Despite the global focus on leading edge technologies, most IT spend is on the working, operational systems that actually drive the business.
So says Joe Rios, Software AG sales manager at Dimension Data i-Commerce Software, who adds that many large organisations are migrating their complex, mission-critical applications from decentralised IT systems back to powerful host systems.
"The significant increase in complexity and required resources for operating and managing applications running in large, decentralised system architectures can easily lead to a disproportionate rise in operating costs," says Rios.
"In addition, central computer systems often offer significantly better performance, are more reliable to operate and are more easily scaled to fit increased processing volumes than client/server systems. The substantial improvement in price-performance ratios for mainframe computers has also reinforced this trend." Rios says global software player Software AG, represented locally by Dimension Data i-Commerce Software, has benefited considerably from this development in the past two years.
"This recentralisation is the key reason for the powerful growth experienced by Software AG`s core products, the Adabas database and the Natural development environment. These offerings, known as online transaction processing (OLTP) solutions, concentrate on facilitating and maintaining a company`s ability to operate."
According to Rios, electronic business applications are still based primarily on the further development, re-use and integration of existing business applications. This has been reflected in the double-digit revenue growth in Adabas and Natural licenses, both locally and internationally. Software AG reported growth in Adabas Natural license sales of 17 percent in 1998 and 20 percent in 1999, despite the market weakness due to Y2K priorities.
The signing this year of long-term Software AG enterprise agreements by South African customers such as the largest government IT agencies, further validates the role that powerful, centralised mission-critical systems play.
"Natural is an excellent applications engineering tool framework, while Adabas has the highest throughput of any database regarding OLTP. Some of our Adabas customer sites have over 30 000 users and are running 30 million transactions per day in mission-critical environments," says Rios.
Software AG continues to enhance its core products to satisfy the requirements of the huge Adabas Natural customer base worldwide, which numbers over 5 000 in more than 60 countries.
"For example, on the Adabas side, the development focus is on zero database administration, which essentially means the system will be able to handle the day-to-day administrative tasks, including backup. Since most enterprise server databases have been relatively stable and functional over the past ten years, the main differentiators are obviously cost, where Adabas excels with a low total-cost-ownership, as well as performance and flexibility," explains Rios.
He adds that Adabas meets the increased demands for fast access to complex information, with higher performance, scalability and availability. It also runs on all common hardware platforms and operating systems.
"On the Natural side, Software AG has introduced component capabilities and web integration, which gives our customers an easy way to web-enable existing applications developed in Natural, hence protecting their investment and ensuring they can move into the new world," says Rios.
Software AG has moved strongly into the electronic business environment by taking these core competencies and adapting them to exploit the newest technologies, through its integration middleware (EntireX) and XML-based electronic business tools (Bolero and Tamino).
This move has proved a success, with analysts such as Forrester and the IDC now recognising Software AG as a major player in the XML arena. The investment community also approves of the strategy, where Software AG stock continuously outperforms the MDAX index on the Frankfurt stock exchange.
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