The Inside Stories of the Innovation Award Winners

Back at the Spring COMMON user group meeting, IBM announced the second of its annual Innovation Awards. The awards are designed to showcase the achievements of iSeries and System i users who have done--as the name suggests--innovative things with the platform. We promised we would give you the inside stories of the winners, and here they are.
Our intent was to profile the 2006 winners and finalists for each category. We weren't able to reach everyone (although we tried, repeatedly), so we have had to give a snapshot of some of the companies that IBM deems the most innovative in their use of the System i5.
IBM reports having received more than 50 nominations across the five different award categories of Application Deployment, Business Resiliency, Infrastructure Simplification, i5/OS Leadership, and Education Excellence. A judging committee composed of two COMMON board members, two IBM members, and one industry analyst was then assigned to each category. This committee then ranked and scored each nomination based on the following criteria:
Demonstrates business innovation
Supports outstanding achievement
Highlights business value to the company and its end users
Is considered a best practice in the industry
Stands out from the others nominated in the category

Dispenser supplier sticks with System i

Since 2003, AptarGroup Inc., a global supplier of dispensing systems for the cosmetic, pharmaceutical and beverage industries, has had two major reasons to move off the iSeries, but each time it's stuck with it.

The company's primary factors for staying were the platform's reliability, physical footprint via server conglomeration and hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing savings on R/3, SAP's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, according to Christopher Crofoot, global data center manager for Crystal Lake, Ill.-based AptarGroup.
Companies and products Crofoot considered switching to included: Unisys' 4-way ES7000, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s (HP) RX762 and IBM's xSeries boxes. With a budget of $2.5 million to work with, Crofoot had to make the call

V5R4 Introduces Subroutines for CL

Subroutines for CL are here for V5R4

CL subroutine support is quite powerful and makes great strides toward improving CL programs in the area of code readability, maintainability and debugging capability

Three Languages For Java Programmers to Learn

Russ Olsen's Weblog

Dave Thomas, among others, has been saying for years that you can become a better Java programmer by getting out there and learning some other programming languages. The idea is that by knowing something about what the other guys are thinking you can think a little clearer yourself. I'd like to suggest three languages that I think every Java programmer should spend some time thinking about. Just to make it interesting, I'm going to describe each language first, before I tell you what it is. Here goes.

RPG Bods too expensive?

Codan Rubber Ltd, based in Corby, Northants, manufactures and distributes fluid handling system. As part of the Codan Group they had previously implemented a high-end MRP and accounting system costing in excess of £300,000, of which £180,000 were training and consultancy costs. It also proved difficult to implement and costly to develop. Hament Patel, IT Manager said; There were numerous bugs in the system. Product costing did not work, and neither did EDI, which impacted heavily on the main business as costings were inaccurate. We found the software too complex, and if we wanted to modify the system it would require development by AS/400 RPG programmers, which are very costly. In 2005, the demise of Rover Group - one of Codan�s largest customers - caused Codan to re-evaluate their MRP needs. Said General Manager Jonathan George MBA, 'The big push for change was when Rover went bust in April 2005, which happened at a time when some of our other business was being transferred to low-cost countries. The combination of massive restructuring meant that we had to get a new system in quickly otherwise we would not have survived'

RPG Programmers too expensive?

Codan Rubber Ltd, based in Corby, Northants, manufactures and distributes fluid handling system. As part of the Codan Group they had previously implemented a high-end MRP and accounting system costing in excess of £300,000, of which £180,000 were training and consultancy costs. It also proved difficult to implement and costly to develop. Hament Patel, IT Manager said; There were numerous bugs in the system. Product costing did not work, and neither did EDI, which impacted heavily on the main business as costings were inaccurate. We found the software too complex, and if we wanted to modify the system it would require development by AS/400 RPG programmers, which are very costly. In 2005, the demise of Rover Group - one of Codans largest customers - caused Codan to re-evaluate their MRP needs. Said General Manager Jonathan George MBA, The big push for change was when Rover went bust in April 2005, which happened at a time when some of our other business was being transferred to low-cost countries. The combination of massive restructuring meant that we had to get a new system in quickly otherwise we would not have survived.