In the world of home improvement, you have two primary paths: the DIY approach, where you purchase tools and materials to complete projects yourself, or hiring professionals who bring expertise, labor, and a comprehensive plan to transform your space. This same dynamic exists when futurizing your IBM i applications.
Let’s explore how our two futurization approaches — Profound AppDev and Profound AppEvo — mirror this DIY vs. professional contractor relationship, helping you determine which approach aligns best with your organization’s needs, resources, and timeline.
The DIY Approach: Profound AppDev
Imagine walking into a home improvement store. You have a vision for your kitchen renovation, and you’re purchasing high-quality tools, premium materials, and detailed guides to complete the project yourself.
This is similar to our Profound AppDev suite, a comprehensive collection of development tools designed to implement a coexistence environment while giving you control over your futurization journey.
What Profound AppDev Offers:
- Complete Toolset: Our Profound AppDev suite provides four powerful tools that work together seamlessly:
- Atrium: A web-based menuing system that transforms how users interact with your applications
- Genie: A rapid UI transformation tool that instantly modernizes green screens without code changes
- Profound UI: A full-featured UI development and transformation solution for creating modern interfaces
- Profound.js: A low-code Node.js development platform for building new applications
- Profound AI Starter Kit: An entry-level AI solution that enables you to create natural language agents for your applications
- Control and Flexibility: Like a DIY enthusiast who wants to work at their own pace and make decisions at every step, Profound AppDev puts you in the driver’s seat. Your team can prioritize specific areas, set the futurization pace, and leverage existing skills while building new ones.
- Coexistence Environment: Profound AppDev enables legacy and futurized components to work side-by-side, allowing you to transform incrementally without disruption—similar to renovating one room at a time while still living in your home.
- Integration Capabilities: When paired with our standalone solutions, Profound API and Profound AI Business Tier, you can extend your futurization efforts with advanced integration and artificial intelligence features
The Professional Approach: Profound AppEvo
Now imagine hiring an architect and contractor team for your home renovation. They assess your home, create a comprehensive plan, bring their own professional-grade tools and skilled labor, and transform your space while you focus on other priorities. This is the Profound AppEvo experience—our comprehensive transformation service.
What Profound AppEvo Offers:
- Expert Assessment: Just as architects thoroughly evaluate your home before designing renovations, our Profound 360° Analysis (P360°) provides a comprehensive assessment of your current systems, business processes, and goals to create a tailored transformation roadmap. This analysis helps determine which of the 6 Rs of Transformation is right for each part of your system:
- Refactor: Futurize code while preserving valuable business logic
- Replace: Implement new solutions for obsolete systems
- Rewrite: Build fresh with modern architecture
- Re-architect: Transform application structure
- Retain: Maintain what works while planning ahead
- Retire: Sunset applications that no longer serve your business
- Automated Transformation: Our technology transforms your RPG and COBOL code into modern, open-source languages like Node.js and Python—preserving your valuable business logic while creating platform-independent code.
- Coexistence Technology: Our unique coexistence capabilities allow futurized components to seamlessly integrate with existing legacy systems, enabling a truly incremental approach to transformation with minimal disruption.
- Flexible UI Futurization: We offer multiple options for modernizing your user interfaces, including our own Profound UI framework and popular options like React and Angular, tailored to your specific needs.
- Expert Implementation: Our team of experienced professionals guides you through every step of the transformation journey, from initial analysis to final implementation and beyond.
- Application Portability: The transformed applications can run on various platforms, including IBM i, Windows, Linux, and cloud environments, giving you strategic flexibility for the future.
Choosing the Right Approach for Your Organization
Deciding between a DIY approach and professional services is a significant decision that depends on your organization’s unique circumstances. Every business has different resources, timelines, and technical expertise. By understanding the strengths of each approach, you can make a more informed choice that aligns with your strategic goals and operational realities.
Consider Profound AppDev if:
- You have skilled internal developers who want to drive the futurization process
- You prefer a gradual, self-paced approach to transformation
- Your team wants to build expertise with modern technologies over time
- You have the resources to manage futurization projects alongside everyday operations
- You value having direct control over every aspect of the transformation process
Consider Profound AppEvo if:
- You need to accelerate your futurization timeline
- Your internal team lacks the bandwidth or specialized skills for transformation
- You’re looking for a more comprehensive transformation with less hands-on involvement
- You want to leverage expert guidance throughout the futurization journey
- You need application portability across multiple platforms
- You prefer a more predictable, structured transformation process
The Best of Both Worlds
Just as some homeowners might DIY certain projects while hiring professionals for others, many organizations find value in combining elements of both approaches. You might start with our Profound AppDev for certain applications while engaging our Profound AppEvo services for more complex systems.
Both solutions embody our core values of simplification, innovation, and accountability, ensuring that whichever path you choose, you’ll be taking meaningful action toward futurizing your IBM i applications while preserving your valuable investments.
Taking Action
The journey to futurization begins with a single step. Whether you’re a DIY enthusiast ready to leverage our Profound AppDev’s powerful tools or you prefer the comprehensive transformation services of our Profound AppEvo, we’re ready to help you navigate the path to a more agile, efficient, and future-ready IT infrastructure.
Contact our team at Futurization@ProfoundLogic.com to discuss which approach aligns best with your futurization goals, and take the first step toward transforming your critical applications into assets that will drive your organization forward in the digital age.
