The digital economic system of the Philippines continues to soar at a price of 20% and is predicted to achieve US$20B this yr in accordance with the most recent e-Conomy SEA 2022 report launched by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company. The similar report additionally famous that the native eCommerce business is pushing the expansion of the nation’s digital economic system to as excessive as US$35B by 2025.

The Philippine authorities is attempting onerous to advertise the expansion of the digital economic system and improve the nation’s competitiveness within the international market with initiatives to enhance infrastructure, promote the adoption of digital applied sciences, and assist the event of native companies.

As a part of this effort, mainframe computer systems have performed a big function within the growth of the Philippine digital economic system. Mainframe computer systems are highly effective computer systems which are used to course of giant quantities of knowledge and carry out advanced duties. These machines are sometimes utilized by organizations for mission-critical purposes, equivalent to monetary transactions, information evaluation, and the administration of enormous databases.

Mainframe computer systems are utilized by a wide range of organizations within the Philippines, together with banks, authorities companies, and huge firms. They are used to course of and handle giant quantities of knowledge, assist advanced enterprise processes, and make sure the dependable operation of essential techniques.

I lately had the chance to take a seat down and chat with Praveen Kumar, Vice President for Asia Pacific at Rocket Software as he was on the town for a collection of enterprise conferences. Founded in 1990, Rocket Software [https://www.rocketsoftware.com/] is a software program growth agency that gives predictive analytics with deep information, develop AI and machine studying capabilities, and design cell and browser utility utilizing IBM Z, IBM Power, and embedded database platforms. The firm acquired ASG Technologies in April 2021.

“Rocket Software predominantly focused on traditional mainframe solutions. We are historically a technical-oriented company and over the past five years, Rocket has been pivoting towards a customer-facing sales company while not losing the technical orientation. While we grow the technical OEM business along with IBM, we are also spending a lot more energy trying to directly interface with the customer and have a larger sales field that is interactive,” mentioned Kumar once I requested him what retains the corporate busy today including that their acquisition of ASG Technologies final yr helps them rather a lot to concentrate on their purchasers.

Contrary to fashionable perception, the mainframe enterprise just isn’t but a dying business. As the structure of laptop chips advanced, the adaptability of older software program (utilized in industries equivalent to banking, finance, and insurance coverage) to run on these newer machines is lagging. In actuality, it is rather onerous for software program distributors to construct purposes which are particular to the {hardware} structure of a field (laptop machine), as it’s constantly evolving. Kumar identified that the mainframe phase has been very steady for the reason that structure utilized in these machines was solidly designed.

Modernizing the Legacy Landscape

Companies that also use mainframes as we speak are confronted with some challenges, significantly in addressing the know-how expertise hole. With most legacy enterprise software program written in RPG (IBM’s high-level programming language) or COBOL (the English-like programming language utilized in most enterprise purposes of yesteryears), each programming languages had been round for the reason that late Nineteen Fifties, discovering the fitting programmer to modernize purposes will probably be a tricky job.

Rocket Software helps modernize the legacy panorama with out touching the backend utility. When companies use Rocket Software, their software program builders don’t must study RPG or COBOL to interface their mainframe information with the newer purposes. Companies can now launch new merchandise quicker utilizing low-code/no-code applied sciences through the use of merchandise equivalent to Rocket API, successfully saving on prices as much as 30% as they’ll now concentrate on managing the applying and never on the combination processes.

“Look at solutions that don’t require you to rewrite, re-develop, or change the application itself. Your modernization journey will be a lot better if you can integrate as a first choice. If you can’t, you can go to another package or re-develop,” Kumar’s recommendation to Filipino companies that intend to modernize their techniques.