Description:
Siebel Systems, Inc. was founded in 1993 to address the growing
needs of organizations of all sizes to acquire, retain, and better serve their
customers. Today, Siebel Systems is the world's leading provider of eBusiness
application software, with more than 6,000 employees operating in more than 30
countries and 97 offices around the world.
Business problems:
Complete a rapid, native-quality port of the Siebel eBusiness Applications to
both Solaris and AIX to meet demand for the market-leading eBusiness
Applications.
Maintain a single code base providing equal functionality across both Windows
NT and UNIX®
mid-tier platforms.
Minimize the engineering resources required to support these multiple platforms
in order to focus on developing new features.
Solution:
Siebel Systems chose Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux, the application porting
platform, to rapidly port its entire logic engine, originally developed for the
Windows NT platform to UNIX with a team of just four software developers.
Key Benefits:
-
Customer demand quickly served -
Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux, allowed Siebel Systems to
quickly serve its markets with fully functional Solaris and AIX versions of the
Siebel eBusiness Applications in less than six months from decision to first
customer shipment. Siebel used Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux to complete the port of the Siebel
Object Manager, the middle-tier logic engine that powers Siebel eBusiness
Applications.
-
Minimal resources required -
By using Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux, Siebel Systems was able to complete the UNIX versions of the
Siebel eBusiness Applications with just four software developers. As a result,
Siebel Systems was able to keep its valuable engineering resources focused on
developing future versions of the Siebel eBusiness Applications. Siebel Systems
estimates that development and maintenance costs of the UNIX ports were reduced
by nearly 75 percent from estimates for a porting effort without the help of
Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux.
-
Native UNIX from Windows - Porting source code originally developed for
the Windows NT platform to Solaris and AIX with Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux allowed the UNIX
versions of the Siebel eBusiness Applications to deliver equal functionality
with native UNIX performance and scalability.
Siebel Systems is the industry leader in multichannel eBusiness applications.
Siebel Systems provides the industry's most comprehensive family
of multichannel eBusiness applications and services. Siebel eBusiness
Applications allow organizations to create a single source of customer
information that makes it easier to sell to, market to, and service customers
across multiple channels. These include the Web, call centers, field,
resellers, retail, and dealer networks. Built on proven, component-based
architecture, Siebel eBusiness Applications are designed from the ground up to
be completely Web-based. They deliver support for multiple computing platforms,
while providing automatic upgrades and software distribution that significantly
reduce the total cost of ownership.
Customer demand was the driving force for the Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux cross-platform solution
"We really had only two choices to satisfy our customer needs: rewrite the code
from scratch, or port it with Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux," said Skip Bacon, Director of
Architecture at Siebel Systems. "This is a substantial amount of code that lies
at the heart of Siebel eBusiness Applications. We needed to complete two
native-quality ports quickly and Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux proved to be the right choice. It took
us less than six months to port the core of the Siebel eBusiness Applications
to both Solaris and AIX."
The rapid growth of Siebel Systems' customer deployments and its partnerships
with technology companies such as IBM and Sun Microsystems were creating
enormous market demand for the UNIX versions of the Siebel eBusiness
Applications that needed to be satisfied in the shortest possible time.
The challenge facing Siebel Systems was to quickly deliver UNIX ports of its
entire middle tier platform, including the Siebel Object Manager, the core
logic engine that lies at the heart of Siebel eBusiness Applications. While the
Siebel Object Manager was originally developed on the Windows NT platform, the
UNIX ports of it needed to deliver the same functionality while taking full
advantage of the performance and functionality of the UNIX platforms. After
evaluating all options, Siebel determined that Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux was the best way to
achieve native UNIX performance and scalability from their Windows source code
in the shortest possible time. Siebel Systems' entire middle tier, including
the Siebel Object Manager, was ported to both Solaris and AIX in just under six
months. Siebel saved more than one and a half years of development time and
tens of thousands of engineering man-hours by using Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux.
Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux meets native UNIX standards in rigorous testing
Siebel Systems' partners and customers were uncompromising in
their demands for native UNIX performance and Siebel Systems therefore
performed comprehensive testing and evaluation of the Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux-ported Siebel
Object Manager to verify that it delivered the performance, scalability, and
functionality expected on the UNIX platform. Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux allowed Siebel Systems to
use native UNIX compilers with their multi-platform source code to produce
native UNIX applications that retained full UNIX performance and scalability.
Close partnering and customer support is Mainsoft
"Every application development project has its problems. There are always bugs
and glitches that need to be fixed - it's the nature of the beast," said Bacon.
"We have a number of core vendors like Mainsoft and I can say that when it
comes to partnering - when we need help to overcome a problem - Mainsoft is at
the top of the list."
Mainsoft is the recognized world leader in providing the cross-platform
eBusiness infrastructure needed in today's software development environment.
Maintaining a team of highly skilled experts in Windows and UNIX porting
technologies, Mainsoft stood behind Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux and gave Siebel Systems the quick
responses and solutions to porting issues necessary to help Siebel Systems meet
the demands of their customers.
"Support is part of the package. When a customer buys Mainsoft for UNIX and Linux, they get
Mainsoft engineering along with it," asserted Amos Gery, Director of
Professional Services at Mainsoft.
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