Enterprise software specialist Micro Focus has unveiled a major new software solution designed to help companies identify their IT assets and processes and assist in the development of their IT infrastructure.
Speaking at the company's Micro Focus World user conference in Orlando, Florida, chief executive Stephen Kelly announced the launch of Enterprise View, the first significant launch the company has made based on application portfolio management (APM) technology it acquired from the takeover of HAL Knowledge Systems.
Enterprise View allows large enterprises to construct a detailed view of their key applications and IT processes, and measure the realistic value of those IT assets to the business. This allows companies to then undertake the modernisation and overhauling of their IT and businesses processes by building on the key systems that are working for the business, rather than pulling the plug on them and trying to replace them with new code and applications from scratch.
The company also announced a number of users that are already using its APM technology to manage and improve their critical systems including supermarket Tesco, banking giants HSBC and Barclays, as well as IBM Global Services.
Speaking about the launch of Enterprise View, Kelly underlined the importance and potential benefits of modernisation over a wholesale reconstruction of critical IT systems and processes.
"Take for example the change in fortunes between Tesco and Sainsbury's. While Tesco focused, successfully on modernising its backend IT and improving integration, Sainsbury's went for a complete rip-out and rewrite of its key systems for stock control and supply chain management. Such drastic upheaval proved a disaster, costing over 3 billion, failing to deliver and costing several people their jobs" said Kelly. "Due to the failure and disruption caused by the rewrite, rivals flourished while Sainsbury's shelves were left empty due to supply chain IT problems".
The Enterprise View object-based solution automates the process of discovering and collecting data about a company's enterprise applications as well as calculating their business value, delivering the data to users in the form of role-based, contextual dashboards.
For companies that are dealing with the integration of systems gained through mergers and acquisitions, or looking to overhaul their current IT to support expansion or business transformation, the solution and the information it can extract can be a significant tool for companies looking to invest and enhance their IT systems.
"The Micro Focus APM solution provides us with an accurate, up-to-date view across our applications portfolio, as well as allow us to analyse every platform and identify areas that use a lot of resource and focus on cost reduction," said Andy Givens, head of IT in Europe for HSBC.
The Enterprise View product was announced alongside an initiative to encourage organisations to acknowledge the real value of IT assets. Micro Focus has commissioned INSEAD, a leading international business school to study IT asset values and develop new and more accurate ways of measuring the value of IT to the business using it.
