ASB sticks with Linc despite Jade project

By RICHARD WOOD

The ASB Bank has implemented a $500,000 clearing house system written in the Jade language by converting it from a Unisys mainframe-based Linc system.

Christchurch's Jade Software, previously known as Aoraki, has developed a conversion process called Jet to target such opportunities. But multinational Unisys is not sitting idle with Linc.

It was Unisys that, as Burroughs, bought Linc from Aoraki in 1980 and has since spread it around the world. Aoraki was involved with Linc until last year but is now targeting that user base globally with its new software Jade.

Clayton Wakefield, ASB Bank general manager technology operations and property, said the project was critical to the bank. But there were no plans to convert its other Linc-based systems.

Last week Unisys toured the country showing off the latest version of Linc, now renamed Enterprise Application Environment (EAE).

Unisys has a 130-strong software development team working on Linc/EAE based in Sydney and headed by Lakshminarayanan Vaidyanathasamy.

Vaidyanathasamy says none of the Linc customers it sells to directly in New Zealand or Australia has been lost, but a Jade spokesman points to a list of customers in both countries that it has converted from Linc.

They include Mitsubishi Motors NZ, Air New Zealand, Christchurch Women's Hospital, Southland Building Society, Northern Territory Healthcare and the Australian Capital Territory Tax Department.

Unisys New Zealand Clearpath program manager Brian O'Sullivan discounted these deals, saying they were small Linc sites.

"The bigger customers like The Warehouse left Aoraki and have continued with Linc outside of Aoraki," he said. O'Sullivan confirmed the ASB Bank is a Unisys Linc customer for its Visa card systems.

Vaidyanathasamy said the Linc improvements included "web services" features and a more Windows-like development environment. A key strategy here is the hosting of the Linc/EAE developer software within Microsoft's key Visual Studio . Net environment.

Unisys says 2500 organisations in 74 countries use Linc, including 35 per cent of its ClearPath customers, and 70 per cent of the world's telecommunications firms.