Migration Time: Emulator Vendors Square Off

This is shaping up to be a good year to get your host access issues squared away. With the strings on IT budgets loosening somewhat, the commoditization of emulation programs, and Windows XP Service Pack 2 just around the corner, OS/400 shops can save a bundle when upgrading Windows 98-era thick client emulators, which won’t work well with the improved security of XP SP2. What’s more, many vendors offer a variety of migration programs to ease the pain of moving to their wares.

A quick look at the Web sites of traditional host access providers shows a whirlwind of migration programs. WRQ, the number-two host access vendor, behind IBM, houses a “migration center” that specializes in helping customers move to its Reflection suite from IBM, NetManage, and Attachmate offerings. Seagull’s Web site espouses the benefits of moving from Attachmate and NetManage, the number-three and number-four providers respectively, to its BlueZone software. NetManage wants customers to move to its OnWeb or Rumba products from Attachmate. And Zephyr considers itself “an Attachmate displacement company.”

In fact, about the only host access vendor that doesn’t advertise migration programs on its Web site is Attachmate, although, just like its competitors, it does offer an assortment of ways to move scripts, macros, and other customizations that many OS/400 shops make to their users’ desktop emulators.

Most host access vendors today are gunning for Attachmate, including Seagull, which sells the BlueZone suite of emulation products for OS/400, mainframe, and Unix servers. “We have replaced a lot of Attachmate, and WRQ,” says Andre den Haan, vice president of corporate strategy for Seagull, which is based in Atlanta. “The number of new accounts that choose BlueZone to replace what they already have is in the teens per month.” Den Haan estimates that customers moving to BlueZone can cut their maintenance fees by up to 80 percent over the course of three years, compared with other host access vendors.

“We see an appreciable installation of Attachmate,” says Jim Raisio, director of product management with NetManage, the Cupertino, California, owner of the popular RUMBA emulation program. Raisio says that the volume of new accounts replacing competitors’ products is in the “handfuls” per month. “We see some requests for WRQ,” he added.

Zephyr, a younger host access provider based in Houston, has made migration tools a cornerstone of its marketing. The company even developed a product called the Attachmate EXTRA! Macro Conversion Tool, which the company claims can be used to migrate “hundreds of Attachmate macros” per day. Gregg Ledford, the company’s CEO, once said he considered Zephyr to be an “Attachmate displacement company.”

So what’s the deal with Attachmate? Why is every host access vendor and its mother targeting Attachmate’s customers?

For one, the Bellevue, Washington, vendor has among the largest installed base of traditional thick-client emulators. Until WRQ supplanted it in the number-two spot, in IDC‘s annual survey in 2003, Attachmate was the most successful independent host access provider. Despite the monthly assault on its installed base, the company still boasts more than 13 million users, 80 percent of the Fortune 500 as customers, and offices in 50 North American cities and 30 countries.

Another factor is the market. Over the last few years, traditional host access software has become a commodity product, which has caused vendors to drop their prices in order to compete. Seagull’s den Haan goes so far as to say that it has become a 100 percent replacement market. “In a replacement model market, one of the things you want to do is to make it as painless as possible for customers to switch to your software,” he says.

Also influencing the migration pattern is the PC upgrade cycle, and the fact that customers tend to tackle host access issues when they upgrade PC clients. “It seems this year there is money freed up for modernizing platforms,” says Raisio. “We see a lot more activity from customers based on the fact that they’re moving to XP.” However, the upgrade to Windows XP Service Pack 2, which will contain numerous security enhancements, could spell trouble for host access products that haven’t been significantly enhanced from the days of Windows 98, where many customers landed after the last major upgrade cycle.

These are all factors that influence migration patterns. But competitors of Attachmate point to another factor: Customers migrate off EXTRA! because Attachmate alienated them, they say. “Customers have expressed dissatisfaction with their service pricing policies,” says Raisio, who calls EXTRA! a “very secure, stable” desktop emulator. “A couple of years ago, they modified their service agreements to make them a renewable license. Attachmate did some things that ticked off their customer base.”

Markus Nitschke, vice president of corporate marketing for Attachmate, did not deny that Attachmate may charge more than the competition. But you get what you pay for with Attachmate, says Nitschke, who compared using EXTRA to driving a Mercedes. While other vendors might try to compete on price, Attachmate won’t drop its price, he says. Instead, Attachmate’s strategy is to continue to invest in EXTRA! to make it the best host access platform on the market, he says.

“We have a 20-year history of stability and financial viability, and we’re continuing to invest in great new technologies for the future,” Nitschke said, adding that the private company spends more than 30 percent of its revenues on research and development–a high percentage by most standards. “Are customers getting the best and biggest bang for the buck? That’s our continuing strategy.”

That investment in R&D will pay off later this year, when Attachmate announces a new product that should make administration of large emulation installation easier. EXTRA! Mainframe Server Edition Version 8.0 for Windows XP will feature the capability to remotely administer desktop emulators from a central location, as well as new security enhancements and integration with Microsoft Office.

Nitschke alluded to the possibility that the new Mainframe Server Edition for Windows XP software could help to resolve any difficulties customers experience when upgrading to XP SP2. But what about older versions of the emulators? “As far as we can tell, there are no problems with older emulators on SP2,” Nitschke says. “Our product is so robust, we normally don’t see compatibility problems,” although XP SP2 “is a little of a different animal.”

In fact, many older emulators will likely run into problems with XP SP2. “What this has done for older products, it has really killed them,” NetManage’s Raisio says. “We’ve been told that legacy products will stop working. . . . With SP2, we’re seeing a requirement to move forward.”

Companies looking to upgrade their PC clients, along with their host access software, may find themselves in an enviable bargaining position. With the downward pricing pressure and so many migration tools on the market, customers will be free to take the best deal they can find.

And this could also prove a boon for providers of so-called “next generation” emulators that don’t hold the Windows 98 baggage. This is the hope of Seagull, whose BlueZone emulator was recently “gold certified” on Windows XP SP2. “It’s just another nail in the coffin of the traditional host access providers,” den Haan says. “It just shows how far behind the eight-ball of technology, licensing models, and practices they are. They’ve had their time; now on to the next thing.”