The problem facing adidas Korea recently was one shared by many companies around the world using 5250-based applications: acceptance of the customized RPG back-end was being hampered by its green-screen front end. There was also no apparent chance for easy integration with the Office desktop applications preferred by most business users.

"Our system needed agile responses and data integrity throughout all the processes relating to new product announcements, promotions, and the processing of orders and sales. To achieve these requirements, we investigated a number of options, and newlook gave the best results. It made it possible for us to develop a graphical, Web-enabled user interface in no time at all," said B.H. Lee, team leader of adidas Korea's IT team.

"Our end users are very happy with the improved user experience and additional functionality we have provided. They love the seamless integration with Microsoft Office and now think the System i is wonderful!" said Lee. Now they have a front-end that integrates with Excel, Word and other desktop applications. It also looks and feels like the applications the business users are already accustomed to and no changes were required to the core RPG back-end application, according to Lee.

"The more we use it to enhance, modernize, and integrate our applications, the more we appreciate the power of the looksoftware suite of programs," said Lee. Our users are now actively suggesting other ways in which the applications can benefit from newlook's capabilities-it seems to them that there is very little you can't do with it!"

According to Marcus Dee, managing director of looksoftware, "adidas is leading an important new trend started by Microsoft and SAP with their Duet product when they connected SAP back-end functionality to the Office front end....analysts including Gartner and Forrester agree that it makes sense to connect existing back-end applications to the front ends that most users already use and prefer, like Microsoft's Outlook and IBM's Notes. IBM back-end applications can be accessed from Outlook, Notes, even Google, relatively easily using SOA without changing a line of code," Dee continued.

About adidas

The adidas corporation has revenues approaching $15 billion and representation in every major market in the world. Today, the company is the world's largest manufacturer of sports footwear, clothing, and accessories and in 2006 acquired one of its major competitors, Reebok. adidas Korea is one of the many successful national subsidiaries of the group, with 500 stores around the country.  Being a long-established user of IBM System i hardware, it had developed its own core ERP application which has successfully coped with the company's requirements for some years.

About looksoftware

looksoftware, headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, is an Advanced IBM Partner and Microsoft Certified Business Partner, providing easy-to-use, powerful tools to Web-enable, reuse, extend and integrate core applications. looksoftware is a member of the IBM Developer Roadmap and the Midrange Alliance Program. With more than 2,000 customers in 45 countries, looksoftware's products are distributed via a global network of 120 resellers and ISV partners. For more information, contact looksoftware in Australia at + 61 3 9535 4444 or in the U.S.A. at 678-494-5465.