ISG to Publish Reports on Mainframe Services and Solutions

Upcoming ISG Provider Lens™ reports will evaluate providers helping enterprises and U.S. public sector agencies modernize mainframe applications and operations

Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm, has launched a research study examining service providers that enable enterprises and U.S. public sector organizations to transform legacy mainframe environments to meet current needs.

The study results on enterprise mainframe products and services will be published in a comprehensive ISG Provider Lens™ report called Mainframes — Services and Solutions 2024, scheduled to be released in April 2024. The report will cover companies that modernize mainframe applications for the cloud, offer mainframe outsourcing and mainframe-as-a-service (MFaaS), as well as automation tool vendors.

At the same time, ISG will publish the U.S. Public Sector Mainframes — Services and Solutions 2024 report, covering providers with experience in delivering mainframe modernization to state, local, municipal and educational entities in the U.S.

Buyers at enterprises and public agencies will be able to use information from the reports to evaluate their current vendor relationships, potential new engagements and available offerings, while ISG advisors use the information to recommend providers to the firm’s buy-side clients.

Businesses and public service organizations are turning to mainframe modernization to reduce technical debt, enable artificial intelligence (AI), provide better business analytics, enhance compliance, improve resilience and meet carbon-neutral commitments. Generative AI (GenAI) contributes to enhancing automated tools to transform legacy applications for the cloud.

"Mainframe modernization propels businesses forward, merging legacy environments with future-ready cloud innovations," said Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research. "Enterprises and public sector agencies are leaning on service providers to harness the cloud's resilience, optimize costs and tap into the transformative potential of GenAI."

For the enterprise mainframe services and solutions study, ISG has distributed surveys to more than 130 mainframe product and service providers. Working in collaboration with ISG’s global advisors, the research team will produce five quadrants representing the mainframe services and solutions the typical enterprise is buying, based on ISG’s experience working with its clients. The five quadrants are:

• Mainframe Optimization Services, evaluating providers of mainframe application modernization that retains the original programming language (such as COBOL) and adds optimization and documentation to enable agility.

• Application Modernization Services, covering service providers that use advanced application modernization methodologies to rewrite applications written in legacy programming language applications (such as COBOL, RPG, Fortran, PL/1 and Natural) to modern languages (including Java, .Net, C#, Python and others).

• Mainframe as a Service (MFaaS), assessing infrastructure providers offering shared IBM mainframes on a pay-per-use basis, including all infrastructure components, along with maintenance to ensure workloads perform according to pre-established metrics.

• Mainframe Operations, evaluating traditional outsourcing providers with experience in mainframe services, which may be delivered in the client’s data center, provider-owned data centers or colocation facilities.

• Mainframe Application Modernization Software, covering software vendors and toolsets for assessing and converting mainframe applications. Modernization software may include automation tools for reverse engineering, business rules extraction, code review, inspection and other functions.

Geographically focused reports from the study will cover the global mainframe services and solutions market and examine products and services available in “APexCJK” – the Asia Pacific region including the ASEAN countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as Australia and New Zealand, but excluding China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Taiwan – as well as Brazil, Europe, the U.S. and the U.S. Public Sector. ISG analysts Pedro L. Bicudo Maschio (Americas), Oliver Nickels (Europe) and Phil Hassey (“APexCJK”) will serve as authors of the report.

A list of identified providers and vendors and further details on the mainframe services and solutions study are available in this digital brochure.

For the U.S. public sector study, ISG has distributed surveys to more than 60 providers with experience serving U.S. public agencies. ISG will evaluate the providers in four quadrants:

• Mainframe Modernization Services, assessing providers of legacy application modernization, retaining the original programming language (such as COBOL), and adding modern application development practices (such as DevOps) to enable agility.

• Application Modernization Services, evaluating service providers that rewrite legacy applications using newer target languages such as Java, .Net, C# and Python to keep applications running and preserve business logic in the face of dwindling numbers of developers skilled in decades-old languages.

• Mainframe as a Service (MFaaS), covering providers of shared IBM Z mainframes hosted in a data center operated by the provider or a partner. Clients contract for the services on a pay-per-use basis with agreed-upon standards for application performance.

• Mainframe Operations, evaluating outsourcing providers with skilled teams to keep clients’ mainframes running. They can provide services in the client’s or the provider’s data center. Services typically include job scheduling, performance optimization, security patches and other functions.

A report will cover relevant services available in the U.S. public sector. ISG analyst Peter Crocker will serve as author of the report.

A list of identified providers and vendors and further details on the public sector study are available in this digital brochure.

Providers not listed in either brochure can contact ISG and ask to be included in the study.

All ISG Provider Lens™ evaluations feature new and expanded customer experience (CX) data that measures actual enterprise experience with specific provider services and solutions, based on ISG’s continuous CX research. Enterprise customers wishing to share their experience about a specific provider or vendor are encouraged to register here to receive a personalized survey URL. Participants will receive a copy of this report in return for their feedback.

About ISG Provider Lens™ Research

The ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant research series is the only service provider evaluation of its kind to combine empirical, data-driven research and market analysis with the real-world experience and observations of ISG's global advisory team. Enterprises will find a wealth of detailed data and market analysis to help guide their selection of appropriate sourcing partners, while ISG advisors use the reports to validate their own market knowledge and make recommendations to ISG's enterprise clients. The research currently covers providers offering their services globally, across Europe, as well as in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, the U.K., France, Benelux, Germany, Switzerland, the Nordics, Australia and Singapore/Malaysia, with additional markets to be added in the future. For more information about ISG Provider Lens research, please visit this webpage.

A companion research series, the ISG Provider Lens Archetype reports, offer a first-of-its-kind evaluation of providers from the perspective of specific buyer types.

About ISG

ISG (Information Services Group) (Nasdaq: III) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 900 clients, including more than 75 of the world’s top 100 enterprises, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm specializes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis. Founded in 2006, and based in Stamford, Conn., ISG employs more than 1,600 digital-ready professionals operating in more than 20 countries—a global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry’s most comprehensive marketplace data. For more information, visit www.isg-one.com.

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