The rest of the world may be doom-mongering about the mainframe and its impending extinction, but not Walker International, the Aylesbury-based subsidiary of San Francisco-based IBM mainframe accounting software company Walker Interactive Systems Inc. Walker International saw its turnover rise 40% to UKP7.4m during 1992 and its pre-tax profits double to UKP2.6m. Confidence is such that Walker is looking to expand its operations from the US, Canada and UK to the South East and Western Europe to – with announcements to this effect expected in the summer. On the evidence of his company’s performance, chief executive Steve Allen reckons that there is plenty of milage left yet in the mainframe market. He is even daring enough to suggest that there could well be a mainframe revival in the next 18 months depending on vendors’ willingness to slash prices and beef up the competition within the market. Those that have invested heavily in mainframes, according to Allen, cannot afford to write that investment off. Furthermore, it is wrong to consider that new concepts such as open systems, client-server or object technology will necessarily provide the flexibility, integration and freedom that modern businesses demand… There are as many constraints and ‘lock-ins’ with systems calling themseves ‘open’ as there are with their proprietary predecessors. That said, Walker is not going to ignore the new trends. Its next swathe of releases in July will be version 16.5 upgrades of its existing range of mainframe software: Management Budgeting and Accounting; Credit and Accounts Receivable Management; Accounts Payable Management; Purchase Order Management; Inventory Management; Asset Management. But these are to be followed by RS/6000 with Oracle and HP 9000 with Sybase versions by the end of year, with Informix and Windows NT versions to follow in 1994. The aim, as stated in the company’s annual report is to support multiple servers; Windows, Presentation Manager, Motif and Open Look graphical user interfaces; the C and SQL development languages; SNA and TCP/IP protocols; and OS/2, Unix and MVS operating systems. Its not a case of backing all the horses to ensure you win, Allen insists, but a reflection of the heterogeneous nature of corporate computing needs. The reality is that mainframes are more likely to co-exist with other systems than be eradicated altogether.
