Hi,

I'm of the understanding that LSF 9.0 is the fundamental stepping stone for Lawson to change its underlying technology. In a joint project with IBM, LSF is designed to form the core technology for Lawson going forward, by standardising on a J2EE application server, LDAP repository and version 9.0 security.

Q1) Is Lawson going in the J2EE direction for its technology platform?
Q2) Will Lawson eventually migrate its legacy cobol applications to J2EE applications?
Q3) How will version 9.0 applications differ from 8.1?
Q4) Are version 9.0 applications part of project Landmark?
Q5) What is the product roadmap regarding version 9.0 and how quickly does Lawson intend to launch non-cobol applications?
Q6) Are Lawson intending on supporting any other J2EE application servers in the future?
Q7) How will moving to J2EE affect Cobol developers? Will people ultimatley have to retrain in Java and J2EE?
Q8) Is Lawson expecting a performance increase by using J2EE applications rather than Cobol, will Lawson expect the hardware requirements to drop slightly, once all of the Cobol software has been dropped?

Can anyone share any addtional knowledge on Landmark and the Lawson technology roadmap?

Kind Regards,

AM.

Good qustions all Andy - I'll try to answer what I can

Q1) Is Lawson going in the J2EE direction for its technology platform?

Yes - See other answers for more detail

Q2) Will Lawson eventually migrate its legacy cobol applications to J2EE applications?

Yes, but it will be a slow process. The 7.2->8.1 Applications upgrade were the first programs written in java

Q3) How will version 9.0 applications differ from 8.1?

Can't respond.. the 9.0 apps have not been announced, but you can probably bet that SOME of them will be J2EE apps

Q4) Are version 9.0 applications part of project Landmark?

Landmark is a development system, an IDE that will simplify the development process. It will be some time before Landmark is polished and goeas GA for Lawson clients to do their own development.

Q5) What is the product roadmap regarding version 9.0 and how quickly does Lawson intend to launch non-cobol applications?

THe non-cobol apps are already being included. I remember that one of the systen codes is being targeted for the first J2EE apps, but I regret that I can't remember which one

Q6) Are Lawson intending on supporting any other J2EE application servers in the future?

None have been annonced, but I doubt it. Standardizing on IBMs WebSphere makes the development and support process much easier for both Lawson and it's clients.

Q7) How will moving to J2EE affect Cobol developers? Will people ultimatley have to retrain in Java and J2EE?

Ultimately, but it certainlt won't happen in the near term

Q8) Is Lawson expecting a performance increase by using J2EE applications rather than Cobol, will Lawson expect the hardware requirements to drop slightly, once all of the Cobol software has been dropped?

I can't comment on that. Since there is currently no complete J2EE Lawson implementation there is no basis for a comparison. I can say that the move to a J2EE based backend (LSF 9.0) allows for scaling that is not possible under the old Env structure.

check out the free webinars on the lawson support site. The month of March is primarily dedicated to LSF and APPS 9.0. There are a couple of intro's to 9.0 and some webinars for specific Suites which should give some new changes and features of the 9.0 apps. From what I've gathered from an earlier webinar that gave some info about Apps 9.0, is that they ARE NOT Landmark, but I'm sure Landmark will be utilizing 9.0 and above during it's development. As far as some of your other questions pertaining to Lawson roadmap and what's in the future, I don't believe any lawson client could really answer properly, as Lawson hasn't really given out that information yet, but by looking at the CUE sessions, I'm sure Lawson will be answering most of those questions.