution for the System i and showed them its advantages over IBM's Query/400 and DB2 Web Query. The company also demonstrated its Concert Series financial management solution. NGS had a special promotion for new customers who completed their software license agreement online.
Patrick Townsend explained the features of its broad array of security solutions, including those for encryption, key management, system logging, and access control.
PowerTech let users know it has upgraded all its products to be compatible with V6R1, including new versions of Compliance Monitor, Network Security, Authority Broker, and Security Audit. If you have one of these products, see your PowerTech representative.
The company announced the public availability of its newest browser-based database and editing tool, iData. Extensive changes have been made to the product since its prerelease last November, the company said. The utility now allows users to access, search, organize, and edit their DB2 data on the System i. There are three editions of iData: free, basic, and professional. In addition to editing data, the nifty utility allows for limited but useful graphical search and query functions.
Quadrant announced the release of V2.3 of IntelliChief, which now includes a dynamic new WebForms module, intelligent RubberStamp designer, and no-programming integration templates for Infor XA, Lawson, and Infinium. Additional enhancements include added workflow flexibility and speed, and options for middleware and integration.
Raz-Lee showed attendees the new features of its iSecurity suite of security products for the System i. The new Capture module is a real-time green-screen tracking solution that automatically captures user activity as displayed on the System i screen. It saves the captures, providing a searchable audit trail. The new AP-Journal enables real-time auditing of database changes and a timeline history of all changes to application data in all business-critical application files and databases. It also gives the security administrator answers to batch and online queries regarding changes in application data.
RJS introduced a packet-printing software add-on and a new, advanced data-capture and forms-processing module, both for WebDocs. RJS teamed up with Datacap, a leading data capture solutions provider, to integrate the company's Taskmaster software into WebDocs. The packet printing software allows users to electronically assemble, print, and email document packets with variable content requirements.
SkyView announced to attendees the company's collaboration with Innovatum to add a real-time plug-in to Policy Minder called Policy Minder Real Time, which uses Innovatum's DataThread technology to capture compliance-related events as they occur and then notifies the security officer with an email.
The company demonstrated its latest System i barcode and RFID solutions, including its award-winning Barcode400.
Vision Solutions took the press on a virtual tour of its future plans and strategies for integration with the new IBM Power Systems servers. Vision Solutions now has more than 6,000 customers and 400 employees, has issued more than 22,000 licenses, and is in 70 countries. Its customers represent more than 90 percent of the System i high availability installed base. Customer retention rates exceed 94 percent, the company said.
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