RE: Navision

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Shields, Ken
>
> Hi All
>       We are investigating this MS package, to replace our aging
> green screen apps.
>       It will run on an Iseries in PASE, native code is C#
>       Anyone out there, had any experience with this MS product?...

Navision is a Danish product that Microsoft recently acquired.  You can get
a little more info here:

http://www.2020software.com/software/display.asp?tMethodID=3&tMethod=categor
y

http://www.2020software.com/software/display.asp?tMethod=category

Also, the Microsoft site has a number of demos.  There are two products,
Attain and Axapta.  Attain is a pretty basic thick client application -
orders look like Excel spreadsheets, and so on.  Axapta looks a little more
promising - their BOM maintenance for example is pretty well done.  But even
so, it requires a thick client for most of the nice GUI stuff.  It's also
far more expensive.

Not sure what Axapta uses, but Attain is written in something called
"C/SIDE", a proprietary 4GL developed by Navision:

www.navision.com/hq/mediafiles/newdoc/PDF_ATTAIN/6/Fact_Sheet_C_SIDE.pdf

Are you seriously considering moving to a thick-client environment using
Oracle or SQL server as your database?  In addition to the cost of the
package, that's one serious bit of conversion!  Your business logic is all
in a new language, your legacy programmers may not all be able to convert to
the new environment, your screens are all thick client (with the deployment
issues that surround that particular architecture) and your database is
Oracle or SQL Server.

Whereas you could simply revitalize your existing systems using either a
screen scraper or WebFacing or PSC/400.  PSC/400, while not cheap, is
cheaper than your rewrite, and your business logic stays in RPG, and your
interface is entirely browser-based with zero client-side footprint.  You
keep the reliability and ease of use of DB2/400, and you get a nice
graphical interface.

Joe