It’s been a fair while since last we caught up with Martin Fincham at Lansa, the long-established Australian-heritage software company best known for its IBM midrange application modernisation tools (see Lansa shows there’s life in RPG). Indeed, Fincham had since been promoted from COO to group CEO (well done him!) though he remains loosely based in Lansa’s EMEA headquarters in Herts. Lansa’s founding CEO, Pete Draney (ex-Aussie IT services firm Aspect Computing), assumed the mantle of executive chairman.
While there is still a significant market for Lansa’s core tools – notably in adding mobile device support to legacy applications – Lansa is also expanding the global footprint of its Product Information Management (PIM) solution, Lansa Data Sync Direct, a GS1 standards product used by manufacturers and retailers to synchronise their product item data. Their PIM product, and their LongRange tool for developing native mobile apps using just RPG or COBOL skills, is where Fincham sees the big growth opportunities for Lansa.
Being privately held and consistently profitable there’s not a lot of pressure on Lansa to ‘boldly go’. However, I got a sense from Fincham that he and Draney were looking to step somewhat out of the company’s traditional comfort zone and less meekly go than they had in the past. This could eventually lead to all sorts of interesting outcomes for Lansa should the new markets realise their full potential.