ASNA Becomes RPG Open Access Reseller

August 16, 2011 Alex Woodie

ASNA last week announced that it is now reselling IBM‘s Rational Open Access: RPG Edition technology. The move, which comes on the heel of IBM’s decision to open up the distribution channel for the product known as OAR, will make it easier for ASNA customers to modernize their 5250 apps with ASNA’s Wings software.

“It’s true that initially IBM was a little clumsy with the marketing and distribution of Open Access,” ASNA U.S. president Anne Ferguson says in a press release. “But by making ASNA an Open Access reseller, IBM is resolving the problem in the best way possible.”

IBM i customers reported difficulty in obtaining OAR following IBM’s launch of the technology with IBM i 7.1 in April 2010. The website ordering system didn’t always work, and IBM representatives didn’t always know what OAR was. These problems, along with the lack of a trial version of OAR, led many vendors, including ASNA, to criticize IBM for its handling of the OAR launch.

The software purchase component of an OAR- and Wings-based IBM i modernization project is much more streamlined for ASNA now. “All a customer needs to do now to get Open Access is give us a call!” Ferguson says.

ASNA also has a test IBM i server environment available for prospective customers to try out the combination of OAR and Wings. “Our mission is to make it easy for our customers to understand and appreciate the power of Open Access with ASNA Wings,” Ferguson says.

IBM recently announced that it’s making trial versions of OAR available. The lack of a trial version has been one of the criticisms levied at IBM since the OAR launch.

ASNA is the second IBM i ISV to become an OAR reseller. The first was Profound Logic, which announced its reseller program in May.