Indigo Chooses CNX’s Valence to Modernize RPG App

September 4, 2012 Alex Woodie

Indigo Software, a British provider of software and services to the System21 ecosystem, has selected the Valence toolset from CNX to modernize its RPG application.

Since 1988, Indigo has served the community of System21 users throughout Europe and beyond. The company, which was formerly called JBA North East, is an Infor reseller for the System21 product, which has its heritage in the U.K.

In addition to selling, installing, and supporting System21 environments, Indigo also develops several packaged add-on products aimed at enhancing the venerable ERP system. These include barcoding and RFID automation solutions and an IBM i-based warehouse management system (WMS) called RealTime for System21 (the company also sells a product called RealTime for Movex/M3).

Indigo has a big investment in RPG and will continue to develop in that language. But going forward, the company desired a better-looking user interface layer, which led it to search the market for the appropriate product and technology.

Eventually, Indigo settled on CNX’s Valence, which creates modern Web 2.0-style user interfaces for existing RPG back-ends. With Valence, Indigo gets a package that includes the Ext JS JavaScript library from Sencha, a set of RPG procedures for accessing existing IBM i business logic, and a Web portal framework that provides customers with pre-built navigation and security.

Peter McLane, the founder and managing director of Indigo, explains his company’s decision to go with the Chicago, Illinois, company and its product. “Valence allows us to leverage our experience with IBM i and RPG while at the same time providing a rich interface that the market demands,” McLane says. “My development team evaluated many different technologies in our efforts to modernize and Valence stood out to us as the obvious choice.”