Fujitsu gives enterprise customers new options for protecting and leveraging investments in legacy systems

Pundits have sometimes predicted the death of legacy systems, but at this week's Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2004 in Sydney Fujitsu is unveiling a series of innovative options for enterprise customers who recognise the inherent value of their legacy applications, mainframe systems and other mature information technology platforms.

With Gartner research showing that many enterprises spend more than 30 per cent of their IT budget on maintaining and operating legacy systems, the issue of cost-effective transformation and manageable risk has never been higher on the agenda, according to Michael Visentin, Manager of Fujitsu's TransMigration Services team.

"Legacy systems are often highly complex, many are costly to operate and quite a few are at or near the end of their working lives," said Mr Visentin. "But the reality is that these mature IT systems are still too important to ignore because they represent many years of investment in core business processes."

"Fujitsu's industry-leading approach to legacy systems transformation is all about giving customers more options. We work with enterprise IT teams to reduce the cost of heritage computing platforms and develop migration, extension or replacement strategies to make legacy systems responsive to changing business needs."

Boosting business agility and reducing cost

As a major exhibitor at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2004, Fujitsu is showing how its TransMigration Services can help organisations optimise their investment in legacy assets to extract greater value from IT budgets and reduce the risks associated with implementing new technologies.

"Fear of failure is often the reason for some organisations' reluctance to properly address the growing problems within their legacy systems," said Mr Visentin. "Some organisations worry that any transformational changes they make will only exacerbate existing problems and reward them with complex and difficult outcomes. So they do nothing. Unfortunately, doing nothing is the very worst choice they can make."

Many enterprises are now starting to recognise the need to make sure their legacy systems continue to perform reliably and remain responsive to new business imperatives.

"There are normally two reasons why enterprises talk about legacy systems: they want to reduce the overall cost of supporting existing systems and they need to increase business agility in response to market demands," Mr Visentin said. "Fujitsu's TransMigration Services are tailored to helping IT managers realise these goals."

Accepting the challenge of change

IT managers who accept the challenge of change are usually motivated by a recognition that reduced operating costs will free up their budget for investment in business growth. So what are their options? Some opt for an off-the-shelf solution, anticipating that this would probably result in an 80 per cent fit for their organisation and a modest 20 per cent customisation cost.

"In reality, a truly successful one-size-fits-all solution using off-the-shelf technology is a very rare phenomenon for medium-to-large businesses," Mr Visentin said. "Anecdotal evidence suggests that many companies choosing this route are more likely to see those percentages reversed - a 20 per cent fit with 80 per cent of functions requiring expensive customisation."

50 per cent reduction in legacy migration costs

Fujitsu is one of the few organisations qualified to offer a one-stop shop for transmigration services that deliver business benefits and ensure sustained service from the legacy environment. Fujitsu's ability to offer clients an end-to-end legacy transformation solution with a single point of accountability helps clients remain focused on their core business while using Fujitsu to deliver a cost-effective solution.

In work for clients in Australia and New Zealand, Fujitsu has demonstrated an ability to halve legacy system migration costs. This dramatic reduction is achieved by combining proven capabilities, methodologies and experience with innovative solutions for automated conversion of legacy systems. For customers, the result is a business solution that delivers measurable value.

According to Mr Visentin, more and more enterprises are now identifying the need to take action over their legacy systems before maintenance costs escalate too far or disaster strikes and valuable company data assets are lost forever. "Fortunately there is increasing awareness among business leaders and IT managers about the options available," he said. "Fujitsu's global scale and local delivery capability uniquely position us to deliver end-to-end legacy improvement and transformation solutions."