iSeries Application Innovation Program Exceeds IBM's Expectations

by Dan Burger

Despite various manic methods to hasten the pace of progress, it most often remains a step-by-step process that seems comparatively slow, especially to those who think impatience is a virtue. Rebuilding the iSeries ecosystem is a good example. This is not a chore of great leaps and bounds, except maybe when viewed in one-year increments. Still, measuring sticks are required to gauge progress. So when IBM says its Application Innovation Program (AIP) will play an important role in reconstructing the iSeries foundation, it's worth measuring.

The goal of the AIP is to modernize OS/400-based commercial applications. We have reported on the millions of dollars that IBM has invested in the iSeries Innovation Initiative, and it's natural to wonder what the return on investment has been to this point. Statistics won't tell the entire story, but they provide the most convenient handle.

IBM had a target of 200 modernized applications for 2005. Specifically, this meant enhancements to the applications that its business partners have had in the marketplace for years. Some are applications that were written in early versions of RPG--anything pre-RPG ILE--and many are applications that rely on green-screen presentations and have limitations when it comes to integration with systems outside the OS/400 world. The independent software vendors (ISVs) that own these applications have done well selling these in the past, but their business opportunities are limited going forward. To attract new customers, they need to be progressive. They need software that can compete. Their importance to the iSeries ecosystem is nothing short of monumental, and therefore, IBM is making a substantial investment in this program. AIP is a priority.

Greg Hurlebaus, the Application Innovation Program manager, told me last week that as of November 10, there were 249 modernized applications on the record. My analytical brain tells me that's 49 applications more than the target number and there are 51 more days left in the year after November 10 in which to raise that number a bit higher. No matter if you view that number through rose-tinted glasses or through squinted, skeptical eyes, it shows progress. For some, it might even qualify as leaps and bounds. However, I'm not that boundless in my enthusiasm. I know low-hanging fruit when I see it. But the point about low-hanging fruit is to grab it and eat it. Vendors sometimes forget that, and someone can come along and eat it first.

Without question, the 249 apps are a good start. Hurlebaus says more than 500 ISVs have gotten involved with the AIP, which has many levels of participation that cover technical assistance and marketing. It's a safe assumption that most of those are working toward enhancing applications as well. And of those 249 that are already categorized as modernized, many are works in progress. That work is not necessarily completed.

"It takes several months and it could take a couple of years to really enhance a solution, depending on what is being accomplished," Hurlebaus says. "Much of our focus next year is to continue working with the 500 that need to bring their applications forward."

Modernizing applications is not a quick fix, but the quickest--and least expensive--fixes are primarily what is showing up on the scoreboard as 249 modernized apps. Hurlebaus says he has no concrete numbers on what portion of these apps have had, for instance, WebFaced front ends to qualify as modernized. However, he does note that part of the plan for 2005 was for "half of the ISVs to take their existing 5250 interface and get it to the browser." And he acknowledges that "leveraging tools like HATS or WebFacing or other tools from the Tools Innovation Program is the key. It is a much shorter effort than if you were to restructure entire RPG applications."

Looking beyond the 50 percent that were focused on the user interface, Hurlebaus says many application vendors are interested in enhancing their products through a rich client interface, which he described as a an interface that has "tighter affinity with the desktop, whether it is Windows or Linux." He also estimates about 20 percent of the ISVs have their sites set on creating a service-oriented architecture, which is music to Big Blue's ears. The technical advice IBM provides to the ISVs most assuredly points to the business integration layer as the key to application innovation, a term that Hurlebaus distinguishes from application modernization.

Application modernization and application innovation are sometimes used interchangeably, but Hurlebaus sorts them out by describing innovation as "looking at the business logic, the customer requirements, and where the application is going. Taking an app from RPG III to RPG IV is a compiler change. That's modernization. Looking at the business logic and understanding what SOA is and enabling an application for SOA and Web services is innovation."

He prefers using the term "innovation" as the label for incorporating advanced technologies into applications. "Taking existing apps and extending them with new technology like RFID is innovation. Business-to-business interoperability and an enterprise service bus are considered advanced technology. They make businesses more viable and that is innovation," he says. "Modernization could be the first step to innovation, but having an ISV be able to take its product to a new customer set, a new market that was not reachable before, is innovative."

In further assessing the early crop of ISVs, Hurlebaus says he is also seeing--but to a lesser degree--a focus on business process integration, portal integration, WebSphere, and DB2.

In addition to working with ISVs on the technological enhancements, the AIP is also focused on getting iSeries ISVs involved in things such as expanding their application marketing into different regions, different countries, and different languages. This type of assistance lights up the eyes of more than a few ISV executives.

The total number of iSeries ISVs--according to Joyce Bordash, IBM's director of iSeries ecosystem development--is roughly 2,500 to 2,600 companies worldwide, a figure that includes vendors with Linux and AIX solutions that can run on iSeries partitions.

So you can quickly figure that with 500 vendors engaged after the first year, the program has reached approximately 20 percent of the community. Out of reach of the statistics are ISVs that have modernized their applications without being part of the AIP. Not every ISV chooses to team up with IBM. The reasons could include a reluctance to invest in technological enhancements that are not perceived to add value to an existing product, or products that are doing quite well as they are, or perhaps a desire to remain independent of IBM's sphere of influence.

In an interview at the fall COMMON conference, Mark Shearer, general manager of the iSeries business, said his goal is to have thousands of new business applications on the iSeries platform and the timeline for reaching that goal is three years. That's an ambitious target for Hurlebaus and his AIP to hit, but it seems entirely realistic if you look at a fair percentage of these new apps being WebFaced versions of existing applications. You have to figure each of the currently engaged ISVs will likely have multiple applications enhanced in that time frame. Additions to the AIP from the 2,500-strong ISV community will occur. And new ISVs from the AIX and Linux communities will also become factors.

Each new or improved ISV will drive more iSeries iron and make the iSeries ecosystem bigger and stronger, and that is what this game is all about.