ASNA Pushes More Than 1 Million DataGate Licenses

Published: November 12, 2007

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Application modernization tool vendor ASNA, which bridges the gap between IBM's i5/OS and OS/400 platform and its integrated database and Microsoft's Windows platform and its .NET architecture, said last week that it has hit a major milestone in the history of the company.

Specifically, ASNA said that it had broken through the 1 million license mark for its DataGate software, which is a piece of middleware that ASNA has been selling for years to allow Windows applications--in recent years, those developed using the .NET framework from Microsoft--to access information stored in DB2/400 databases on i5/OS and OS/400 servers. The company also said that it has assisted over 4,000 RPG developers to make the move to Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET development tool, for which ASNA supplies an RPG compiler (called Visual RPG for .NET) that works alongside the compilers offered by Microsoft, including C#. (ASNA also sells a tool called Monarch, which automates the conversion of RPG programs to the .NET programming model on Windows.)

"Companies today need to embrace standards-based solutions and modern platforms for which programming talent is widely available," explained Anne Ferguson, president of ASNA, in a statement marking the milestone. She followed up with some pretty harsh words for alternative approaches to modernizing legacy applications on i5/OS and OS/400 servers--words that plenty of tool vendors undoubtedly do not agree with. "Our success in moving companies and developers to RPG for .NET and Microsoft SQL Server demonstrates that CIOs today are no longer buying the party line from other vendors that the only thing you can do with legacy System i code is 'modernize' it with screen scrapers, which only adds dubious additional value, or rewrite it with PHP or a legacy 4GL, which can take years to rewrite and test."

ASNA is fired up in the wake of its acquisition by mainframe application tool vendor BluePhoenix Solutions, which began negotiations to buy ASNA for $9.5 million in early August and which completed the deal a few weeks later.

RELATED STORIES

BluePhoenix Rides Legacy Modernization to Another Successful Quarter

BluePhoenix Hosts ASNAPalooza in San Antonio This Week

Services a Priority at ASNA after Merger with BluePhoenix

Mainframe Vendor BluePhoenix Ready to Purchase ASNA

ASNA Launches Technical Services Business

ASNA Preps AVR for Visual Studio 2008

ASNA Boosts Project Management for RPG-to-.NET Migration

BluePhoenix Launches New UPC Remediation Tool

                     Post this story to del.icio.us
               Post this story to Digg
    Post this story to Slashdot