By now, most IT managers have prepared a strategy for addressing Year 2000 compliance. For the lucky few, the solution has been a relatively simple "replace and migrate" while others have had to embark on more stressful, time-intensive rectification projects. And, while the responsibility for defeating the Year 2000 Bug weighs heavy on all IT managers` shoulders, regardless of the extent of their compliance projects, perhaps the man or women facing the hardest task is the one in charge of an application that is so unique it can`t be replaced. So sympathises Bateleur Walker Financial Systems managing director, Martyn Joyce who states that, because all companies vary slightly in the mix and approach of their business, no two information systems are alike in either hardware or software configuration. "Variances in a company`s industry, size, business segment, resources and technical platform all have a role in determining whether their systems can be purchased or whether they must be developed," he says. "Over the years, many companies found it necessary to develop business systems that, although critical to their business operations, were not readily available in the software market. Others have found it necessary, at the time, to develop their own custom applications in order to gain competitive advantage. Another factor of difference is whether a company had upgraded or added extra software or hardware components to existing standard systems. "Regardless of the reason for the uniqueness of these business systems, for some the fact remains that replacement is not a comfortable option. For most of these applications, modification for Year 2000 (Y2K) compliance is a must and finding the right solutions partner is critical." Joyce suggests that, for financial applications, companies look no further than Bateleur Walker Financial Systems. He says this because Bateleur Walker`s solution services encompass analysis, planning and implementation. Walker provides a single source for best-of-breed Y2K solutions for the finance systems of large companies. Walker uniquely has the methodology, products and services to replace or fix non-Y2K compliant financial applications. "Bateleur Walker offers the first single-source, end-to-end Y2K service solutions for medium UNIX/NT business systems and the mainframe financial business systems of large enterprises. Our solution services encompass the full-solution spectrum of analysis, planning and delivery. "Bateleur Walker is also positioned to provide both industry-leading business solutions applications and Y2K-experienced services professionals to replace or fix non-Y2K compliant mainframe financial applications," says Joyce. " Mainframe financials have developed a reputation of being of "elephantine proportions" when considering replacement. This is not quite just. The Walker Smart Financials solution for mainframes, Tamaris, can be implemented and existing systems migrated within a period of 3 months per financial module. Completion delivery of modules can be scheduled to run concurrently, to make sure all systems are fully functional before year-end deadlines." "Our UNIX/NT solution, Aptos, can be delivered to end-users with full functionality and training in 90 days. This makes it look quite realistic to replace existing out-of-date financial systems, especially when considering increased user-volumes caused by e-commerce." All releases of Walker Smart Financial applications have been Y2K compliant since 1996. However, the prime concern in the mainframe environment is that every Walker customer has other systems which feed or interface with their Walker applications that may not be Y2K compliant. "Because financial applications are the hub of any business system enterprise, they receive transaction data from various other operational- or commerce-related systems. Whether these non-Y2K compliant systems are in-house developed or packaged, they will need to be fixed or replaced to ensure they do not adversely effect critical business operations," says Joyce. "As a financial application developer and business solutions provider, we are able to offer our customers "one-stop-shopping" for a comprehensive set of solution services and Y2K-compliant financial applications. "Our wide range of Y2K expertise includes the following: * Financial systems experts to help analyse finance and administrative systems for compliance, design and develop an appropriate fix/replace strategy for Y2K compliance. * Mainframe technical resources to help analyse, design and develop a custom solution or implement packaged mainframe solutions for Y2K compliance * System integration specialists with expertise in building and implementing interfaces with surrounding process-or data-dependent applications. * Project management professionals to help plan and manage an organisation`s conversion project to Y2K compliance with a proven solution methodology. * Access to a large, international pool of experience mainframe COBOL programmers. "Being a solution provider that offers all of the above in a single source with the ability to deliver the leading world-class enterprise client/server finance and administration applications as part of the solution as well, is unique to Bateleur Walker."
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