What is the current focus of your company's business?
Watt : We are not strictly an EDI vendor. We do a lot more than just EDI. We have grown up as a development tool provider originally on the IBM as400 i-series systems. Our speciality over the last 20 years has been developing business solutions. We have an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) code offering and we do custom development and web development. Our systems are able to deploy to multiple interfaces simultaneously, and we integrate to XML and EDI that way.
LANSA provides a suite; LANSA Integration and EDIDirect. With these tools we can exchange data over any transport. We are different form other vendors in that we came from originally doing web sites and then XML. We saw that EDI was not going away, and extended our tool to be able to handle EDI 5-6 yrs ago. So, you could say that we came in backwards.
How has this focus changed in the last 2 years?
Watt: We have updated our core products recently. We have a modernization strategy for our customers' legacy environments. This allows an evolutionary approach so customers can evolve to new applications. For EDI over the internet, we have a UCCNET data synchronization function. We saw a lot of customers putting in tremendous efforts a few yrs ago, but have not seen as much activity in the datasynch arena lately. I think that lots of companies started the process but are not following through. Maybe the take-up is just slow because it hasn't been mandated.
Our EDI practice goes up and down. We were very busy last year, but early this year it has slowed. We are doing more mapping however. Mapping seems to be becoming a specialty, and the company will look to partner with a mapping company to handle that sector of the business.
What are your current initiatives?
Watt: We have offices worldwide. Our R&D is in Sydney Australia, but since is our systems evolved in North America we drive the product from here. We are continuing to improve our mapping interface, but that market is becoming a commodity, so we are looking at the possibility of partnering.
How has the market for EDI changed with the impact of the Internet?
Watt: We did XML before we started with EDI. A lot of our XML customers need a mix of EDI and XML. In addition, we do some integration with PDF, text, and spreadsheets from a single transaction engine. Now the need is for multiple formats to be able to exchange, and to integrate to a back end system.
So, it's a whole new ball game with the Internet. Initially only big companies with big money had the resources to make full implementations. Now we are able to exchange data in nearly real time. Now transactions are 1-off rather than in batches, and companies use the Internet rather than a VAN.
We have always been an Internet EDI company. Now EDI is more accessible to smaller suppliers, and they are implementing systems on their own choice, not just because they have been mandated.
What are the greatest challenges for your customers?
Watt: Standards are one issue, and that ties in with customer having different versions of the standard. It's important to be competitive, and the only way to be competitive is to have good integration with the back end system. Companies are trying to get transaction processing and integration done quickly, and sometimes they outsource the function. It's more important than ever to have tight integration to the back end. That's the only way to have truly dynamic data. These systems are very complicated and require people at the organization to know their systems well.
How are you helping your customers address these challenges?
Watt: EDIDirect has some advantages in integrating. The tools we use with EDI are 4gl and CASE tools. Because we evolved into EDI we are more focused on the core systems. We see that as an advantage, and we use that advantage for our customers.
LANSA is the tool that makes it possible. We have hundreds of other software vendors that have used our tool in their own software, and our tools make it easy for them to integrate well with legacy systems. Our ability to integrate with e-Commerce systems helps with EDI integration as well.
How do you categorize 'good' testing versus 'bad' or useless testing?
Watt: We see testing as a software issue. If you don't have proper real live test data you may think it works, but go live and find that it doesn't. It is important to test as early as possible in the development process.