How APM addresses IT challenges

At the end of 2005, when Gartner published some of its predictions for the year ahead (Predicts 2006: Reacting to Application Development Challenges With Management and Automation, November 2005) the analyst firm remarked that Application Portfolio Management (APM) was “critical to understanding and managing the 40 percent to 80 percent of IT budgets devoted to maintaining and enhancing software”, observing that most organizations “haven’t truly associated the substantial amount of money they're spending with what they're spending it on.”  Gartner concluded by predicting that APM initiatives will support “IT governance and investment in 40 percent of Global 2000 enterprises and large government IT shops within the next two years.”

Helping organizations invest wisely in their IT assets has been at the heart of the Micro Focus mission for three decades.

Read some of the thoughts and views expressed in the press by Micro Focus and other industry experts on the major IT challenges facing organizations today, such as the impact IT complexity is having on business growth, corporate risk and efficiency, and how only a solid understanding of what you have, and where the value lies within your enterprise, can provide the stable foundation on which to build the growth strategies of tomorrow.

Lessons for business from the public sector

In this article from FT Digital (October 4^th 2006) exploring why IT projects fail, Alan Cane looks at public sector successes, and hears views on where they went right, and what private sector might learn from their experiences…

Organisations should investigate their current technological strengths and weaknesses rather than trust in unproven new technologies: “Although it is very easy to think of these things as being solved by technology, essentially all the business is looking for is a rapid response to its requirements and stable performance.” 

Are Core Systems on Life Support

This article from the SWIFT community magazine, Dialogue (page 36 in the downloadable pdf) explores issues such as how banks should approach strategic modernization of their core applications, and how Web services help prolong the life of legacy systems…

IT systems have to adapt to rapid changes in firms’ business models. In the UK supermarkets are becoming banks, insurance companies are crossing over into adjacent financial sectors and there’s huge fluidity in M&A business models. “The pressures on IT are constant,” says Julian Dobbins, senior marketing development manager at Micro Focus, provider of legacy development and deployment software. “Most important for firms is understanding where the value lies in their existing portfolio,” he adds.

Renewing the Legacy

In his keynote speech to insurance business leaders at last year's Acord Forum in London, Nick Prettejohn, then CEO of Lloyd's, argued that poor quality data and business processes were threatening the very existence of the London insurance market…

This Micro Focus opinion piece, featured throughout the Financial Services trade press, discusses how a strategic legacy modernization strategy can help reduce the proliferation of operational risk brought about through poor and often inflexible business processes.

Let your legacy investment shine

In this article, Brian Crane, Director of zSeries Modernization Solutions at Micro Focus, discusses how APM and management reporting can help IT departments dismiss the common misconception that replacing old systems with something completely new is the right way forward.

This Micro Focus opinion piece highlights some of the key questions when considering an APM solution, and describes how APM can then help protect the value that resides in business applications.