System iNetwork

July 8, 2008

The New, the Old, and the Beachhead: A Conversation with ASNA's Eduardo Ross

Modernization is on the minds of System i masters even as mature applications keep moving the platform along. What exactly are ASNA's clients and System i prospects looking for? "It’s hard to sell the old applications to new customers," points out Eduardo Ross, president of ASNA. The System i applications of yesterday may not seem as user friendly as the Windows applications of today, and new customers may want an application that will work with systems other than the i. Thus, vendors often look toward long-term strategies such as extending the System i platform to .NET. "Vendors are in a bind, though, as they seek avenues to extend the market while keeping up support for existing customers," Ross adds. In the case of his company, ASNA has been selling software for 25 years. "Now we’re providing more services in addition to offering products. IT is into the fiber of all businesses -- virtually no business today operates without the help of IT."

Customers express concerns, Ross says, about how to expand the resources on the System i platform. "Screen scraping and superficial interfacing with other systems can only go so far," he notes. "Customers come to us asking how they can extend the applications beyond simple cosmetic makeovers." Ross says improvements have to happen while the past is still alive. "Major surgery on legacy applications is complex and requires planning, energy, and a broad skill set," he points out. "But without this surgery, the patient dies."

Citing the example of a payroll system, he notes that today’s businesses need far more than the recording of basic payroll information. "Shops are looking for agility beyond the back-office environment of the past," Ross explains. "They need features such as interoperability with business partners via web services, web-based queries, and the ability to provide an intuitive user interface. You can only do so much with the intrinsic System i RPG platform. But, using this core platform as a beachhead, you can extend portions to the .NET platform to provide many application modernization opportunities. In reality, a lot of applications written in RPG still represent the core of the new environment."

Meanwhile, application software vendors such as ASNA find it hard to see an extending System i market. “It’s a pity because the platform, at its core, is so good,” Ross adds.

Posted by vhamende at July 8, 2008 2:09 PM