Developers are working at embedding Commerce Ones C1 BuySite proxy catalogue server system into Geac purchasing applications. Immediately, the company is promising integration of electronic commerce elements into E-Series and Millennium applications, using a product from Commerce-One Inc, the small Walnut Creek, California-based e-commerce supplier headed up by Mark Hoffman the former chief executive officer of Sybase. Other than this, Geac developers are said to be acting out E-Series and Millennium plans described to us in January by chief executive Bill Nelson as work that will enhance reporting facilities and consider the potential of the mainframe as an intranet server. The first installation of CoHost has just gone into production at Wheat First Butcher Singer, the Richmond, Virginia-based financial services company. The CoHost product had been kicking around for a good while before Geac appeared and has since been launched as a graphical front end for green screen E-Series and Millennium applications.
The company has also confirmed that it will not be updating BrightView to make it Y2K-compliant but instead has taken the decision to replace it with CoHost.
#Goldmine process monitor Patch#
As Y2K-compliant releases for the later applications become available, a patch will be given to upgrade the interfaces to work with the new Y2K-compliant date formats. Geac has said that interfaces from its Y2K-compliant applications to non-Y2K-compliant programs are being designed to pass dates in the formats required. And understandably there have been concerns voiced by users over what such arrangements might mean for the payroll/GL interface. Clearly if year 2000-compliant releases are being phased in over time, there will be some periods when, say, a Y2K-compliant GL application would need to interface with some non-Y2K-compliant human resources package. This should be appearing by the first quarter of 1998, which nudges it as much as six months ahead of the original delivery date set by D&B Software. But apart from this, there is really very little else to mention other than the GL targeted at the 150 or so sites running applications on Digital Vax and various Unix servers. The Y2K-compliant General Ledger module for IBM MVS systems is running slightly ahead of the scheduled fourth quarter 1997 delivery date, Geac’s Matthew Brosnan was happy to report to us.
It may explain why there is a lack of much visible evidence of the promised acceleration of the Year 2000-compliant Millennium and E-Series program. The research and development funding put aside for the acquired Millennium and E-Series mainframe applications is set at some $20m for the year commencing May 1997 – up $4m on the year previous.īut at roughly 10% of the $200m-plus income going into Geac’s Enterprise Server division, this amount is still shy of industry norms. From its income, Geac has to meet expenses and overheads of some 100 support staff, perhaps a couple of hundred more in customer services and general administration, and another 100 or so that are said to be working in development. Earnings per share soared to $0.97 from $0.29. In its first quarter, Geac reported net profit of $30.8m on revenue up 183% at $145.6m, up from net profit of $8.6 million a year ago. This must make the Enterprise Server mainframe stable very profitable indeed for the new owner. But those applications still account for over 3,500 active licenses, and are bringing in $200m-plus a year in maintenance receipts.
#Goldmine process monitor software#
Along with the SmartStream line of client-server applications Geac Computer Corp took on when it acquired Dun & Bradstreet Software last October (CI No 3,027), Geac Computer Corp also found itself with seven or eight aging mainframe applications.