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Return to Simplicity Business Applications High Tech without High Cost Agenda Company Overview Business Problem Four J’s Solution Business Benefits Product Strategy & Vision Conclusion 2 Company Overview 90 employees Privately held • No banks, VCs, or external debt Global presence • European HQ in Paris • North American HQ in Dallas Management team • • • • Jean George Schwartz, President & CEO Bryn Jenkins, COO Stephen Sykes, SVP & GM Americas Herve Hellebronth, VP Marketing & Communication 3 Sequential, Profitable Growth Founded in 1995 with $1million seed money from founders 3,000,000 Users 5,000 Developers 1,000 VARs $10m Revenue 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 4 Select Customers and Partners End Users Retail VARs Manufacturing Municipal Retail CRM Peace Software Financial Media FDS Finance Supply Chain 5 and Strategic Worldwide Reseller Relationship • Four J’s provides • Upgrade for Informix 4GL • Rapid development and deployment of new business applications against Informix and DB2 databases • IBM provides • Sales, Marketing, Support, Training and Consulting • We Cooperate • On joint marketing and selling • On development of training, documentation, and services 6 Agenda Company Overview Business Problem Four J’s Solution Business Benefits Product Strategy & Vision Conclusion 7 Business Applications … Are Not About Technology Businesses use applications for two primary reasons • To lower the cost of operations (and services) • To enable operations (and services) Business Applications must be measured on ROI • Investment: What is the total lifecycle cost? • Return: How effectively does the software • Improve operational efficiency? • Improve market share and revenue? 8 Legacy Bound Today’s business application using state-of-the-art technology is tomorrow’s legacy application • • • • Version 1 – started with dumb terminals Version 2 – rewrote for Windows Version 2.5 – rewrote for HTML Version 3+ – rewrite for Java, e-commerce, m-commerce… ROI comes from business functionality, not infrastructure 100% ROI Application 0% Infrastructure Business Logic 9 Focused on Tech: Expensive & Risky! Constant investment in technology • • • • People, software, development Slows your time to market Distracts you from doing things that add value Is expensive! Detracts from focus on business value – constantly dealing with • • • • Application Portability Application Performance Application Complexity Application Programmer Availability 10 Business Applications … Are about Business Features You’re Noble Systems, the provider of call center software to AOL, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, etc. Your key corporate goal is to own the outsourced telemarketing firms that target retail companies. You want to enable these centers to offer low cost, rapid integration with their customer’s retail inventory and ordering systems. This will make you the clear market leader – but two of your strategic targets are making 5 year vendor commitments within the next six months. How quickly can you develop this capability, and how much will it cost? 11 Agenda Company Overview Business Problem Four J’s Solution Business Benefits Product Strategy & Vision Conclusion 12 Intelligent Business Application Infrastructure Abstract interface – single source code stream automatically supports multiple client platforms • Intelligent creation of interfaces on Windows, HTML, Java, X11, PDA/mobile, ASCII • No investment, development, or lock-in to client-side technologies Single source code stream supports multiple databases • Open Database Interface supports DB2, Informix, Oracle, SQL Server… • Multiple, simultaneous, native, high-performance access Thin client, three-tier architecture • Automatic management and optimization of client/server communications • High performance server – without special client-server skills Web Services support without special infrastructure skills Keeping development effort focused on business logic, not infrastructure or deployment issues 13 Insulating Business Logic from Technology Infrastructure ASCII Windows X11 Java HTML HTML WML Web Services 14 Agenda Company Overview Business Problem Four J’s Solution Business Benefits Product Strategy & Vision Conclusion 15 Business Benefits Cost Reduction & Time to Market • Enable the rapid development, deployment, and evolution of Business Applications 16 Cost Reduction & Time to Market “Infocell is pushing the envelope in terms of wireless applications. Four J's dramatically improved our time-to-market, giving us the competitive edge we enjoy today.” “We could never have brought such a far-reaching solution to market this quickly using other development environments.” Michael O'Connor Technical Director, Infocell 17 Business Benefits Cost Reduction & Time to Market • Enable the rapid development, deployment, and evolution of Business Applications High Tech without High Cost • Enable full exploitation of state-of-the-art infrastructure, without investment in special skills or development 18 High Tech without High Cost “We’re able to offer a sophisticated Java application, utilizing highly visual third party applets to extend our functionality, without heavy investment in Java skills or development.” “We compete based on our rich feature set, high tech look and feel, and absolute flexibility – we license our source code to customers and provide SLA support for their modifications. Four J’s has enabled us to deliver on all three of these goals – without compromise.” Eddie Hillard President and CEO Financial Database Services 19 Business Benefits Cost Reduction & Time to Market • Enable the rapid development, deployment, and evolution of Business Applications High Tech without High Cost • Enable full exploitation of state-of-the-art infrastructure, without investment in special skills or development Future Proof – not Legacy Bound! • Insulate the investment in business applications from waves of technology innovation 20 Future Proof – not Legacy Bound! “Four J’s allows us to seamlessly track and leverage evolving technologies, without investment in expensive staff or development projects, or compromising our application’s reliability or complex and powerful business logic.” Jim Noble President and CEO 21 Agenda Company Overview Business Problem Four J’s Solution Business Benefits Product Strategy & Vision Conclusion 22 Intelligent Business Application Infrastructure -- Open to Change Four J’s Closed I4GL Informix Windows 1998 I4GL + BDL Informix, DB2, Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server Windows, HTML, X11 2000 Open I4GL + BDL Informix, DB2, Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server Windows, HTML, X11, Java, WML Web Services 2002 I4GL + BDL + OOP Informix, DB2, Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server Windows, HTML, Java, X11, WML, XML Web Services, App Servers 2003 *BDL – Four J’s Business Development Language 23 Intelligent Business Application Infrastructure Strategy for Market Adoption Huge captive Informix 4GL target market • High direct value proposition • Establish beachhead in 4J’s and Informix 4GL install base • Evangelize within to grow usage Branch to new development everywhere Promote de facto industry standard 24 Intelligent Business Application Infrastructure “Four J’s mission is to provide an intelligent infrastructure for business applications that excels in its openness, flexibility and performance, taking full advantage of new technologies while preserving business functionality.” 25 Contacts Four J’s Americas Tony Lacy-Thompson 408-398-6284 [email protected] Horizon Communications Philippe Wagner 408-969-4888 x108 [email protected] 26 Return to Simplicity Business Applications High Tech without High Cost Appendix Industry Perspective Focused on Tech: Expensive & Risky! Application Portability "Developers for Vignette have to rewrite its code to work with application servers made by BEA, IBM and Sun. They write to the core application server, then we go back and write the specific code for each specific application server." Santi Pierini VP of Product Strategy, Vignette (c|net – "Java Jigsaw", NEWS.COM Special Report, March 25, 2002) 29 Focused on Tech: Expensive & Risky! Application Complexity "Finally, the complexity of Java itself continues to be a problem. Complaints have particularly surrounded a key piece of the Java standard, Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB)." "The original intention behind EJBs was to save programmers time. But many say they’re finding headaches instead. Compounding the problem is that EJBs, as part of the popular J2EE specification, are often used as the basis for Java products." (c|net – "Java Jigsaw", NEWS.COM Special Report, March 25, 2002) 30 Focused on Tech: Expensive & Risky! Application Programmer Availability "You’ve got a whole mass of developers out there who are not hard-core technical guys, but are mainstream business application developers in medium to large companies." John Magee Senior Director, Oracle 9i Marketing (c|net – "Java Jigsaw", NEWS.COM Special Report, March 25, 2002) 31