LzLabs

LzLabs Software Defined Mainframe

LzLabs

LzLabs forms Alliance with KPMG to smooth UK organizations’ mainframe journey to the cloud

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LzLabs partners with KPMG to advise senior business and IT leaders on legacy IT transformation

Zurich, 2 October 2019 – LzLabs today announced it has signed an Alliance Agreement with KPMG UK, the professional services firm, to offer Advisory, Risk, Deal consultancy and other services to UK customers seeking to modernize legacy IT. The Alliance will enable KPMG and LzLabs to help businesses better understand, plan and deliver such projects, specifically positioning KPMG’s advisory capabilities and LzLabs Software Defined Mainframe® (SDM) as an integral path to mainframe modernization.

As organizations seek to integrate legacy applications with modern enterprise computing practices based on Linux and in the cloud, global advisory firms have an opportunity to guide and advise senior IT leaders in the development of appropriate technology strategies leading to business and technology simplification, cost and risk reduction whilst accelerating their digital transformations.

KPMG will advise on target architecture and transformation program design, full business case justification, sourcing, service and cloud integration strategies, risk analysis and due diligence with a focus on client value and return on investment.

Mark Cresswell, CEO of LzLabs, said: “This Alliance has emerged in response to the increasing demand, we have both seen, from organizations looking to modernize their core systems.”

Phil Crozier, Partner at KPMG UK, said: “The combination of LzLabs technology and KPMG’s advisory proposition allows us to unlock clients from legacy mainframe applications and data and accelerate their approach to digital transformation.”

 

LzLabs appoints Duncan Love as Chief Financial Officer

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Experienced CFO appointed to support increased customer implementations across Europe

Zurich, 29 May 2019 – LzLabs today announced that it has appointed Duncan Love as Chief Financial Officer. Duncan brings over 20 years of corporate financial leadership experience across a variety of business environments and joins LzLabs to support rapid company expansion and accelerating customer uptake of LzLabs Software Defined Mainframe® (SDM) across Europe.

Duncan joins LzLabs from Exclaimer, where he led the company’s financial strategy as CFO. Duncan and has also held CFO roles at Inchora, Path Intelligence and Lumesse, in addition to further corporate finance roles at Fabris Lane and StepStone Solutions. He will be responsible for developing LzLabs’ financial strategy at a time of increased growth in SDM projects and to support further uptake of the solution globally.

“I’m delighted to join the LzLabs team during such an exciting period for the company” says Duncan Love, CFO, LzLabs. “We see a number of clear market drivers for the modernization of legacy IT, and LzLabs is perfectly positioned to provide a smooth, low-risk route to innovation. With LzLabs’ world class team and truly unique technology, I am excited to be a part of the Software Defined Mainframe revolution”.

Mark Cresswell, CEO, LzLabs adds, “Duncan will play an instrumental role in supporting the growth of LzLabs and is a valuable addition to the leadership team. We are thrilled to gain Duncan’s extensive experience and track record as a CFO, and his appointment will be invaluable in structuring our customers’ path to modernization. With Duncan on board, we continue our mission to liberate organizations from the constraints of legacy systems, and help them take their first step on a graceful path to open systems and modernization”

 

Swisscom – Open for Business

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6 November 2018

With over 7,000 attendees flooding through the doors at this year’s Barcelona Gartner Symposium, day one was always going to be busy on the LzLabs booth with attendees from around the world interested in finding out more about the Software Defined Mainframe and how it leverages open source solutions, such as OpenShift, OpenStack and PostgreSQL to deliver highly available mainframe on Linux.

Away from the exhibition, I was on stage with Markus Tschumper, Head of General IT Services at Swisscom. Together we discussed the Power of Open and how the LzLabs Software Defined Mainframe brings mainframe workload, without recompilation or data reformatting, to open platforms, enabling innovation on x86 and the cloud.

It was a pleasure to discuss with the audience just how much technology has changed in such a few short years, showing how ubiquitous connectivity and open source are proving to be two of the main enablers of digital transformation.

My keynote explored the inevitability of open source platforms, concluding that the Power of Open is being driven by three core factors: communities, innovation and imagination. None of which are currently common in a proprietary mainframe environments!

Markus and I then discussed how an announcement to build a cloud service offering in Switzerland in 2013 by Swisscom led the communications giant to become the first company in the world to break free of the proprietary mainframe and adopt a Software Defined Mainframe from LzLabs.

Markus summed up Swisscom’s modernization journey during our discussion: “You need to have courage, and be ready for a change project, but it works, it really works.”

It is only a matter of time before Swisscom is joined by other companies with ambitions to migrate from the mainframe. Since last year’s Gartner Symposium in Barcelona last year, the firm has begun projects at about a dozen organizations with a strong sales pipeline throughout Europe.

In addition to hearing from LzLabs and Swisscom, attendees at the Symposium also heard from a selection of leading Gartner analysts. Leigh McMullen, VP Analyst, Gartner, discussed how it is important to create a culture that is ready for anything, noting that most enterprise transformations fail because of their culture rather than the technology.

Kai Zimmer, Associate Director Consulting, Gartner and Saptarshi Routh, VP Consulting, Gartner gave a ‘how to’ presentation diving into the lessons learnt from successful and failed digital transformation initiatives. While Dave Aron, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner, discussed three advanced digital transformation practices: Fear, fact, and faith-based portfolio segmentation, better net present value calculations and real option valuation. And how CIOs and other IT leaders should think through these practices and discuss them with their CFO, CEO and other business leaders to improve digital investment decision making.

For all the latest updates from Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Barcelona 2018 make sure you visit LzLabs stand 511.

The road to Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Barcelona 2018

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4 November 2018

Over 6,000 senior IT executives and CIOs are expected to attend this year’s Gartner Symposium which takes place between 4th-8th November at the CCIB conference centre in Barcelona. For the second year in a row, LzLabs will be pride and place in the main exhibition hall, as well as delivering two keynotes with our first Software Defined Mainframe customer, Swisscom.

The first keynote  on Monday, between 15:15 – 16:00 will see Dale Vecchio, Chief Marketing Officer, LzLabs take to the  stage with Markus Tschumper, Head of General IT Services at Swisscom, to explain how the LzLabs Software Defined Mainframe brings mainframe workload, without recompilation or data reformatting, to open platforms, enabling innovation on x86 and the cloud.

On Tuesday, between 13:10 – 13:30, Christian Wehrli, VP, Product Delivery and LzLabs, and Christian Hodel, Mainframe Solutions Architect at Swisscom, will discuss the best practices learned during Swisscom’s migration of legacy workload off the mainframe to the LzLabs Software Defined Mainframe.

We expect that much of the subject matter under the microscope in Barcelona will echo what was discussed at Gartner Symposium Orlando, in mid-October. Where AI, blockchain, and facial recognition were among the leading topics of interest. When trying to adopt these technologies and others that make up the rapidly transforming IT landscape of today on top of the mainframe, IT leaders feel that their hands are tied. The opportunity is palpable for a provider that can greatly reduce the complexity, cost and risk of migration to platforms better able to support these technologies.

In addition to hearing from LzLabs and Swisscom, attendees will also be able to listen and learn from a wide range of speakers including Ed Catmull, President & Co-founder of Pixar, and arguably the UK’s best known experimental physicist, Professor Brian Cox.

For all the latest updates from Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Barcelona 2018 make sure you visit LzLabs stand 511.

Why is the mainframe holding organizations back from modernization? The results of the LzLabs and Microsoft Mainframe Modernization Survey are in…

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15 October 2018

Mark Cresswell, CEO, LzLabs

In conjunction with Microsoft we recently commissioned Vanson Bourne, a well-respected survey organization, to talk to 500 senior IT executives across almost that many companies using mainframe technology. In respect of statistical significance, this survey base is well in excess of 10% of the worldwide user base of high-end mainframe computers.

The survey reveals significant concerns around mainframe skills, barriers to modernization of core applications and the associated business risk this lack of agility creates.

Barriers to innovation

When a company’s core applications run Intel architectures, using the Linux operating system, the door is open to a world of Open-Source innovation. The effort across a range of open source projects, aimed at altering the fundamental trajectory of modern application development, is quite remarkable. This energy and innovation is almost entirely absent on mainframes.

So, it’s easy to understand why 96% of global IT leaders say Open-Source is strategic to future development and 71% say the mainframe is holding them back from innovation.

A looming skills crisis

Over 80% were concerned about lack of skills within their mainframe organization, and a staggering 56% said they had no succession plan for mainframe skills. The looming lack of mainframe-skilled IT professionals represents a major risk to many traditional business. These mainframe systems are often mission critical – almost all financial transactions touch a mainframe at some point in their journey. Without the skills in place to support them, these fundamental areas of the business could be in serious jeopardy in the near future.

A significant risk to business

77% of respondents believe they should have already started their mainframe modernization process to avoid being at risk.

This risk has two dimensions. Firstly, running core applications on a platform with a dwindling supply of skilled support personnel; when things go wrong, who are you going to call?

Secondly, borne on the web companies, with none of this mainframe baggage, can simply out-innovate their competitors. And a in a rapidly digitalizing world, this matters.

The tipping point

It is clear the individuals in the survey are aware of the broader implications of keeping legacy applications on a mainframe.

Yet for many, procrastination has set in. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place; they know they have to move, but the skills and technology required to make the move has been sadly lacking.

But the day of reckoning is coming. As pretty soon the skills shortage is going to bite hard, and the inability to innovate on these core applications will cost these companies real revenue.