IBM’s Systems Application Architecture may be puzzling to some, anathema to others and a panacea for the rest. Those in the last category may like to know that on September 7 while the IBM world was still wondering what precisely the September 5 announcements had meant – most people still are – the European SAA Developers’ Foundation came into being. At its broadest level, and at the risk of making it sound like a therapy group, the Foundation offers a non-competitive, co-operative opportunity for members to discuss and share SAA experiences across European boundaries. The organisation is the brainchild of three well-known IBM-watchers – Charles Brett, Martin Healey and Anton Meijer – who decided that even large blue chip customers in Europe don’t really influence IBM in the way that large US users do. In the US customers are physically closer to IBM laboratories and dialogue tends to occur much more naturally. This is not so true in Europe, despite the fact that a significant IBM revenue stream comes from Europe. The Foundation hopes to address this problem by giving voice to a European perspective. Part of the communication problem is that IBM Europe is primarily a sales and marketing opreration. According to Charles Brett, Japan does not have such a problem as Europe because Japanese companies view travel to the US as a long term investment rather than a short term expense which is how Europeans tend to think of foreign travel. Furthermore, in Brett’s opinion IBM pays more attention to the Japanese market than it does to the European market. So European software houses and large customers can gain more of IBM’s attention by paying a subscription to the Foundation which then funds research projects on issues specified by members. These projects will be thoroughly documented, and carried out professionally by specially commissioned researchers. The findings will be presented back at the next meeting of the Foundation. The findings will also be fed into IBM on a low-key basis but at a high level. The findings will in no sense be threatening or bullying, they won’t be made very public but they will enable IBM to see what Europeans want. Brett reckons that with 75 members – which is the membership size the Foundation wants – there should be funding for around eight to 12 projects per year. Three or four weekend fora will be organised each year to discuss matters arising and to set projects for the next few months. At the moment the Foundation is on a recruitment drive and at the end of the month it will be in a position to let people know who else is interested and whether the organisation is feasible. Those for whom the Foundation may be of benefit include IBM-oriented software houses that know they have to do things within SAA – not first tier software houses such as Knowledgeware, since if they don’t have IBM’s ear then they are past help. A second obvious potential type of member is the large blue chip IBM mainframe user – in Brett’s words, compared to a CICS licence we are inexpensive. Companies must have a European headquarters, but can be the European subsidiary of a multi-national company. The inaugural meeting of the Foundation will take place in Amsterdam in December when members will discuss SAA today and its future; the split of skills between software houses and users; and the meaning of SystemView. Members will also be treated to a discussion on SAA led by IBM itself. However, Brett is adamant that the Foundation is an independent organisation which will not be bullied by any one vendor. One of its aims is to get rid of the research and development wastage of companies which duplicate each other’s work. The European SAA Developers’ Foundation is based in Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands.
