Increasing visibility in Japan, one of the greatest IBM i markets in the world is a milestone in the Remain Software global expansion. Remain Software has been present on the Japanese market for some time now. Companies such as Nippon Express and Canon have been their satisfied customers for many years. Cooperation with TroyTech will give Remain a chance to extend this presence and provide their customers with local consultancy, services and support.

TroyTech, an IBM Premier Business Partner, has been operating on the Asia Pacific market for many years, providing hardware & software, as well as consultancy services. Becoming Remain’s agent will add application lifecycle management to TroyTech’s sub-vars offering, and allow them to create a comprehensive proposition for their rich customer database. The close cooperation and knowledge exchange started already between Remain and Solutions Lab Yokohama, one of the biggest IBM i technology specialists in Japan led by the Senior executive manager of SLY Software Business Division Satoshi Ishimori. Next to becoming the master reseller of TD/OMS and Gravity in Japan, for over 4 years SLY and TroyTech have been the main Japanese distributors for the Fresche Legacy X-Analysis, which is integrated with Remain’s TD/OMS. It’s an added value for the Japanese and APAC IBM i community as the solutions together create the Unified ALM workflow offering for IBM i which helps in better management, analysis and documentation of IBM i applications.

“TD/OMS and Gravity help in better management of IT assets. Introducing them to the Japanese market has a significant meaning because business process improvement has a long tradition in Japanese business culture. Companies in Japan are very process oriented, and this regards processes of any kind and taking place in each department. Application Lifecycle Management software fits in this tradition very well. It is something those companies really need in the era of enterprise modernization. A structured, stable process of software development, maintenance and modernization is crucial in well-managed business.” - says Troy Chung, CEO at TroyTech.  “Improvement is a way of life in Japan and we believe TD/OMS and Gravity will significantly contribute to this philosophy.” – Troy Chung adds.

For better alignment of IT with business needs, Japanese companies often introduce principles of many internationally recognized process improvement and quality initiatives. COBIT and Capability Maturity Model are just some of the examples where Application Lifecycle Management software can play a major role by its contribution to achieving corporate goals by optimizing the use of IT resources. TD/OMS helps in standardizing and controlling processes and to some extent measuring their effectiveness, which allows significant progress on the ladder of CMM levels. Introduction of ALM technology is of great importance also for enterprises operating on the financial market in Japan. Those companies need to comply with regulations of the Japanese Financial Instruments and Exchange Law, the so called Japanese Sarbanes Oxley Act (J-SOX). They need effective ways of providing the reports for auditing purposes, also from the IT perspective. TD/OMS will help them in meeting those requirements by providing functionality of tracking, archiving and reporting changes made to their critical business applications.

“We’re very excited about both increasing our visibility on the Asian market and cooperation with such great companies as TroyTech, Solutions Lab Yokohama and in the future, other enterprises in the TroyTech partner network. Our goal is to help our customers locally, by working with companies who are top experts in the IBM i technology, but also people we trust and with whom we can base the partnership on friendship and commitment. We certainly find it in TroyTech and her business partners.” – says Marco Kok, Managing Director at Remain Software.  

Entering Japanese market was also a reason for us to enhance the Remain products. “One of the challenges when entering the Japanese market is introducing the double-byte character set into software that already works excellent on single byte character sets. We find it important to address specifics of local culture and language into our software without destabilizing our current implementations. Thanks to extensive use of Eclipse technology in our software it is possible to set the DBCS into TD/OMS and Gravity. Together with programmers from Solutions Lab Yokohama we have started work on translating our software into Japanese. Soon, we will be able to also enter other Asian markets, where developers communicate mainly in their local language.” – says Wim Jongman, CTO and Managing Director at Remain Software.

The teams of Remain Software, TroyTech and Solutions Lab Yokohama have cooperated for some time before the official distributorship agreement was signed on the 23rd April 2016. The technical and commercial teams met in early April in Yokohama and Tokyo, Japan at the Solutions Lab Yokohama headquarters and later in Amsterdam, The Netherlands where to contract was signed. 

TroyTech is a consulting and professional service provider in the Asia Pacific region since 1998. Currently, TroyTech has local presence in Singapore, Taiwan and Japan. TroyTech’s partner network also enables TroyTech to provide solutions and services to customers in Vietnam, China, and Hong Kong with proper local support for the customers. TroyTech also has IBM i Tech QA centers setup in Singapore and Taiwan to ensure quality delivery to customers.

As an IBM Premier PartnerWorld member, TroyTech is certified by IBM to resell a wide range of IBM software products in Singapore. Besides IBM solutions, TroyTech also provides a wide range of solutions to assist customers with issues relating to IOT, Java, Analytics, Mobile, Big Data, Testing, Modernization, Migration, Staffing Requirements, etc. With IBM i Application Lifecycle Management tools from Remain Software, TroyTech can now offer a more complete and value-add solution to customers.

For more information about TroyTech please visit www.troytech.net

Solutions Lab Yokohama is an IT solutions provider founded in 1992. The company is specialized in supporting customers in improving software development process, IT infrastructure implementation and maintenance as well as delivery of IBM i solutions.

For more info please visit www.sly.co.jp