PHOENIX, Sept. 28, 2004 — From Gartner Inc.’s Application Development Summit, the Mainframe Migration Alliance (MMA) today announced the expansion of the alliance with new members and the launch of the organization’s community Web site aimed at sharing best practices and providing resources to customers migrating their mainframe environments to the Microsoft
®
Windows Server (TM) platform.
The MMA, formed in April 2004, is a community of software vendors and service providers focused on enabling mainframe customers to overcome the challenges posed by owning and maintaining legacy application environments, such as the pressures associated with the need to reduce IT costs, the eroding pool of internal programming and management skills, a shrinking pool of industry resources and investment, and the need for greater flexibility in information technology (IT) systems. New members including Covansys Corp., Fujitsu Software Corp., Getronics NV, Information Analysis Inc. (IAI), M2O Ltd., Modis Inc., MSS International, NetManage Inc., ObjectStar International Ltd., Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tata Infotech Ltd. and Transoft join existing alliance members CGI Group Inc., Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., EDS, Fujitsu Consulting, Micro Focus International Ltd., Microsoft Corp., Satyam Computer Services Ltd., Sonata Software Ltd. and Sophisticated Business Systems Inc.
“The switch from a mainframe to the Windows®
platform enabled us to save 50 percent of our operational IT costs accompanied by an ROI of less than 20 months,” said Manfred Zillinger, chief development officer of Bertelsmann’s software development center. “Besides that, we expect to achieve a dramatic rise in productivity due to enhanced capabilities and increased efficiency based on the more agile platform. Windows will ensure the stable, reliable and well-performing technology we need to meet the upcoming, demanding needs of the business.”
“We are seeing increased customer interest in migrating off the mainframe to newer and more flexible technologies,” said Charles Stevens, corporate vice president of Enterprise Specialist Sales at Microsoft. “Although every customer’s situation is unique, the Mainframe Migration Alliance helps those facing the common set of challenges around moving off the mainframe benefit from shared experiences and best practices.”
The newly launched community Web site, located at http://www.mainframemigration.org , will provide customers with a variety of tools, resources and materials to help them migrate their legacy mainframe systems to Windows Server, including these:
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Case studies of successful mainframe migrations, and the corresponding total cost of ownership (TCO) and productivity improvements
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Whitepapers outlining best practices for migrating off the mainframe onto alternative platforms, such as Windows Server
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An alliance directory enabling customers to quickly and easily locate industry organizations focused on helping them migrate to the Windows platform
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Tools for calculating return on investment (ROI) for mainframe migration projects
The MMA will develop and distribute additional tools, resources and links to partner solutions as migration momentum continues among mainframe customers.
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Mainframe Migration Alliance Member Support
“The natural evolution of technology has led to the feasibility of migrating customer workloads that were previously best suited to be hosted in a mainframe environment to lower-cost, commodity-based platforms with minimal reworking of the original application. CGI recognized this evolution and has taken steps with IT industry partners to better assist their customers to assess and, if appropriate, undertake mainframe migration initiatives.”
— Ross Button
Vice President
Emerging Technologies
CGI
“We’ve been able to build upon our strong relationship with Microsoft to even further extend our capabilities to help clients experience a smooth transition to the Microsoft platform. Many of our customers are looking to modernize their systems and application infrastructure by building new solutions around Microsoft in addition to integrating with, or migrating from, the mainframe.”
— Gajen Kandiah,
Vice President
Advanced Solutions Group
Cognizant Technology Solutions
“Covansys is very pleased to join the Mainframe Migration Alliance and be a member of a group of industry leaders committed to helping enterprise customers in leveraging their long-standing legacy investments through modernization and migration techniques. With our proven methodology and best practices, we are looking forward to being an active partner of the alliance, and to leveraging the program to reach out to a broader set of enterprise customers.”
— Krishnaswamy Subrahmaniam
President and CEO
Covansys India and Asia Pacific
“By joining this alliance, EDS can bring the latest innovations in application migration to our clients. Our clients achieve the same scalability, reliability and security their applications had on their mainframes, but at a significantly lower cost. We want to share our best practices and — at the same time — gain new insights through group collaboration.”
— Mike Childress
Vice President
Applications and Industry Frameworks
EDS
“Our clients continue to wrestle with significant legacy application maintenance costs and a steady decline of readily available mainframe resources. Our focus is to help them move to Microsoft .NET, where they can take advantage of the agility of the platform to accelerate development and redirect valuable resources to more productive uses.”
— Greg Forlenza
Senior Vice President
Marketing and Solutions
Fujitsu Consulting
“We are seeing that the market is really starting to tip toward mainframe migrations to Windows — the performance/cost ratios of Windows Server 2003 and added agility of Microsoft .NET make that move extremely desirable. The MMA helps quantify this for customers and clearly demonstrates that this market has moved from early adopters to the mainstream.”
— Ron Langer
Senior Director
Languages Group
Fujitsu Software
“With approximately 22,000 employees in over 30 countries and revenues of 2.6 billion euros in 2003, Getronics is one of the world’s leading providers of information and communication technology (ICT) solutions and services. Getronics today combines the capabilities of the original Dutch company with those of Wang Global, acquired in 1999, and of the Systems and Services division of Olivetti. Getronics’ newly launched service portfolio is at the heart of the company strategy, and allows us to present a broader and more coherent range of higher-value services to our clients alongside our core Network and Desktop Outsourcing business. The Application Integration and Management (AI & M) solution within Getronics’ portfolio covers all aspects of application appraisal and design, accelerated development using ‘software factories,’ consolidation and migration of applications, as well as long-term application management. Getronics is enhancing its AI & M solution with its long-term strategic alliance with Microsoft to provide its clients the best business solutions based on Microsoft platform. Getronics is joining the Mainframe Migration Alliance to ensure its clients have the best capability to integrate their applications into the mission-critical Microsoft environment.”
— Roberto Galanti
Global Practice Manager
Global Competence & Marketing Center
Getronics
“We are pleased to announce our membership in the Mainframe Migration Alliance. Effectively moving client legacy assets into an enhanced and lower-cost processing environment provides the foundation, and the business case, for enterprise legacy extension. This initiative fits well with our legacy modernization business line. We have been migrating and modernizing mainframe applications for over 20 years and are well-positioned to help our clients benefit from the power of WINTEL, today and tomorrow.”
— Sandor Rosenberg
President and CEO
Information Analysis Inc. (IAI)
“MMA is the perfect forum to raise awareness of the power of automated solutions to migrate customers off the mainframe and onto open platforms and environments. M2O is a world leader in the automated conversion of CA-Ideal to open languages and automated migration of CA-Datacom to open databases. The MMA migration portal is a tremendous opportunity to evangelize the benefits of legacy modernization, with all the associated advantages such as flexibility, cost control and agility.”
— Huw Price
Managing Director
M2O
“We are proud to be a member of the MMA. As organizations around the world continue their dual focus on reducing costs and increasing agility, the MMA enables customers to unlock the value in their legacy applications. The Micro Focus ‘Lift and Shift’ approach significantly accelerates the migration of mainframe assets to the Windows platform, while minimizing risk.”
— Tony Hill
Chief Executive Officer
Micro Focus
“Modis is proud to continue our support of Microsoft through the Mainframe Migration Alliance. Modis is an industry leader in supporting and migrating legacy applications, and we look forward to serving in the alliance and increasing our leverage in this highly critical technology area.”
— Jack Cullen
President
Modis
“MSS is very excited about the alliance. We have been converting mainframe applications for 20-plus years. It is often difficult to convince mainframe users that a conversion to Windows will actually work, and they can have the same or better performance on the Windows platform they have on the mainframe. The alliance not only provides a place where mainframe users can find vendors to assist them in moving to newer technologies, it also provides information showing them it has been successfully accomplished more times than they might imagine.”
— Bob Theurer
Director
North American Operations
MSS International
Being a part of the MMA is an opportunity for NetManage to partner with other leading organizations to help enterprise customers reduce the cost of maintaining and modernizing their legacy mainframe environments. For enterprise customers, moving to Windows has been a critical business decision. Because we are a member of the MMA, our customers can leverage the tools and technology of the member organizations to integrate their host-based resources within Windows- and Web-based solutions, helping enterprise users take a more cost-effective and reliable approach to migrating applications to the Windows platform
— Alf Goebel
Vice President of Alliance
NetManage
“With these enhancements to the Mainframe Migration Alliance, companies will now be able to quickly access information to help them with their migration planning. ObjectStar is pleased to participate in, and bring our significant software solutions and migration expertise to, the alliance.”
— Stuart Kerr
President
ObjectStar International
“MMA is the ecosystem for legacy platforms wherein customers long faced with the dilemma of moving to an open, extensible computing architecture can find a wide array of products and services for their migration needs. We at Sonata are very excited to be an MMA partner and would like to provide mainframe users with a tool-based, de-risked and cost-effective migration experience to contemporary Windows technologies.”
— B. Ramaswamy
President and Managing Director
Sonata Software
“We are seeing a lot of excitement in the industry for migration from the older legacy platforms to newer technologies. The market is citing improved agility, lower costs, higher performance and more robust IT environments that the Microsoft platform provides.”
— Tom Howard
CEO and President
Sophisticated Business Systems
“Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS) helps customers maximize their return on IT investment and reduce the cost of supporting mainframe applications by transforming legacy mainframe applications to the Microsoft platform. TCS delivers this value to customers through a focus on key drivers for change, the development of transformation road maps that address current and future needs, and a continuing effort to reduce the impact on current business. TCS has deep domain experience in the execution of migration plans including final implementation and knowledge transition, and draws on proven re-engineering methodologies that mitigate risks and ensure project success. We combine numerous reverse- and forward-engineering tools and processes that improve productivity and product quality with our tested best practices in executing legacy to .NET transformation projects for customers worldwide.”
— Ananth Appathurai
Global Microsoft Relationship Manager
Tata Consultancy Services
“Tata Infotech is excited to be a part of the Mainframe Migration Alliance. This will enable us to help our customers optimize their IT efficiencies and reduce the total cost of ownership associated with mainframes. This alliance with Microsoft, along with our proven migration methodology, TRACK (Tata Infotech Re-engineering and Conversion Kit), and SEI-CMM level 5 processes, will allow our customers to quickly and effectively migrate to Microsoft technology in a cost-effective and seamless manner.”
— Kamal Jain
Senior Vice President
Tata Infotech Ltd.
“Transoft is excited by the opportunities the MMA will create to increase mainframe customer awareness of the benefits of the migration option as a cost-effective and low-risk alternative to replacing or redeveloping their applications. Migration is usually not just about simply migrating the application ‘as is’ to a new platform. More often the business requirement is to also modernize and enhance it. With 17 years’ experience in migrating legacy proprietary platforms to open systems, such as Windows Server, Transoft offers a ‘don’t just move — improve’ approach that delivers real long-term business benefits and gives a clear return on investment.”
— Geoff Baker
Managing Director
Transoft
