Wrapping Legacy Applications - IT JUST WORKS

A legacy application is not just an 80x24 green screen. It can be;

* A windows Client Server, fat client or thin client application
* A web application plain old HTML
* A web 2.0 Application, script, Java, ActiveX (with embedded widgets)
* A Java applet or Java Application
* A custom application (Salesforce.com, Oracle Forms, Lotus Notes)
* Packaged Applications

You get the point. If it’s deployed live, it’s legacy.

So, for years we have wrapped green screen applications successfully to enable their business functionality to be consumed by other technologies. Heck, many of your ATM transactions are just plain wrappers on mainframe applications and screens. The good thing about this approach is - IT JUST WORKS (my new motto). So, wouldn’t it be nice if we could “wrap” any application like this, not just 80x24 screens but all the "other" stuff. Well, now we truly can. OpenSpan Studio enables virtually anything that runs on the Windows O/S to be wrapped – exposing the deep UI elements, controls and transactions (robustly and securely) to any mid-tier technology. You can even take any of those legacy applications and move them to the server room (thanks to Virtualization) and run them completely without a user ever needing to see them again! SOA enablement of legacy applications - it's here now.

This approach is crucial is 2009 for delivering quick solutions to the business. IT JUST WORKS.

So, whether the application is 5 minutes old, or 30 years old, if it has a UI, there’s a good chance it will be part someone’s SOA / API strategy in the very near future. Thanks to OpenSpan :)

Look at this quote from an Article on SOA in the SDTIMES last year if you needed any further proof.

The survey found that a majority, or 58 percent, of SOA systems contain components that are not designed to be interoperable as Web services. These include components that use non-SOAP messaging, such as IBM WebSphere MQ and Java’s Remote Method Invocation. Further, mainframe applications show up in 47 percent of SOA applications, and packaged applications accounted for 68 percent of components.

OpenSpan partners with IBM

Had quite a few people ping me today since this great news hit the wire.

I was in Orlando this weekend and attended the IBM Lotusphere 2009 event. Whow, that was a big turnout. What we were demonstrating was interrogating components of Windows applications right within Lotus Expeditor and enabling you to wire any of these UI elements to any of the other Lotus API's, portlets and components within Expeditor.

OPENSPAN ANNOUNCES WINDOWS CONTAINER FOR LOTUS

Also, OpenSpan has achieved Advanced Level World-wide Business Partner status within IBM's PartnerWorld.

This continued expansion of the OpenSpan reach through partners like Software AG, Microsoft, IBM and Tibco is proof that the OpenSpan desktop integration technology is not only necessary, but in demand. Broad Integration techniques is key to successfully unifying user applications on the desktop and having them interact with other client applications and server components, regardless of underlying platform technology. We are pleased to have IBM on our team :) And of course, being on the IBM team.

Another useful link talking about the IBM Expeditor product can be found here : Using IBM Expeditor toolkit to extend IBM Lotus Sametime

Of course, I'd be amiss if I didn't point out this news story too : IBM bucks gloom with rosy outlook
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Creating an API into any desktop application

I blogged today about what makes an application a legacy application (see link Below).

I am fanatical about Desktop Apps needing API's to increase productivity for users. You going to see me write a lot more about this in 2009 because I believe if there was ever a time for people to recognize that desktop API's can provide rapid and massive ROI, it's now.

I started questioning when and why developers stopped building API's into client (Fat or Thin) applications.

HLAPPI was created to enable mainframe applications to have an API and created significant productivity enhancements on the desktop. Around the same time, with similar benefits, Microsoft Office came out with DDE which was an API for Office apps. I am (was) a very experienced DDE programmer (eek). DDE was pretty bad and probably gave Desktop Application Integration a bad name (there was no error checking at all). MS OFfice came out a few years later with OLE which was a lot more robust. Then came Visual Basic Macro's for Office. DDE, OLE and VB are all desktop productivity API technologies that have been very widely used over the last 15+ years and there is no doubt, led the way in Office / Desktop Productivity.

Funny, all of these are in still in wide use today. However, enterprise users use more than just mainframe and office applications developed internally or packaged. Yet few of these other technologies support any other kind of API except POCAP (Plane Old Copy and Paste).

Imagine, any existing (old or new) desktop application being given it's own, "instant-on" API. Even if you don't own the application or have the source code to it! And better, unlike Visual Basic, you create the API yourself with a simple Drag and Drop Visual designer technology and better still, the API can be exposed as an SOA Web Service (REST or SOAP) so any other newer technology can consume and integrate it in minutes.

OpenSpan studio does just that. It opens up all of the 100's of 1000's of desktop applications running in the enterprise today, for integration. Once we give these applications their own API (which can be instantly), the power of integration and automation is yours for the taking. It might have taken over 15+ years to realize that API's in these applications are invaluable and key to productivity gains, but at least we are here now, finally with a working product that enables it.

What makes an application a legacy application?

2009 Predictions - this year is easy to predict!

Some of my 2009 prediction are picked up here...

A Perfect Storm for Cloud Computing and other IT Weather Predictions for 2009

The truth is, and we all know it, 2009 will be about survival and cost savings. The number one factor we are already seeing is that if you cannot show a quick ROI, forget it. Whereas for the last 5 or 6 years, ROI has often funded new architecture changes (even when the ROI is unproven), in 2009 the must-have-identifiable savings will go to the bottom line to show shareholders you have costs under control. Businesses that do not spend quickly, when the spend will save money, will have their shareholders and employees to answer to.

I know this will sound biased but OpenSpan has consistently shown, that automating user desktops can reap savings in months. And large $ savings at that.

Enterprise desktops are awash with too many unintegrated applications bringing back the long forgotten integration phrase known as "Swivel Chair Syndrome"

If your in IT, grab a coffee or cup of tea and watch over the shoulder of one of your enterprise users. Tell me, they wouldn't benefit, BIG TIME from desktop automation?

2009 will be the year of desktop optimization and automation - this year, my 2009 prediction is easy!

Desktop Optimization leads the way for cost savings!

I am also pleased to be blogging over at TMCnet on the subject of Desktop Productivity, something very close to my heart as you all know. You can find the link here http://blog.tmcnet.com/desktop-productivity/

But for now, I'll post the text here as well, just for y'all :)

There are 3 Priorities for IT and Business in 2009 for immediate and dramtic cost savings!

Optimize what your users already have and do
Optimize what your users already have and do
Optimize what your users already have and do

OK, a little tongue in cheek but it's TRUE.... Have you ever looked at a real user lately in your company? Really looked at their desktop and what they do with it? Please, stop what you are doing and go and look. This is really the only place you can see with your own eyes the results of your organizations labors for SOA, Integration, BPM, BAM, Mash-ups, Web 2.0 and what ever other technology you've been working on for the last 5 years! Your users are your consumers!

What do you think you your users will be looking at or doing on their desktops? I am not a mind reader but I'd be surprised if it isn't at least 4 of the 5 below;

Viewing more than 5 applications daily, possibly 10 or more. This will include completely different UI models such as Windows GUI apps, Web Apps, Java Apps, Mainframe apps and maybe even some DOS apps.
Entering common keystrokes 1000's of times a day to integrate the above applications which will include ALT-C, ALT-TAB, ALT-V and mouse clicks, Focus, double-click, right click, copy, Focus, right click, paste. Also typing in the same text twice (SSN, Phone etc.,)
Executing laborious repetitive workflows, like looking up in two or more systems to see if the customer exists in two or more of the systems, copying data out of spreadsheets to do a trade and moving the data back to another system
Logging in with user name and passwords repetitively to at least one of the applications, maybe all of them, even SAAS applications or ones you wrote a few years ago
Writing text on a notepad or post-it-note to be used later (to enter data back into a spreadsheet or notes log).

I could go on, but you get the point. Enterprise has spent a fortune on the server integration technologies but rarely do they focus on what business is demanding. That is, the optimization what our users already have and do. If you deliver your users yet another application, make sure it doesn't just sit there and add to the desktop conundrum of too many un-integrated applications. It kills desktop productivity and adds to your enterprise costs. Fact.

Optimizing the desktop allows enterprises to save hundreds of millions of dollars by automating even the simplest of workflows on their user's desktops. Think of the time wasted daily by your users and what you would save through automation. I have seen desktop automation be implemented in less than 4 weeks that saves over $500k a year by automating the tasks of less than 20 users. I've also seen companies save over $20m a year by pushing out just one small automation across 20,000 users.

The time has come. There are products out there today that can be rapidly implemented to integrate, automate and ultimately optimize all of the applications your users have on their desktops. IT can be trained in days and massive savings to the bottom line can be seen in weeks!

With automation and desktop productivity improvements comes better monitoring, compliance, less errors and elimination of duplication. 2009 - will be the year of desktop integration and dramatic productivity increases. Remember, I said it here first.

My company, OpenSpan has one such product and I encourage you to look at a demonstration that you can view on line. Do your own math? What would just 2% increase in user productivity mean to your CFO in 2009?

SOA - quick wins rule..

I read this blog today by Loraine Lawson (To SOA or Not to SOA During Economic Turmoil?) and it contains so much applicability around SOA in one place, that I had to comment.

I think this blog says a lot. No doubt at all I am seeing many IT budgets being slashed and no doubt most people think SOA means big IT budgets. So, how could you not conclude SOA is stalling? Easy, because we are seeing the opposite. What is different and is reflected in the article, is that we are clearly seeing people looking to more innovative approaches to SOA to match the depleting budgets. We see this because OpenSpan is a perfect fit. As the article makes clear and we all now know, there is real value from quick iterative approaches to SOA. However, since SOA often means a rewrite of working (for many years) business processes, or a lot of integration around existing processes, it’s hard to imagine the words quick, iterative and SOA all being used in the same article, let alone the same sentence!

But, that is exactly what OpenSpan is all about. Taking working legacy applications that users use every singe day and quickly wrapping them to expose their workflows as services. Real-world, working Web Services that can be consumed by other enterprise services or other automated workflows. Take the applications out of the users eyes and hands and have those existing application workflows become a set of services! Everyone gets to see quickly what services offer up the most ROI. The ROI (which can be big with quick wins) can go towards funding a long-term strategy of the re-architecture. Since many existing legacy applications are too hard to rewrite anyway, OpenSpan’s almost “instant-on” web service enablement of existing applications has never been more applicable in today’s’ economy. The continued OpenSpan growth says it all. Feel free to comment.

FInancial Services - a silver lining

There are a lot of things to come from this financial crises we are now in but most of what we hear is on the negative side. That doesn't always have to be the case. Therefore, I thought it was about time I blogged about why, for these financial companies, the right technology choices are even more critical to make the most of what is going on in their world.

Financial IT executives have to deal with the brunt of the fall-out around Acquisitions, Mergers, Layoffs, retraining etc., IT and business are expected to continue to build a consistent experience for their customers (existing and acquired) whilst bringing on significantly more applications and processes and doing so with tighter and tighter budgets. Business is expected to deliver improving customer service because M&A tends to mean customer loyalty is tested and they will start migrating to competitors after even just one bad customer service experience. Less people, dealing with more customers makes this a very challenging environment to say the least.

It's almost the perfect storm for IT and business because even without all this change, they were struggling to improve customer service because of the shear number of applications and manual processes in their front, middle and back offices. IT and business need to seek out technologies that can not only weather the storm, but can actually calm it. The big ol' "we need to do more, with less", whilst sounding like an old record sometimes, has never been more relevant than today.

At OpenSpan, it is no surprise that in this quarter alone, we will see sales of over 30,000 seats sold into financial services and contact centers globally. Companies that were feeling this pain even before this crises began are benefitting quickly from the unique OpenSpan integration approach. OpenSpan has shown over and over, that automating existing manual user processes reaps massive rewards for business and IT. It goes without saying, that this approach reduces costs, increases security, compliance, accuracy and just plain makes sense because customer satisfaction levels are raised . The whole customer experience is improved.

In the past, "doing more with less, quickly" has been difficult. That's where OpenSpan is unique. OpenSpan can, iteratively tackle the everyday burden of users manually navigating their way through a multitude of desktop applications and just automate them in the most robust and secure manner available. In the OpenSpan studio, as we build out those automations quickly, we can insert new business processes or controls, we can add new rules or ensure compliance on existing rules. In addition, OpenSpan does this in such a way that users may not even need to see or touch many of those applications again! This is not an all or nothing approach that most people think about integration, which would typically mean potentially years before any results or benefits are seen. OpenSpan does this so you can choose to automate the manual processes that cause the most pain immediately and roll automations quickly to users for immediate ROI. Then you can build on that, adding more and more benefits, so you see progress constantly (and ever increasing ROI).

With OpenSpan 4.0, taking those automated user processes and moving them (along with the applications) to the server side, means we can at last also start thinking about getting those applications off of the desktop. OpenSpan can take any automated process and expose it as a web service and access them from any mid-tier architecture technology. Game changing.

So, I did say, you need technologies that can not only weather, but calm the storm. That's exactly what OpenSpan is doing for it's customers and it's doing it every single day. Our growth and width and breath of our growing customers in the financial services sector, speaks for itself.