Re: alternative to WebFacing

["Nathan M. Andelin" <nathanma@xxxxxxxxx>]

There must be a market for products like Webfacing.  Seagull and Jacada are
pulling in millions from license and service revenues from similar products.
While those companies are in the business of helping people modernize legacy
applications, IBM's interest is much more subtle.  IBM sees Webfacing as a
transition technology - something that will motivate people to buy new
hardware and eventually adopt Websphere Advanced Edition.

With IBM's release of Webfacing, I'd hate to be in the position of Jacada or
Seagull.  IBM has the advantage of controlling the Workstation Manager.  A
switch in the Workstation Manager enables legacy applications to support an
HTML interface without a single change to the original program.  I think IBM
could control this market if they chose to.  Competitors may be hoping that
IBM's commitment is less than theirs.

However, I personally question the value of transition technologies.  I've
heard too many complaints from people who bought into that idea.  The
biggest complaint seems to be that the GUI is still paired and locked with
the  5250 data stream of the legacy application.  It leads to contrived
restrictions in the GUI.    A transition technology is one that you probably
wouldn't use to design or build a new application.  But some people (not
having deep pockets) find it hard to break away from a transition
technology, after they've adopted one.

Nathan M. Andelin
www.relational-data.com


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