Strumenta 
The 80s had terrific music – UK and Irish bands ruled the charts; Tears for Fears, U2, The Police, Queen.
The 70s had disco: Donna Summer, Chic (still touring and still excellent), Bee Gees (not around but still brilliant) and not to forget the brilliant Edwin Starr with his song “Contact”. AI tells me that was a minor hit, but my big sister had the 12 inch single, so it was a major hit in our house! (You can listen to the 12 inch version here). And, of course, it wouldn’t be right not to mention Abba, still going strong via modern software code in London’s East End.
“Old” Music Still Popular
The 70s and 80s music is still popular today. Partly because the songs are used in Disney movies so kids get to know them, and partly because they grew up with their parents listening to them. Also, because they still work. But we don’t listen to them in the same was as we did back then: tape, record or even CD. Although records have made a comeback, music is now more easily available online – without a physical presence.
Old Software Still Popular
Just like the music from the 70s and 80s, the old software that was created then is still excellent. RPG and COBOL are still running successfully in manufacturing and financial services business around the world. But it’s difficult, if not impossible, to integrate this software with modern software systems.
Old Computer Systems – New Name
IBM AS/400 systems, now called IBM i, are still running strong. And so is their software. But nowadays manufacturing and finance organizations need to be able to implement changes much quicker than before. The productivity an organisation gets from these legacy systems and languages is just not the same as can be achieved from modern languages.
Consider this example
An executive is considering options and asks you to provide data from the system. This would take a non-trivial development time when working with RPG. In the meantime, your competitor using Python has put together a Python Notebook with graphs, a nice export to excel, and it was done in a third of the time.
Legacy systems tend to be stand alone and don’t integrate well. And importantly, the employees who know RPG software are retiring. New software engineers are learning Python, Java and C# and have no interest in learning “legacy” software.
Maintaining Outdated Systems is Costly
In 2020, Deloitte estimated that organizations spend 55% of their IT budgets maintaining outdated systems. Not only is it costing you money, old software can sometimes be a cybersecurity risk.
So, What Can you Do?
Well, Strumenta offers two solutions to this modernization dilemma.
- Migration Blueprint. Our structured plan that defines what will be migrated, how, and in what order. We align everyone, from developers to executives, around a shared understanding. At the end of this, the team has a shared and detailed plan. Everyone knows what will happen, in what order, and who is responsible for what.
- Migration CodeCraft. Migration CodeCraft transforms legacy code into future-ready solutions. We have automated the migration process to convert old code (eg RPG, COBOL, SAS) into modern, structured code while preserving business logic and functionality. And we only convert the software that’s needed.
Maintain Business Continuity
Transitioning to modern programming languages makes it easier to maintain, enhance, and recruit skilled developers. Our Migration CodeCraft enables business continuity with minimal disruption to existing operations.
We can Rebuild it
Like they said about the Six Million Dollar man, Strumenta can rebuild it.
