At looksoftware, we believe in the power of IBM i

looksoftware can bring your IBM i into the 21st Century

The IBM i has a large installed base of applications written in RPG and Cobol with green screens. These applications are performing the core functions for many companies. The applications were written before the explosion of the internet, the cloud and mobile devices.

IT is asked to expand the variety of information provided by the application plus get the users to input data directly at the source. In addition IT is under immense pressure to support the use of mobile devices while maintaining security. The world has changed.

The mobile revolution has arrived.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal:

"Call it the case of the incredibly shrinking IT Guy: In the past, CIOs and their staff had a reputation for being snarky, geeky guys who were always looking for ways to tell employees what they couldn't do. Now, at the most progressive companies, the tech department's main job isn't to say no. Instead, it's to find a way to let employees safely run any device or program they like. The thinking goes like this: Employees are most productive when they're allowed to work with the tools that make them happy."

Farhad Manjoo Oct 2, 2013

This poses significant security issues as stated in a New York Times article:

"The so-called bring your own device, or B.Y.O.D., trend can lead to trouble. Last year, for example, Jackson North Medical Center in North Miami Beach, Fla, banned personal smartphones after a volunteer used his phone's camera to take about 1,100 photos of patient records, including their Social Security numbers, and sold them."

Nicole Perlroth, Oct 14, 2013

"do not try to do this on your own"

Modernization for many has evolved from simple screen scrapers ("One line of code will convert your green screens to web pages") to "download our web tool and create your mobile apps" with promises of "You need no HTML, no JavaScript, no CSS, no PHP, no Java and no Objective C". However these so called quick and inexpensive paths into the world of the cloud and hand held mobile devices ignores the need to add new functionality, create new workflows and maintain security. What is needed is an experienced partner like looksoftware with a track record of modernization in different industries and modern tools to quickly create support for all mobile and web devices. Modernization is more than adding support for mobile devices.

The cost to do a long term strategic modernization correctly with professional guidance from a partner who knows the pitfalls is small in comparison to the investment in the IBM i. There is a growing list of organizations that asked their IT department to launch modernization projects and realized too late of issues they were not aware. The message: "do not try to do this on your own"

Let us work with you to help your company bring your IBM i applications into the 21st Century.

Modernizing the IBM i with looksoftware