Happy New Year!

May 2013 be a successful year to all of you. New Year always presents new opportunities, inspirations and resolutions. What are some of yours? I’d like to suggest that you consider taking up “AIM” initiatives – Assess. Innovate. Modernize.

Assess

Too often, we get caught up in our day-to-day grind during the year that we had no time to pause and to inventory where we are. Yet, taking time to review and assess is critical to improvement in the new year.

 

For examples:

• You have lots and lots of COBOL programs, but…
  Do you know what are in your application assets?
• You know it is important to protect your “crown jewel platform”, but…
  How secure is your NonStop environment?
• You have a whole team of operators, tech support, system managers, but…
  How efficient is your operation environment?

Now is a good time to reflect on where we are and to set some goals for improvement.

Innovate

Get out of your status quo comfort zone and think outside the box! Commit some time to learn more about some of the newer technology such as:

 

• Mobile Apps
  Think about your users with iPad and Smartphones
• Cloud Computing
  What SaaS can you leverage?

Now, you may think: “But what does a legacy machine like NonStop have to do with these new technologies?” Think again! In fact, integrating new technologies with Nonstop could present some exciting opportunities and ROI for your organization.

Modernize

While you look for new technologies to jump into, don’t forget all the valuable application assets you already have on your NonStop system. Make 2013 be the year to start your modernization initiative to make these NonStop assets even more valuable. Commit to starting one (or more) of these following projects:

 

• Build a better GUI with Java or .NET
• Improve your database and application connectivity
• Adopt modern development methodology and tools

Need help getting started? Look for more discussions on these topics in our upcoming blogs, with tutorials, examples and success stories. We hope that you will follow these discussions, and we would love to hear about your experience as well.

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Phil Ly is the president and founder of TIC Software, a New York-based company specializing in software and services that integrate NonStop with the latest technologies, including Web Services, .NET and Java. Prior to founding TIC in 1983, Phil worked for Tandem Computer in technical support and software development.