A young head on old shoulders

By Nick Langley
ComputerWeekly
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Generally speaking, the valve of data on so-called legacy systems is not in doubt, writes Nick Langley, as he examines the options for bringing 20th century applications into the third millennium.

Legacyware sounds like those dubious 'collectable' decorated plates you find in adverts at the back of Sunday supplements. It's actually the unlovely term that analysts have coined for products that put modern interfaces on old applications.

Enabling legacy applications for client-server, let alone for e-business and the Web, has long presented big users like banks with a major headache. The systems are too valuable to replace and too big to rewrite, but hand-coded interfaces involve a high maintenance overhead which slows down responses to changing markets and new opportunities.