Speedware tool migrates PowerHouse apps
July 19, 2010
Speedware has announced a relationship with a company that's been selling a migration tool for PowerHouse sites, a deal that will extend the reach of StrongHold into North America and beyond. Through the agreement, Dutch software house Brains2B grants Speedware exclusive worldwide distribution rights to its StrongHold software. The arrangement also puts Speedware in charge of marketing and sales, as well as joint development.
StrongHold acts as a tool for what Speedware calls automated migrations. As Speedware announced the agreement this week, it reported that it will use StrongHold in situations where a company needs to move applications away from the Cognos PowerHouse language and into Java.
Speedware will become a solution provider for customers interested in modernizing their legacy PowerHouse applications by converting the code to an enterprise Java solution. Legacy modernization projects are performed to resolve the current challenges facing organizations operating critical business functions on legacy platforms.
StrongHold first emerged at the end of 2004 as a solution for PowerHouse migrations -- but both Speedware and Brains2B also refer to the end-result as modernization. When we first covered the entry of this tool in the 3000 community, a Montana school district was evaluating StrongHold as an alternative to finding more PowerHouse expertise for its 3000 apps. Three PowerHouse experts were retiring at the Great Falls School District.
Speedware's announcement today reports the company will provide "all-encompassing solutions that address data and databases and third-party technologies as well as providing worldwide support." The partnership also covers marketing, sales and joint development efforts to support automated migrations. Speedware has acquired such tools at a steady pace since the 3000 Transition Era began, such as the AMXW environment emulation suite.
The StrongHold software will continue to be developed and updated by its designer, Dennis Groenendijk of Brains2B. "Speedware’s expertise in the process and methodology of modernization is what makes them such a valuable partner," he said in a statement. "Their ability to deliver end-to-end modernization solutions that are integrated into the customer’s IT environment adds real value to our automated software."
For more than two decades in the 3000 market, Speedware and Cognos competed for business in what were called Fourth Generation Languages. But the companies took very different development routes once HP announced its exit from the marketplace. Cognos last released a major version of PowerHouse in 2004 with the 8.4 release. The company was purchased by IBM in 2008, and the Automated Development Tools group accounts for a small fraction of Cognos sales today. Cognos announced it will end active support for PowerHouse on Dec. 31.
Speedware has maintained and enhanced its ADT suite over the past five years. Some of fastest 3000 migration projects have been Speedware-to-Speedware transfers, moving HP 3000 code onto the HP-UX version of Speedware.
When StrongHold was first announced, Groenendijk told the PowerHouse community that the tool would automate about 90 percent of a transfer to Java. At that time, Cognos pointed at the remaining 10 percent of a move as being crucial to success. But that was before any professional services firm like Speedware held the distribution and support rights to the software. Speedware said the PowerHouse customers have become more active in looking for a way to leave the Cognos product behind.
“We have seen an increased demand from the PowerHouse user base for solutions that can modernize PowerHouse applications to Java,” said Christine McDowell, Speedware's Manager of Strategic Alliances. “The StrongHold automated software can do this with reduced risk and less cost when compared to other options such as rewriting the code or replacing the legacy applications with packaged applications."
Speedware has posted a web page with more information on the PowerHouse modernization strategy. The company said that by using such a strategy, PowerHouse customers are able to adopt leading-edge systems and technologies without losing the investment in their legacy systems.
This was the prospect for Great Falls Schools when Stronghold entered the field more than five years ago. Systems analyst Georgia Miller said that although Cognos offered the Windows-based Axiant at the time, "but do we want to go in that direction, when there are so many great tools out there for the PC? Our skills in PowerHouse will be going away."