1. MS HIS vs. IBM HIS - Part I & Part II
    by Anura Guruge

2. Pure-play adapters White Paper
    [1MB PDF by Anura Guruge for NetManage]

3. Battle royal for legacy capital

4. Seagull: CrossPlex/LegaSuite

5. iSeries Web services for insurance apps.

HIS & HIS: Making Sense of the Hissing -- Part I (with links to Part II)

by Anura Guruge   

Host Integration Server (HIS) and Host Integration Solution (HIS), one from IBM the other from Microsoft, are, as is to be expected, competitive offerings though their relationship to each other is akin to that of cheese to cheesecake -- with one considerably sweeter than the other.  That is irrefutable.  

One is an one-item product that has just resurfaced after a long hiatus. The other is a tantalizing bundle consisting of six (6) products, with at least 4 of those 6, probably being able to honestly claim 'best-of-breed' status!  So as bundles go, this is quite a bundle of joy.

If you really follow the nuances in this business, then you probably do not have to be told which HIS is from whom.  They are obviously both software-only offerings.  But one claims to be a 'server' while the other is positioned as a 'solution'.  Enough said?

But they both offer SNA gateway functionality in the form of 'tn' servers.

That, interestingly, is where all the action is for Microsoft though MS HIS does have a somewhat nifty, but limited, transaction integration capability for mainframe CICS and IMS.  However, IBM's gateway is multi-platform and is available on Windows and AIX -- not to mention z/OS and z?Linyx.  Microsoft, though, will not acknowledge that IBM also has a Windows solution.  Instead all they will talk about is how IBM's gateway uses mainframe cycles. Why?

 READ THE REST OF THIS ANALYSIS

Battle Royal for Legacy Capital
(with links below)

by Anura Guruge

April 18th’s very unexpected, but symbiotic merging of WRQ and Attachmate, as well as the less dramatic, but very astute acquisition of SofTouch by SEAGULL, galvanized what had been a lackluster, stagnating marketplace.  With 3 of the big names involved, two extremely well known (and liked), this was obviously major news.  But it would be remiss to forget that $15M NEON acquired ClientSoft (another market favorite) in mid-December last year, while in January the $500M Software AG (that specializes in application modernization) snapped up the little-known, but influential, Israel-based Sabratec – with its proven and versatile host integration technology.

So we have now had considerable and genuinely meaningful vendor consolidation commensurate with the maturity and the dynamics of this 24 year old market (kicked off in 1982 with Frank Pitts creation of Attachmate).

But this vendor consolidation does not in any way affect or impact actual market demand.

The pie (which we will henceforth refer to as the blueberry pie to highlight its “blue” content) is still the same.  It just means that there is now less folks vying for a piece of it.  Yes, this means that you might be able to get bigger slices – but the pie is still the pie.  We should never lose sight of this.

What everybody wants to know is when the new cross-over to EAI will start to occur.  I, for one, don’t think it will be this year.  There is a very simple reason for that.  We are still looking, desperately, for the killer apps. to make this a reality.  No wonder there is so much sleep being lost in Seattle.  It is kind of “Sleepless in Seattle – Pinning for EIA”.  The yet again placid U.S. economy, spooked by the specter of inflation and chastened by rising interest rates, is not helping matters.  The growth in corporate portals alone, despite their increasing sophistication, is no longer sufficient to denote an upward spike in market demand.  We really do need a whole new genre of SOA-based applications to adequately fulfill today’s pent up hopes for EAI – that exploits legacy capital.

► Read the original, April 20, 2005: "Mega Consolidation in Host Access & Web-to-Host Article"  

► Read Part I of the Battle Royal for Legacy Capital

► Read Part II of the Battle Royal for Legacy Capital

► Read about SEAGULL's acquisition of Oak Grove on June 13th, 2005