Speedware celebrates with free migrations
May 10, 2011
Speedware is celebrating its first anniversary of employee ownership by giving something away, instead of receiving gifts. The software and services company is making an offer to the 3000 community to mark its first year of refreshed self-management: 50 companies will get free migration services when they purchase the AMXW migration tool suite. The company wants prospects to connect them via the email address [email protected].
The offer throws the spotlight on the software that Speedware reports has helped take more than 700 HP 3000s offline during the last eight years. AMXW, purchased in 2003, is a vital tool that has automated migration work for most of those years. The software speeds the migration of HP 3000s to Unix, Linux or Windows, remaining installed to manage the distinctions between 3000 specifics like job control and the software processes used on target systems.
Jennifer Fisher, the director of Speedware’s sales and marketing, says the services giveaway is targeted at the 3000 owner who’s been unable to assemble the manpower or budget to migrate away from MPE/iX. Fisher said Speedware has matured along with the 3000 customer, so it wants to help them move onward if that’s the company’s goal.
Speedware believes the expertise to get a migration done isn’t easily found in the remaining 3000 shops. Speedware director Chris Koppe said migration “is a one-time skillset to do something like converting COBOL or converting databases. If someone wants to tackle this themselves, there’s a learning curve. This is a throwaway skill, and we have people at Speedware who do it all day. It will be so much faster to crunch it through and give these companies their converted results.”
Koppe added that because these migrations will be performed by Speedware, it can be as much as “five times more proficient than if the customers do it themselves.” However, the AMXW toolset is aimed at companies who can budget for tools and some training for themselves, but not full-on migration services. The proficiency in purchasing the tool comes from its continual enhancements, the company added. Koppe estimates that AMXW is getting three major updates per year, refining its features through contacts with migrating customers.
Giving away tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in migrations would have been more difficult under the Activant ownership that Speedware had until last spring, Koppe added. “They were very numbers-oriented,” he said. “There is a labor cost for us, because we’re giving away the services for free. “Ultimately it will come out of the software price. If you look at it as doing services for free, or getting software for less, in one way or another Speedware is eating that cost. We just think it’s the right thing to do for the remaining customers who are left.”