LANSA Ports Payment Processing Package to OS/400

by Alex Woodie

Merchants and businesses that want to allow their customers to pay using credit cards now have another OS/400-based payment-processing software package to choose from. LANSA recently announced that it helped the Australian software and services company Dialect Solutions Group port its Java-based payment processing program to OS/400. LANSA says the ported application, called e-Payment Integrator, will work with any OS/400 application, not just those developed by LANSA or with the company's tools.

LANSA e-Payment Integrator allows companies to process credit card payments in real time, securely, over the Internet. The software is best suited for use at companies that need to process between 500 and 1,000 payments per month, especially if those transactions occur in a "card not present" environment, such as e-commerce Web sites, telephone call centers, mail catalog retailing, recurring payments, ERP order capture, and other environments. The software is applicable to all industries, LANSA says.

With e-Payment Integrator, LANSA has basically provided a "wrapper" for the Java classes that make up Dialect Solution Group's payment solution, called QSI Payment Client, which optimizes QSI Payment Client for use in the OS/400 environment. LANSA has provided APIs with e-Payment Integrator that allow it to integrate fairly easily with existing applications developed in LANSA's fourth generation language, RDML, as well as in third-generation languages such as RPG and COBOL. The product is geared for use by user companies and ISVs alike.

Companies using e-Payment Integrator will get real-time feedback from the merchant's acquiring bank or financial institution, either accepting or rejecting the transaction. While the software's primarily function is to process credit card transactions, it also processes transactions on other types of cards, including PIN-protected debit cards, stored value cards, and loyalty cards, depending on the services available in specific parts of the world.

The e-Payment Integrator supports both major types of transaction settlement supported by QSI, including two-party clearance, where the merchant establishes a direct connection with a banking institution, and three-party clearance, in which an independent services provider acquires responsibility for settling the transaction. Dialect Solutions Group keeps a network of third-party "gateway" service providers. It also provides transaction authorization, logging, voids and refund functionality to the user through a Dialect service called QSI Merchant Administration.

LANSA and Dialect say their multithreaded payment processing technology is very stable and can scale to meet most demands. Dialect says its QSI Client is used by some of the world's largest companies, and in one case has been used continuously for three years without a break in service.

LANSA's version of the software has already seen action at John Wiley & Sons's Australian subsidiary. The publisher used LANSA to develop a range of its business processes, as well as B2B and B2C Web sites that allow its 25,000 customers to check on book titles and view covers, with images stored on Linux servers. The company used LANSA's e-Payment Integrator to provide connectivity between its LANSA, RPG, and Synon applications and Dialect's Java-based transaction processing engine.

Dialect Solutions Group John Richards says his company was excited to work with LANSA in porting the Java-based application to the OS/400 server because of their expertise on the platform. "Dialect recognizes AS/400 and iSeries as widely accepted server platforms in the global merchant community," he said. Joining LANSA and Dialect in the porting effort were MasterCard International and authorized QSI payment service providers.

Dialect Solutions Group is a young conglomerate that is headquartered in Sydney, Australia. LANSA also has its roots in Australia, where it started out as a subsidiary of ASPECT, one of Australia's largest software companies, owned by Peter Draney (LANSA has since been incorporated in the United States). Dialect Solutions Group was formed in early 2002 through the merger of three companies: QSI Payments, Hub Information Technology, and News Connect. The company says it has strong corporate backing from Queensland Press Pty Ltd, an associate of media baron Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. For more information, go to www.lansa.com and www.dialectsolutions.com.

Sponsored By TANGO/04 COMPUTING GROUP

SIMPLIFY SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT WITH VISUAL MESSAGE CENTER Heavier workloads & complexity? Not enough staff or hours? Real-time pressures? Let VISUAL Message Center lighten the load. VISUAL Message Center simplifies multi-platform systems management by channeling and responding to systems events, and providing unique tools to make support simpler, swifter and easier than ever before. Monitor iSeries, Windows, Unix/Linux systems, TCP/IP Services, Routers, B2B apps, devices and more, all from intuitive graphical interfaces that group messages according to business objectives. It excels the competition with: CENTRALIZED monitoring of multi-platform operating health AUTOMATIC command execution in response to events PROACTIVE real time security to prevent threats ESCALATING alert distribution by 2-way SMS, email, NetSend AUDITING and trending of systems performance, security, capacity, errors ON-THE-FLY remote user problem diagnosis and resolution UNIQUE customizable Business Views for message grouping RAPID deployment, FAST ROI Less stress, more control, better performance and lower costs: upgrade to VISUAL Message Center by Tango/04. CALL 800-545-9485, or visit Tango/04 or SoftLanding online.