Boomi Offers 'Free' Upgrade to Sterling Gentran Users

Published: August 22, 2006

by Alex Woodie

EDI vendor Boomi Software recently threw down on Sterling Commerce when it announced an offer to waive licensing fees for Sterling Gentran users who migrate to its Boomi Integration Platform. All that Gentran users will have to pay are the monthly maintenance fees they had previously paid Sterling, as well as associated migration fees.

Boomi CTO Rick Nucci says numerous users of the Gentran EDI system--historically one of the "Big 3" vendors of EDI software for OS/400 and other operating systems--have made the switch to Boomi over the past year. "They purchased our software, migration services and support, and they're still paying significantly less than what they paid Sterling Commerce," he says.

The Boomi Integration Platform is a collection of Java-based tools used for a variety of integration scenarios, including EDI translation, AS1/AS2/AS3 transport, 1Sync (formerly UCCnet) data pool synchronization, and many other forms of application-to-application (A2A) and B2B integration. The software runs on Windows, Linux, and Unix servers (but not the iSeries), and generally costs from $40,000 to $200,000.

Sterling Commerce rolled out Gentran Integration Suite 4.0 last year. The product, which is also written in Java, builds on Gentran's EDI roots and is designed to be the next-generation B2B platform for service oriented architectures (SOAs). The software runs natively on OS/400, z/OS, Unix, Windows, and Linux operating systems, and generally starts at around $150,000.

Nucci speculated that Sterling is taking a less-than-magnanimous approach to upgrading its customers' EDI software to the next-generation product, including sunsetting product support, increasing costs and adding unexpected costs, and offering limited migration support to an "unproven, new platform." "Gentran users are currently facing another upgrade with its associated expenses. Now's the logical time to make a switch," he says.

Nucci speculated that Sterling is taking a less-than-magnanimous approach to upgrading its customers' EDI software to the next-generation product, including sunsetting product support, increasing costs and adding unexpected costs, and offering limited migration support to an "unproven, new platform." "Gentran users are currently facing another upgrade with its associated expenses. Now's the logical time to make a switch," he says.

Boomi's offer to Gentran users is good through the end of September.