It wasn’t that long ago that the combined total of smartphone and tablets exceeded the installed base of connected computers in the US. But analysts are now predicting that tablets alone will outsell PCs by the end of 2013. It is certainly true that many, perhaps the majority, of these tablets are being used for consumer purposes. However, just as consumer use of smartphones lead to the demand of smartphones in the enterprise, tablet use is most definitely headed towards the enterprise and business use. PCs will certainly continue to be with us for a long time, but tablets are quickly establishing themselves as a device that must be reckoned with in the enterprise. Businesses crafting new applications without the ability to run gracefully on tablets will quickly find that they have ignored an important, growing, segment of users.
ASNA can help you get ready for the pending tablet invasion in a couple of ways:
ASNA Wings. The primary intent of ASNA Wings has always been to allow the creation of attractive and powerful browser-based user interfaces for existing RPG programs. ASNA Wings works with IBM’s Open Access API to provide a non-invasive way to intercept workstation file data flow and redirect it from the RPG program to the alternative Wings UI. In the screen shots below you see an RPG program running with its traditional green-screen user interface and on the right you see it running after it has been modernized with Wings.
As tablets have became more mature and prevalent in the enterprise, we’ve worked hard on Wings to also enable it to present existing RPG programs well on tablets (currently we support Google, Apple, and MS Win 8 tablets). The image on the left below shows the ASNA emulator in use on an iPad. The emulator is fully touch-enabled, including full support for the virtual keyboard (including functions and other special keys) IBM i programs need. The image on the right below shows the same, as above, displayed with the Wings-modernized user interface on the iPad (it is also touch-friendly). Tablets are especially suited for existing IBM i applications because they present the application in its original form factor well (with either 24×80 or 27×132). Users don’t have to pinch or slide to see various parts of the screen–the entire screen is effectively displayed on tablet. Read more about ASNA Wings.
ASNA Mobile RPG. ASNA Mobile RPG is aimed at creating new mobile applications, targeting tablets and smartphones, for the IBM i. Mobile RPG provides a PC-based mobile display file designer used to create great mobile displays. The program itself is powered by an RPG program (no code is written on the PC). Mobile RPG can create responsive mobile apps that target tablets, but also render very well on smartphones (and even desktop browers). Consider a dashboard application aimed at managers that displays monthly financial results quickly. Mobile RPG can present this kind of application with a presentation on a tablet as shown below on the left; and on the right on a smartphone (notice on the smartphone the charts are displayed in scrollable instead of the tablet’s three-across panel). Read more about ASNA Mobile RPG.
As you can see, with either existing applications or creating new ones, ASNA has what you need to prepare for the coming tablet invasion. Don’t be left behind, get started today on your business’s mobile solutions with either ASNA Wings or ASNA Mobile RPG!
