Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Sapiens International Corporation (SPNSF): Turn around...? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tumbleweed who wrote (1639)	5/21/1998 2:38:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1936

Sapiens mentioned in Computerweekly 'Suppliers push 'wrapping' systems to deal with euro Users are being warned not to waste vast sums of money building permanent systems for currency conversion in the changeover to the euro. Instead, wrapping software is being promoted by industry suppliers and consultants as the best way to modify systems to cope with the economic and monetary union. This works by encapsulating code in rules that mean legacy programs can work in new values. Scientific Computing Service chief Charles Whittington is piloting the firm's Euro Wrapper at a Dutch manufacturer. "The main advantage of wrapping is that it is a temporary solution to a temporary problem," he said. "A lot of people are spending huge amounts of money on unnecessary permanent system conversion." Israeli software tools supplier Sapiens has launched its Euro-Virtual-Machine, a rules-based system that enables the base currency of mainframe financial applications to be expressed in euros without altering source code. "The beauty of wrapping is that you just switch it off, once the interim period is over, and your old applications which worked in, say, sterling are just as able to function in euros," said Paddy Bowen, application consultant at Sapiens UK. Charles Brewer, an independent consultant specialising in monetary union, said IT has four options to cope with the interim period leading to 2002 when the euro becomes legal tender for Emu countries: "You can fix code, replace it, outsource elements of the problem or encapsulate," he said. "The nicest one is outsourcing because it leaves folk free to deal with the year 2000 issue," he added. But Brewer recommended encapsulation, or wrapping, as the best in-house IT fix. "A wrapper extracts the logic of a conversion and sticks it in a layer. It is portable and reusable," he said. computerweekly.co.uk