August 2004

Migration reports start to emerge

Vendors writing early business, based on early starts

More than two years after HP said it would wash the 3000 out of its hair, vendors are reporting a series of suds in the community, as migration successes surface. But this year’s cleanest washes come from customers with a clear path to similar software, or a wide array of tools.

HP Platinum migration partners reported they are closing some significant business. At Speedware Ltd., the supplier of the development tools and professional services said it has booked $4 million in migration business for the months of May through July. Those orders cover 15 companies, revenues that were sparked in large part by the company’s sale of licenses for migration tool AMXW, a software toolset designed to migrate third-generation language applications, such as those written in COBOL or C.

“These software and services revenues which will be recognized over the next several quarters,” Speedware said in a statement. “[The AMXW] strategy is gaining traction in the market, and therefore creating a significant new source of revenue.”

“These new contracts confirm Speedware’s leadership position in the HP e3000 migration market space,” said Speedware’s Chief Operating Officer Andy Kulakowski.

The company also distributes and supports several third-party complementary technologies, including Eloquence and Edwin, two products developed by Speedware’s European business partners Marxmeier Software AG and Ordina-Denkart, respectively.

At migration partner MB Foster, president Birket Foster reported more than 60 companies are prospects for preliminary planning projects this fall. His company is waiting for budget go-aheads on projects that would give those clients the data they need to plan for 2005 expenditures, Foster said.

The projects, which range from $15,000 to $150,000 engagements, are assessments that Foster said are necessary for homesteading sites as well as migrators. But he added that migration timing is becoming a bigger issue than budgets, with HP’s support deadline about 28 months away.

“Many projects will take 18-24 months, excluding any delays to get budget, resources or senior management approval,” said Foster. “We were just asked to help a customer source an N-Class 3000, to support applications that are scheduled to be replaced in 2011. The customer has taken six months to work [our plan] through its system to get it onto the Senior Management Team agenda.” Foster said the customer is already weathering outage and performance issues with its existing HP 3000, since the company growth is imposing a heavier burden on the applications running on that older system.

Speedware’s core customer group, those which use the company’s 4GL, represents another kind of migration success: A base where a vendor started work early to offer a Unix alternative to MPE solutions. Speedware targeted the HP 9000 during the 1990s as a likely destination for its customers who were leaving the HP 3000. In much the same way, Summit Information Systems started work in 1999 on a Unix version of its credit union application. That 3000 ISV could well have the biggest number to date of migrated customers among the vendors of packaged 3000 apps.

“I think they are migrating a customer a week, or every two weeks,” said Michael Marxmeier, whose Eloquence database is at the heart of the new Summit Unix application. “In the US, Summit is the most visible ISV using Eloquence. Summit has really planned ahead.”

The customer-a-week rate of migration has been quoted by e-commerce supplier Ecometry, too. But even though Ecometry has announced it will end its HP 3000 support when HP leaves the field, it has not announced its entire customer base will be off the platform by December, 2006. Ecometry is relying on Oracle and SQL Server databases for its non-3000 versions.

“It’s one thing to deploy one customer,” Marxmeier said. “It’s another thing to make sure all your customers are off MPE by 2006. Summit has a handle on that, but I’m not sure about the other ISVs. Of course, for the smaller customers who are self-maintained, that date is less critical.”

But even some such customers with in-house solutions are exiting sooner than 2006. Portland-based manufacturer Columbia Steel Casting reported it will move a half-million lines of applications to HP-UX in a little more than a year for less than a quarter-million dollars. IT director Rex Dickey said his firm made extensive use of third-party solutions and a limited amount of outside help for HP-UX.

“There are alternatives for the small to medium size shops that need to convert but have limited budget and personnel resources,” Dickey reported. The company chose Ordina-Denkart’s MPUX, AcuCorp’s AcuCobol, Eloquence, Visi-soft’s Visimage, and Robelle’s Qedit as tools. The project began in early February after two years of study. Columbia rejected bids of $750,000 to $1 million for outside firms to do its migration.

“The tools have all performed very well during the conversion,” Dickey said. “We have about 15 users using the converted apps on a daily basis. They are extremely happy with the converted product. It looks and behaves exactly like the HP 3000 version, but runs much faster on the new box. We plan to finish the remainder of the conversion by the end of the year. Our budget for everything is only about $200,000, and so far we are on target to easily meet that figure.”