At my Java seminars, I’m often asked, “Who’s using Java?” or “What AS/400 sites are using Java?” And I regularly get emails that ask the same questions. The best response to those queries is a URL of an IBM Web site that lists Java case studies by industry: www2.software.ibm.com/developer/casestudies.nsf/java-byindustry.
Are the companies listed at IBM’s site just your ordinary mom-and-pop shops? Sure. After all, somebody’s mom or pop has to own “little” companies such as John Deere, Mazda, and Wells Fargo. And not all the companies featured at IBM’s case study site are on the AS/400—one big advantage of Java is its cross-platform features—but many are. If you want to look at AS/400-specific examples, visit IBM’s Java Jems site (www.as400.ibm.com/developer/java/solutions/jjem.html). There you’ll find a list of AS/400-based Java sites, including Famous Footwear (www. famousfootwear.com), HMV Media Group (www.hmv.com), Intermediate GmbH&Co. (www.intermediate.de), Oriental Trading Company (www.oriental.com), and REALXpress. com (www.realxpress.com).
The names on IBM’s AS/400 Java Jem site certainly aren’t an exhaustive list. Take, for example, the omission of John Wiley & Sons (www.wiley.com). John Wiley & Sons is a publisher that is currently creating a Java-based order-entry system that will allow its customers to access its catalog and order in real time from its AS/400-based production systems. Another example is K&K Insurance Group (www.kandkinsurance.com). When K&K, an AS/400 shop, wanted to extend its business to the Internet, it used Java and decided to use its existing AS/400 as its Web server. K&K selected Java as the language because it wanted to be able to serve all of K&K’s potential Internet users regardless of platform and to leverage its existing AS/400 application and technology investments. Rich Morrison, senior vice president of technical services at K&K says, “The integration of AS/400 has been outstanding. We can run our core business applications on a single system without any problem.”
RPS, Inc. (www.shiprps.com)—now FedEx Ground Package System Inc.—a Fortune 500 company and a leading provider of transportation and logistics services, has recently standardized on Java as its primary application development environment. The cross-platform features of Java make sense for RPS, as its software systems use both RS/6000s and AS/400s.
Server-side Java
Most of the companies that are moving to Java are using the server-side features of Java. Erik Mickelson, a lead analyst in Famous Footwear’s IT group, for instance, said in IBM’s
case study, “Now instead of delivering Java client solutions, we do this application entirely through HTML and Java ServerPages on our AS/400s. This is great because it gives us almost unlimited portability.”
Wolfgang Trumler, chief executive officer of Intermediate GmbH&Co., also smitten with server-side Java, said to IBM, “We saw tremendous possibilities with WebSphere’s servlet technology, especially in conjunction with JDBC. We wrote a prototype and, with IBM’s help, validated it on AS/400.” Trumler was aware of the potential problems that often beset early adopters, but he says, “We took a risk early in our company history when we decided to build a server product based on AS/400, WebSphere, and Java. Our first year has been a big success as more customers are coming to us seeking our help in building e-business solutions. We look forward to doubling our size in the next year.”
Oriental Trading also reaped the rewards of an early adopter. Brad O-Dell, Oriental Trading Company’s director of e-commerce, told IBM, “We haven’t even marketed our Web site at all and we’re still finding that 50 percent of the site visitors are new customers. So, we’re picking up significant incremental business just by being on the Web.”
Leveraging Information
Most of the companies profiled at IBM’s AS/400 Java Gem site seem to have one thing in common: they all want to leverage their legacy data. Herb Vossler, manager of information systems at the City of Winnipeg Transit Department (www.winnipegtransit.com) told IBM, “It wasn’t until Java became available that we had the technology to deliver to the Web all the information that had been in our AS/400 systems for years.”
Welch’s Foods’ Deepak Mohapatra, manager of operations and networks, said to IBM: “We wanted to run our new Web-based application on our AS/400 because that’s where our company data resides, and we wanted a programming environment that gave us the flexibility to run portions of the application on any other platform as well. Java was the obvious answer. Our investment in Java is paying big dividends.”
Besides400.com
But the point here is the viability of Java in business environments, so why only look at AS/400 companies? If you take a gander at industry.java.sun.com/casestudies/, you’ll see even more sites than those promoted by IBM’s case studies. When you consider that the AS/400 is a great platform for hosting Java applications, and after you browse through a hundred or so of the case studies, you’ll realize that there is potential for any industry segment to move to Java. The thousands of companies profiled at Sun’s site didn’t sit back and wait to see what everyone else was going to do. They recognized the benefits of extending their businesses to the Internet and used their favorite platform for deployment.
Don Denoncourt is a senior technical editor for Midrange Computing. Don has six years of object-oriented design and programming experience and now considers himself to be a “Java evangelist.” He can be reached at
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