AS-Lingo | Profil

ASK AnwendungsSysteme für Informationsverarbeitung Keller GmbH

(ASK Application Systems for Information Technology Keller Ltd.)

Who we are

ASK was founded in 1989. We are a team of five employees and three subcontractors. Our services range from IBM Mainframe Systems through to the most up to date technologies in information processing.

In 1994 we won a maintenance contract for IBM’s “Interactive Financial System” (IFS) which gave us responsibility not only to service the product but also all IFS-Customers worldwide.

IBM withdrew the product from the market in 2001. Since then, we have continued to service IFS-Customers.

Our Strengths

The essential milestones in our 30-year experience are the

Application development in the area Financial Applications
Migration of Legacy Application Systems into the new technologies

We specialise in the development and supply of extremely flexible and individual application systems.

We help our customers to

create sustainable values and customer benefits in order to maintain their unique marketing advantage
direct their focus onto their core competence

As a partner we offer our customers services which are not necessarily part of their core competence.

That is why we believe that we can offer these services more efficiently and more economically than our customers themselves can.

Our Beliefs

In future the success of an enterprise will depend more than ever before on the sustainability and flexibility with which global communication can be implemented in the operational level within the organisation.

There are numerous attempts to curtail the present deficits short term in this area by applying interfaces. This is, however not a long term solution.

A sustainable reduction of cost and increase in flexibility of the application system can only be achieved by consequent deployment of the new, open technologies.

This is why we developed

Our development approach

The development of AS-Lingo has benefitted through the concentrated experience of projects from many years at IBM in systems engineering and in customer support as well as from development experience during the years in ASK. The AS-Lingo Framework is a platform that enables us to perform efficiently and economically in development and migration (Legacy systems to J2EE) projects.

Deveopment of this framework started 1999 and was the basis on which

AS-Lingo was built..

After many years of experience we had arrived at the conclusion, that there is no place for the old, monolithic and proprietary application systems of the past in today’s
heterogeneous and globally oriented IT-Environment.

This platform enables us to develop applications fast, reliably and efficiently.

The functions and processes in this framework are structured components that already include the customary parts of an ERP-System.

No part of the framework is proprietary – it is 100% Java!

The IDE, the application server or the database server can be freely chosen by the user.

The large number of classes that are available in this model today enables us to achieve a high level of re-usability.

Some of the prominent Features of the AS-Lingo-Framework

Security

The AS-Lingo-Framework is available everywhere on the safe World-Wide-Web communication standard of HTTP / SSL. Normally firewalls need not be customised, as
this protocol is mostly open.

AS-Lingo itself has extensive, role based authentication and authorisation features, allowing sophisticated security measures to be defined.

No installation expense, no time and effort for Release-Updates

The application is started via Java WebStart^TM, which is part of the Java^TM-Technology (SUN^TM).

Java WebStart^TMwill automatically update the client if a new version of the client is found on the server. All clients are therefore automatically kept at the latest level without manual installation effort.

ASK also offers a release independent maintenance of AS-Lingo.

Available everywhere at any time

Global collaboration between business partners has effected the way we communicate world wide.

AS-Lingo’s user interface is a smart client which includes all graphical front end panels and the appropriate input check routines. The client can be used on the local network as well as the Internet. High reliability and short response times are the prime attributes of the AS-Lingo . A large number of concurrent users can be run on the System.

Scalability

The AS-Lingo Framework is a scalable system. A single user environment is equally viable as a Mainframe or a clustered server farm with thousands of users.

The AS-Lingo-Framework was developed on the basis of a 3-Tier architecture – a state of the art design that has become the standard for most applications that need to perform in a global world of communication.

Platform Independence

Our customers decide on the purchase of hardware, operating system or database on the virtue of value for money. The application system need not influence or even dictate the choice.

The Java© platform is processor independent. It supports all prevalent operating systems (32 Bit or 64 Bit) such as Windows®, Unix®, Linux®, Solaris®, MacOS® or OS/2®.
Processors with 32bit/64bit Cisc & Risc-Architectures are also supported.

Java© compilation produces a very fast run time code (Bytecode) which is created by a JIT (Just-in-time) native compiler at run time. Thus Java Programs can run on different platforms without adjustments or re-compilation. Independent tests have shown, that Java© has reached run time speeds comparable to C/C++.

AS-Lingo Application Framework contains no proprietary components – it is 100% Java©. The IDE, the application server and the database server can be freely chosen.

Component Structure

AS-Lingo is developed in JAVA^TM , an object oriented programming language that allows very efficient development and a high and increasing degree of re-usability.

Meanwhile JAVA^TM has become an industry standard, supported by most well-known companies like IBM, ORACLE, BEA, HP, etc. Skills in this technology has therefore become widely accessible.

Basic Components of the Framework

The AS-Lingo-Framework is an architecture that has grown to deliver an increasing number of re-usable components in the server as well as the client area. Multiple languages and multiple currencies are also part of the system. This is a framework on which new components are developed and integrated quickly and efficiently.

The AS-Lingo-Framework also allows the integration of legacy systems and their applications as we still find them in large organisations. Legacy systems can be integrated,
before they are finally migrated themselves, thanks to a large number of tools available to bridge the gap.

Application Components of the Framework

Typical ERP application components are included in the AS-Lingo Application Framework – e.g. The core application of every application system: Financials. Components of
Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) and Material Management are also included to a large extent.
The control of e.g. Dunning procedures, payment procedures or legal tax issues are defined by rules, deposited in the system as defined by the user.

AS-Lingo is a Cloud-Solution

AS-Lingo has been around in the cloud for over 25 years — even before “CLOUD” became a hype. AS-Lingo was never in a “public cloud”.

Always only ever in a secure data center in Germany.

You decide on where your AS-Lingo’s home is to be:

A Cloud-Service from AS-Lingo including the highest security and reliability, compliance and performance
A private Cloud at a Hosting-Partner of your choice
In your private Cloud in your own data center under your own roof

Service and Support

Our experts will always support you directly.

No harassing call centers.

All defect support is free of charge, as part of our service for you.

Business Intelligence / Reporting

Get the information you need when you need it. Evaluate risk and monitor your performance in real time with AS-Lingo’s incredibly powerful Reporting System.

Put yourself in the position to analyse critical business situations anytime and anywhere.

Informed and well founded strategic decisions depend on the reliability of the underpinned data.

Development of Business Intelligence and prognostic analysis are in progress and will be part of the ambitious reporting system in AS-Lingo. And even this can be extended by the access of “Big Data”.

Integration with Microsoft Office®

Tables and data can be inserted directly into Microsoft® Word.

Reports and analyses can be automatically crated in Microsoft® Excel.

Partner

A close cooperation with the IBM Innovation Centre in Stuttgart
- Load- and Performance-Tests of our products on all IBM Systems
- Installability- and User-Tests
- Expert support when migrating onto different IBM development platforms
Sales and marketing support for our products through IBM
„Lease of experts“ from IBM to help overcome project-bottlenecks.
Joint projects in large scale development ventures with the following contract versions:
- IBM is prime contractor, provides development service and holds project responsibility; ASK is sub-contractor and provides development service.
- ASK is prime contractor, provides development service and holds project responsibility; IBM is sub-contractor and provides development service.
- IBM is prime contractor, provides no development service and holds project responsibility; ASK is sub-contractor and provides development service.
- ASK is prime contractor, provides development service and holds project responsibility;
- IBM is sub-contractor and provides no development service and shares the project responsibility with ASK

The extent of project responsibility take on by IBM varies in each of the above constellations.

I.C.M.E. Management Consultants In this case joint projects are also possible if a customer wishes to spread the project risk onto “broad shoulders”.

Sun Microsystems ASK is iForce Partner as Partner-Status.

Hewlett-Packard AS-Lingo is certified to run on HP-Systems.

Oracle ASK ist Oracle-Partner