The release of new software for the HP 3000 has been slowed by both the economy’s stall and the talk of transition, but that hasn’t stopped Minisoft from issuing a new release or two. The company has begun shipping a new eDIRECT product as a companion to eFORMz. There’s more details at www.minisoft.com/pages/business/eformz/edirect.htm. Customers can now e-mail any eFORMz electronic form as a PDF file. Minisoft’s president Doug Greenup said that means sites like Leslie Controls, Hickory Farms and Universal Flow “can now e-mail invoices, purchase orders and other forms to vendors and customers, rather than incurring the costs of handling and postage.” Despite HP’s recommendations, few sites have pulled HP 3000s out of production this year, choosing to maintain a proven platform by adding such functionality in the face of uncertain economic times.

Minisoft’s also started shipping its ODBC and JDBC drivers for the Unix platforms — those from both HP and IBM, as well as a version for Linux. “We offer an Oracle hook back to IMAGE” by using these drivers, Greenup said.”This is valuable for those Oracle users who lost this functionality when HP dropped their [Oracle to IMAGE] gateway product.” Greenup added the drivers’ new technology “is also a great tool for migration;” details at www.minisoft.com/pages/general/products/news_odbc_unix.html