PRIMA Computing - What's different about us?
- We are committed to salvaging Legacy COBOL and allowing it to run alongside new
technology as an equal partner.
Having salvaged all our own COBOL systems, it made sense to encapsulate the experience gained doing this into a set of tools which can automate most of the process. Our approach to Migrating COBOL is quite unique and it is based on the recognition that it is NOT effective to simply re-compile old COBOL and try to continue running a procedural paradigm in the Networked environment. The Legacy code needs to be refactored into objects so it can play on a level playing field with new systems being developed using the new Object technology. (Click here to see a summary/overview of our unique approach to modernizing and salvaging COBOL legacy code.)
- We recognize that the fundamental building blocks of your business reside in the data
elements defined in your filing system.
It was the process of devising Migration of Legacy systems which brought us to the realization of just
how important the data elements used by your business are in defining the business and what it does. Irrespective
of the technology being used to manipulate it, the data structure itself is paramount.
A data repository that
supports a model of your actual business in real time, Normalized and optimized, shared and accessible, is the only sound
basis for supporting the processes (existing and future) that you need to run your business.
We do not see your Legacy files and file definitions as an inconvenience that needs to be "converted" in
order to comply with the accessing technology; we see them as the essence
of your Migration. Get the data organized properly, ensure that what is needed is available to any process (old or new)
that needs it, and your IT systems will run without problem.
PRIMA's Migration process is DATA driven. We analyse what you have, reorganize it, optimize it, and fix your
existing code so it can still use it, without impacting on any new development in any New Technology you are planning to use.
That is a major difference between us and most people offering Migration services.
- We are committed to component based design and development. All of our products and packages are built from components which we can re-use and plug together like Lego. This keeps maintenance low and enables changes and enhancements to be applied much more effectively than would be the case if we stayed with a monolithic, procedural based approach, as we did last century. We use modern Object Oriented design and development and our primary development language is now C#, with the .Net platform being our target for desktop applications. This same technical paradigm will carry us through to Web Based and mobile device application development in the future.
- We are committed to AUTOMATED development.
We spend a lot of time (sometimes years) designing, developing, testing,
and refining code to manage various situations. We then write tools that can generate this code
into different environments.
Thousands of lines of debugged code can be written in seconds using
this approach. The Load Module Generation and Data Access Layer Objects in the Migration Toolset are
typical examples of debugged code being generated instantly to do what would otherwise be a boring,
repetitive, and error prone task for human programmers. Similarly, the process of transforming the
existing legacy COBOL codebase so that it can recognise and use Objects, is a fully automated task,
using the PRIMA Migration Toolset. Hundreds, even thousands, of legacy COBOL programs can be converted
per day, and the resulting code has never failed in Production.
If the code works before Transformation, it will work after Transformation. We guarantee it or fix
it immediately.
- We see no reason why small/medium businesses (SMBs) shouldn't enjoy the same levels of
functionality and support that large Enterprises do. Most SMBs do not have the multi-million dollar IT budgets for software and support that corporate Enterprises do. And yet, it is possible to provide most of the functionality enjoyed by large companies, simply by working smarter, designing software better, and making it more easily maintainable. Component based design and development allows us to offer sophisticated solutions at reasonable prices. Commitment to the Client/Server network model means solutions are easily scalable and easily distributable. Network operational costs are significantly lower than equivalent centralized mainframe costs. We understand Small Business and we support it wholeheartedly.
- PRIMA connects with skilled people all over the World and information flows in and out
of our Company.
Our skill base is not limited to people directly employed by us; we trade skills with consultants in all kinds of areas of Information Technology. This keeps our overheads low and means we keep abreast of new technologies and approaches.
- Because we are also a small business we are quicker to respond and have more freedom for decision making.
There are no committees or corporate rule filters we have to comply with. We can make decisions on the spot and respond to your specific requirements without making you comply with a "standard" solution. We are capable (and very pleased) to change the way things work, in response to your specific needs. If you need for something to work a bit differently there is no waiting for a committee to approve deviation from the norm; we can give you a decision within hours and if it is agreed to proceed we can give you a delivery and a price as soon as that decision is taken. There are no surprises. And we treat you fairly.