XML-J: SEAGULL just released a new application integration product. Tell us about it.
Boul: SEAGULL, a Dutch-based company, has been dealing with legacy extension for about 10 years now. We started with text translation tools, then offered a product called GUI/400 for delivering GUI versions of existing green screen applications. That evolved into JWalk and WinJa, software technology for Web/Windows-to-host access to host application functionality without changing the existing application. The natural evolution was to take the logic or the business rules and the procedures off these old machines and export them to other applications. Our newest product is called Transidiom. Transidiom allows you to go into an application that's running on a mainframe or midrange system, record the business logic, and utilize it to generate a COM, Java, or XML interface. You can call the object from our server or integrate it into your application.

XML-J: What does recording the process consist of?
Boul: It's a wizard-driven procedure. You log into your application, navigate the menus in the green screen environment, go to the screens that you need to get, and choose the relevant fields.

XML-J: You use some sort of Web screen scraping?
Boul: We're going in at the screen layer. We believe it's the most intelligent way to do this because it's going to preserve the business rules and logic of that application. That's really the value of the green screen app. Functionally it's great, but its presentation is horrible. The business rules and logic of these applications are mature, so we want to exploit them. We don't want to duplicate them by writing lines of code. We're going to go in at the screen layer and record what you're doing, similar to a macro recorder.

We're capturing the data stream and pulling everything out of there. Let's say you had an Oracle application that wanted to go in and calculate interest on accounts payable; for example, how much money are we losing this month by not collecting our bill? The finance package is a JD Edwards application sitting on an AS/400. We'll go into the AS/400, log on, navigate to the JD Edwards application, go through the screens we need, retrieve the fields we need, and come back out. Boom, stop recording - turn that whole process into an object.

Of course, we're going to declare the variables in there. You want to put in the customer ID and Net 30 and 90, those sorts of things, and then bring them back out. Now you can call our object from within your Oracle application, SAP, People Software, or whatever you're doing. It will go back to the host and present this. And XML is the media that we're going to use to make that universal. We also offer our output in a JavaBean or a COM object depending on what your particular religion may be.

XML-J: You have adapters to the different object models?
Boul: We try to be completely agnostic so we can cooperate with anybody.

XML-J: What are some examples of where you've used XML? Where you extracted data and expressed it as an XML structure.
Boul: There's an XML schema we've created that when you fire it off from the Web store front, the order is entered into the host, then processed and validated. We've also added scripting so that an e-mail confirmation is automatically sent to the customer.

XML-J: You're also driving the work flow through this?
Boul: Yes, and we're giving you room for variables so you can put in the new item number or whatever you want to input back into the host.

XML-J: Does that become an extension to the existing XML format that you have? Boul: If we want to change the structure of what we've recorded, we'll have to go back and do it. The easy use of our tool is based on the speed-to-market. The whole process that I described to you about recording the procedure might take 15 minutes. You could go in and actually edit the XML or extend it if you like, but it's easier to go back and rerecord the procedure.

XML-J: You'd still go back to the IBM machine?
Boul: Yes. In the time it would take for a fast developer to write 10 lines of code, we can just do it.

XML-J: Now once the data is out the other end, like a bin, how's that utilized? What kind of presentation do you put on top of that?
Boul: We're not dealing with the presentation layer on this product, we're leaving that up to our end users, and as I said earlier, our end users are other applications. If you're writing a Java application, you probably want to use our JavaBean; if you're writing a VB application in C++, you'll want to do some type of Windows integration. I talked to a prospect from InnerSpace about Excel spreadsheets; they're going to use our COM object.

XML-J: You're not using HTML message?
Boul: We're using XML and we have some HTML pieces to convert the host data into HTML, so we try to leave it wide open, depending on whatever "religion" you're subscribing to; we try to cooperate with you on that. But the server has an XML basis, so we're choosing the three different industry standards - XML, COM, and Java - for the output.

XML-J: You're doing storages in XCML and then dealing exclusively with content, not with presentation?
Boul: Exactly. There are three elements to Transidiom: a development kit, a server, and a gateway, in which we keep a stateless connection available, so each time you need to run this procedure you don't have to wait for a login screen - the object can fire off and navigate instantly through the host. Just pick up a session out of our gateway and run with it.

XML-J: This gateway - is it similar to an app server environment that you've created?
Boul: No, it's a virtual server. We can run it natively on the host machine or on an NT box, whatever works best for your enterprise.

XML-J: How would someone get in and start exploring this product? Do you have a server running at your site that developers can use?
Boul: We have a couple of powerful demos that we send out to customers. The demo takes 15 minutes and is extremely powerful. We also have Web seminars. If you go to our Web site, www.seagullsw.com, you can look through the schedule of Web seminars. We do quite a bit of live seminars on our Web site, and there are numerous links to get information sent to you - white papers, contacts, and collateral.

XML-J: Who are your customers?
Boul: We're really surprised. Many developers tell us they have an application that does wonderful things, except they need to connect back to a midrange or mainframe system, which will take them two months. We can do that for them in a matter of minutes. Transidiom is generally available now but went through a rigorous beta cycle with key customers.

We've sent it through a lot of hoops, and many customers have tested it, and it's come out extremely strong. We're very excited about it. We've had it GA for about a month now, and we're seeing an amazing amount of activity, so we're really happy about it.

XML-J: I guess one of the messages from this is that mainframes are not going away?
Boul: No, Gartner tells us incredible numbers - 70% of the world's data is still on 390s.

XML-J: That's true.
Boul: Out of the 2% of the people that have them, all the data's there. Since we did survive Y2K, everyone's realizing, "You know, these things work - they're ugly, but they work. And I've got millions of dollars invested and millions of manhours invested in it, why trash it? How can I use it in new ways?"