REDMOND, Wash., and SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, Sept. 16, 2002 — Microsoft Corp. and ArtinSoft Corp., a leading provider of automatic migration and conversion tools, today announced that the Central Bank of Costa Rica successfully migrated its interbank electronic payments and transaction system (SINPE) to Microsoft .NET technologies. The mission-critical application handles more than $500 million in transactions through an average of 100,000 daily exchanges between domestic and international financial institutions.
“The major benefits provided by the migration of SINPE are the sharp increase in developer productivity and the new technology paradigm that will allow us to implement features that the globalization process demands,”
said Luis Zumbado, director of SINPE technologies for the Central Bank of Costa Rica.
“This is vital for the central bank of a country with a growing economy and a high level of international transactions.”
Together, Microsoft and ArtinSoft provided the technology and expertise the Central Bank of Costa Rica needed to complete the migration of 1.3 million lines of code from Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to Visual Basic .NET. This allows the new version of SINPE to take full advantage of the Microsoft .NET Framework to reduce interbank transaction time and overall operational costs.
“The implementation of SINPE on .NET technologies is the result of a technological vision that has defined the Central Bank of Costa Rica and Costa Rica’s technology leadership in Latin America over the years,”
said Orlando Ayala, group vice president of the Worldwide Sales, Marketing and Services Group at Microsoft.
“This vision has allowed the bank to implement mission-critical applications that provide real value. We are pleased to be a part of the success of this project.”
“Today’s launch of the new version of SINPE is clear proof that migration technology has reached a new level of consideration among CIOs and IT strategists,”
said Carlos Araya, CEO of ArtinSoft.
“Migration as a strategy to implement the latest technology platforms is not only viable, but is the best option to efficiently and cost-effectively transform even the most critical of applications. Automatic migration is the best mechanism to accelerate the adoption of technologies such as .NET. The Central Bank project demonstrates that migrating core systems can be a predictable and cost-effective strategy to maximize technology investments.”
The Central Bank of Costa Rica is the government institution responsible for establishing and regulating the operational framework and settlement system for banks and other financial entities in that country.
With the help of ArtinSoft’s Upgrade Wizard, which ships with Visual Basic .NET, and ArtinSoft Consulting Services, the Central Bank of Costa Rica today launched a new version of SINPE. By upgrading the application with the help of ArtinSoft, the bank was able to reuse close to 100 percent of the original code and maintain the knowledge it had acquired through development of the initial application. Development time was reduced from 88,000 developer hours for the initial application to 6,400 for the .NET migration, less than 10 percent of the original effort.
About ArtinSoft
ArtinSoft is the industry-leading enterprise software migration and upgrade specialist. Founded in 1993, ArtinSoft’s breakthrough Freedom technology and consulting services are used by enterprises worldwide to accelerate software evolution to modern platforms. ArtinSoft’s cost-efficient, rapid and scalable solutions empower companies to migrate and upgrade mission-critical applications and to leverage the knowledge capital embedded in existing software assets.
With more than 250 employees, ArtinSoft is headquartered in San Jose, Costa Rica, with regional offices in Seattle; San Jose, Calif.; Mexico City; and London. More information on ArtinSoft can be found at http://www.artinsoft.com/ . The company can be contacted in Costa Rica by phone at + 011 (506) 246-1500 or via e-mail at [email protected] . U.S product and sales information is available by calling (425) 943- 6870.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software – any time, any place and on any device.
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