ADVANCED BusinessLink Corporation announced this week a native Web Application Server solution for AS/400 users.

Shipping as part of its Strategi e-business platform (ver 1.3.0), this new component is currently the only native AS/400 Web Application Server (not ported from another platform) on the market.

As a result, users can develop e-business applications using skills in RPG, C, Java or any other host language. Retraining to Java is not required, greatly reducing the time taken to be productive. BusinessLink CEO and Founder Chris Lategan comments, "A remarkable trend we're seeing is that traditional AS/400 shops with no prior web experience are rolling out mainstream e-business applications after just a couple of days training. The huge base of AS/400 sites out there with traditional skills can be productive immediately."

For example, A&I Products - distributor of over 10,000 tractor and combine machinery parts - used Strategi's Web Application Server to bring his company to the Web. A&I's Jerry Wynia developed an extensive AS/400-based e-business resource site for his sales force, prototyped a warehouse application using Telxon handheld scanners with an onboard browser, and is now developing an extensive online catalog - by himself, as a part-time project. Jerry took just 3 days to learn the techniques needed and had no prior Web experience. Online Interview (http://www.businesslink.com/customer/ai)

As a native product, Strategi has phenomenal performance serving web applications, as it plays directly to the strengths of the AS/400. It can deliver thousands of transactions per second even on lower end AS/400's.

Lategan adds "We took years of solid experience with our High Speed Messaging architecture (HSM), renowned for its performance and ease of web development and rewrote it as a Web Application Server from the ground up. Existing Strategi users are assured 100% compatibility with prior HSM Web applications."

One or more instances of host applications are loaded and managed automatically by Strategi. These receive incoming requests from browser users as message based transactions and on reply are resolved with templates then served as web pages. An elegant solution, separating design from data, removing the need for cumbersome CGI programming.

Web Application Servers have recently come to the forefront of AS/400 e-business development as the preferred means to deliver interactive applications to Internet users while integrating their input and transactions into back-end programs.

Strategi Product Manager Scott McBurney comments, "There are 17 trillion lines of RPG code out there which businesses depend on. However, Web-application serving is changing the landscape of the global business community to the point where no IT director is betting the farm on RPG. As our customers can attest, BusinessLink provides a pathway to help get these businesses all the way from green-screen terminals to a high-volume Web-based architecture."

Strategi runs on any model AS/400 running OS/400 v3r7 or above with TCP/IP. No prerequisite software or hardware gateways are required. Users need only load the software and run a Java capable browser on an Internet or Intranet connected PC.

Strategi is an AS/400 browser/server suite that contains Java based 5250, Push technology for active delivery of reports and files, native Web serving, browser based file sharing and High Speed Messaging for Web Application Serving.

Media Contact: Paige Longdon
Phone (425) 602 4777  
Fax (425) 602 4789