Surround Technologies Accelerates the World's Largest Non-Profit
Bloomfield, NJ (December 5, 2006) - Surround Technologies today announces the culmination of a dream project for the world's largest Not-for-Profit enterprise. Under disclosure terms of an unusual agreement, Surround may talk of the project in detail but may not address the organization or its universally-known CEO by name.
The project is "a fantasy job" according to Surround CEO Lee Paul, who was able bring the project to Surround by leveraging a personal relationship with the enterprise's CEO that literally goes back to his childhood. The project also marks an important modernization to what is believed to be the oldest continually-used application on the planet.
With roots back to punch card equipment back in the 1930's, this mission-critical primary application of the enterprise was one of the first to come into being on a pre-production IBM System 3 in 1969. The RPG program, altered only slightly through many years, has lineage that saw it migrate through generations of IBM mid-range systems including System/38, System/36, AS/400, iSeries, and the current System i5.
The project, several years in the planning phase, was accelerated to be implemented this year where the original plan called for work to begin December 26th. Surround's Chief Information Officer, Derek Maciak, explains, "This enterprise is actually not based on land, as they have a long history of wanting to be outside of normal geopolitical influences. Their primary facility has, in fact, always existed on a polar ice pack. This spring, the increased melt brought by global warming required a total relocation to take place, and the forced downtime gave us a window to complete the application modernization. With our development team working closely with their outstanding logistics-oriented IT staff and using our superior Envision Accelerator for Visual Lansa development tool, we completed the modernization effort in a tight timeline with several days to spare."
The new application is the first version to be delivered in a graphical interface. Surround Senior Systems Analyst Tommy Bardinas led the interface development and offers, "They mostly still had green screens, so the graphical element got them excited. It was kind of strange though, they insisted that the only color they wanted to add was Red. Weird, huh?"
The underlying database is also believed to be one of the largest in the world, listing children in every country in the world who are the recipients of their philanthropic efforts. Roger Smiley, another of Surround's Senior System Analysts, worked on the application flow and comments, "It is a huge, huge database, but besides Name and Address information, they have only two columns that are notated simply by a checkmark. As the two fields are mutually exclusive, we suggested that it could be one of two values in just one field, but they preferred the labels "Naughty" and "Nice". Tradition, I suppose."
But Logistics is where this enterprise really shines, and they own many proprietary technologies that they employ in their tight, once-a-year delivery schedule that occurs near year-end. While the entire Surround Technologies team spent time on-site, Systems Analyst Perry Sclafani stayed behind to work through an extensive testing phase with the organization's staff, as the impending busy season required that everything perform flawlessly. Of his extended time with the organization, Perry says, "They are all such neat, um, little people to work with. I had a great time! You know, they have organization-mandated milk-and-cookie breaks daily - I'm going to suggest it at Surround."
The new application version is now beautifully rendered and deployed to both the Web and on Windows PCs, as well as available to their once-a-year mobile staff via GPS-enabled PDAs. All in all, the organization will see new benchmarks of user productivity attained, ultimately permitting more children to be serviced, as needed due to population growth.
Surround CEO Lee Paul summarizes, "This was a job of a lifetime, a job we really wanted. That showed in the fact that we accepted a barter arrangement that has annual payments that extends to all of our great-great-grandkids. But this is about so much more than software modernization, it is about embracing the very spirit that pervades this organization. It is about getting to be a part of it."
Lee finishes with this final thought, "I may not be able to say his name, but I can quote him as I offer everyone this, 'Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!'"
About Surround Technologies
Surround Technologies develops highly usable software tools that accelerate custom application development for i5, Windows, Unix and Linux Platforms. With offices in Bloomfield, NJ and Fort Myers, Florida, Surround provides software products and professional services to enterprises around the world, including both poles. Surround Technologies' Envision products appeal to actual and mythical organizations, both large and small, and are in use modernizing applications at leading companies like Gannett, Verizon, & General Electric. More at www.SurroundTech.com.
