white paper Using Rocket Software s PASSPORT as an Alternative to Attachmate EXTRA! Rocket bluezone.rocketsoftware.com
using passport as an alternative to attachmate extra introduction Regardless of your reasons for considering an upgrade to Attachmate EXTRA! - whether it is to simply run on the Windows 7, gain additional features or become license compliant, whatever the reason, each case presents an excellent opportunity to use Rocket Software s PASSPORT as an alternative to Attachmate EXTRA!. PASSPORT is an ideal alternative to terminal emulation and legacy integration solutions from Attachmate, IBM, Micro Focus and others. For this reason, PASSPORT is considered the world s number one terminal emulation migration product. When companies seek to lower the cost of annual terminal emulation maintenance, get a better deal on Windows upgrades, need more customer-friendly software licensing, need new web-based host access models and more, Rocket is the top company they turn to. Check out our Customer list on our web site to see who uses PASSPORT for host access. It s impressive. Here are some of the points we commonly hear from Attachmate customers: It s too expensive: Attachmate EXTRA and Reflection upgrade costs have been described by their own customers as absurd and astronomical. Rocket s alternative has been identified to be as much as 73% less expensive. With Rocket PASSPORT, you can expect to reduce terminal emulation costs by between 33% and 65%, depending on license type and volume. 1
It s too expensive: Attachmate EXTRA and Reflection upgrade costs have been described by their own customers as absurd and astronomical. Rocket s alternative has been identified to be as much as 73% less expensive. With Rocket PASSPORT, you can expect to reduce terminal emulation costs by between 33% and 65%, depending on license type and volume. We have to pay for desktop OS upgrades: Even with an existing Attachmate maintenance plan costs are often significantly increased when changing the Windows operating system. Rocket s PASSPORT solutions are Certified for Windows Vista and Windows 7. With Rocket s Subscription Plan means you need never pay again for terminal emulation upgrades when upgrading the desktop operating system. Attachmate licensing is very restrictive and takes too much time to administer: Customers who have switched from Attachmate EXTRA! to Rocket PASSPORT tell us of strict license compliance polices implemented and enforced by Attachmate. Deployment is difficult due to excess applications and package size: When just terminal emulation is required, why deploy, adopt and pay for a suite of applications? The user interface has changed: Since the merger of Attachmate and WRQ, Attachmate has made Refl ection their new standard, meaning EXTRA! users must ultimately upgrade to a very different product from EXTRA! Our legacy applications require COM support: Attachmate have removed the support for COM objects in their latest products. why should your consider using rocket passport as an alternative to attachmate terminal emulations Significant cost reduction, guaranteed: PASSPORT is up to 73% less expensive than Attachmate EXTRA! Organizations that switch to Rocket PASSPORT can expect to reduce their license or maintenance costs by between 33% and 65%. Further savings can also be expected from the total cost of ownership (TCO). Flexible license options: Rocket Software offers tailored, flexible and hassle-free licensing plans to suit each customer s requirements. License compliance requirements are greatly simplified with Rocket. User Interface: Rather than retrain users, PASSPORT can be quickly and easily setup to offer users a familiar Attachmate EXTRA! look and feel. big savings. Check the cost of your existing maintenance plan or upgrade costs. Rocket Software guarantees a mininum reduction of 33%, often delivering 60% or more. API compatibility: Since the PASSPORT Object Interface is compatible with the Attachmate EXTRA! OLE automation support interface, Attachmate applications can be easily re-linked and used with PASSPORT asis. Applications that use HLLAPI interface will also work without change. 2
Reduced package size: PASSPORT is approximately one fifth of the installation size of Attachmate EXTRA!, yet still retains equivalent terminal emulation features and more. Improved Performance: Rocket s TCP/IP only design means the PASSPORT package is significantly smaller than Attachmate EXTRA!, often resulting customers commenting about our faster speeds.. Deployment Options: PASSPORT supports multiple methods to ease deployment of the software including deploying an MSI/ MST file using Microsoft group policy and active directory, performing an automatic or silent install, terminal server or Citrix server deployment, other desktop virtualization like VMware and more. Our flexible license plans can also permit deployment as standard desktop image but only pay for what is used. Upgrade Protection: PASSPORT is certified for Windows 7, Vista and works on XP and 2000. Rocket s annual subscription and maintenance plans protects against future Windows desktop OS changes. when is the best time to switch? Large organizations will often initially consider switching large numbers of user software as too risky and so will put off changing their terminal emulation until absolutely necessary. Rocket believes that this approach is always more expensive, can impose a greater risk and therefore recommends that the best time to consider switching terminal emulation is now! Why be forced to upgrade within a specific time scale? - Rocket s PASSPORT can be installed alongside Attachmate EXTRA! and migration can be handled at a pace to suit your business. Rocket can arrange for payment to be made at your next maintenance renewal date, which means that you have no up-front costs and can start saving money from your next renewal date. Switching from Attachmate EXRA! to PASSPORT is quick and easier than you might imagine, as many of our customers have discovered for themselves. quick and simple transition guaranteed! Large organizations that utilize Attachmate EXTRA! to access IBM mainframes, particularly banks, insurance companies and government agencies, can have literally hundreds, even thousands, of EXTRA! macros and configuration files. This can lead make organizations reluctant to change and the perception that a change would be too complex. Rocket understands this initial reluctance only too well, after all, nearly every large organization that has switched to PASSPORT presented the same concerns at the start of their projects. Rocket guarantees a low-risk, quick and simple switch! How? By utilizing our twenty-five plus years of experience with terminal emulation, our in-house developed Switch tools, our unparalleled technical support and customer service teams, our expert developers and perhaps best of all our customer references and testimonials. To make the transistion even easier, Rocket s PASSPORT will coexist with the installed terminal emulators without conflict. Rocket has also developed several tools to facilitate the switch from Attachmate EXTRA! 3
when is the best time to switch? Large organizations that utilize Attachmate EXTRA! to access IBM mainframes, particularly banks, insurance companies and government agencies, can have literally hundreds, even thousands, of EXTRA! macros and configuration files. This can lead make organizations reluctant to change and the perception that a change would be too complex. Rocket understands this initial reluctance only too well, after all, nearly every large organization that has switched to PASSPORT presented the same concerns at the start of their projects. Rocket guarantees a low-risk, quick and simple switch! How? By utilizing our twenty-five plus years of experience with terminal emulation, our in-house developed Switch tools, our unparalleled technical support and customer service teams, our expert developers, and perhaps best of all our customer references and testimonials. To make the transistion even easier, Rocket s PASSPORT will coexist with the installed terminal emulators without conflict. Rocket has also developed several tools to facilitate the switch from Attachmate EXTRA!. converting attachmate configuration files Rocket s Switch to PASSPORT utility will quickly convert Attachmate keyboard maps, session profiles and color schemes to work with PASSPORT. The utilty is free to download and will also convert files from other popular emulators, like IBM Personal Communications (PCOMM) as well. More information on this utilty and a link to download can be found on the PASSPORT web site: http://passport.rocketsoftware.com/kb/miscellaneous/switch_to_passport_utility.htm converting attachmate macros With its free macro conversion services, Rocket eliminates one of the biggest obstacles to a migration project from other terminal emulators to PASSPORT. Even if you have thousands of macros, it s no problem for us. We have developed macro conversion tools and a service that allows us to convert the majority of macros automatically, guaranteeing a fast turnaround. With our extensive experience in this area, even the most complex programmatic macros can be converted and returned promptly. 4
converting custom applications built for use with attachmate extra! If you have existing HLLAPI or Object API applications that integrate with 3270 screens, and these applications were developed for Attachmate, IBM or Micro Focus terminal emulators, in almost all cases we can reuse your integration code as is. No code changes are required. Again, our experience in this area is unparalleled. As an example, if your integration applications uses Attachmate EXTRA! Objects, you can simply change the name of the object used in the CreateObject() method: Attachmate: CreateObject ( EXTRA.SYSTEM ) PASSPORT: CreateObject ( PASSPORT.SYSTEM ) All methods and properties have the same name and parameters and so the program should work with no other alterations, although if you have hard coded paths and session profile names, then these may also need to be changed. After changing the object name, re-build and re-link your application with PASSOBJ.TLB and run the application with PASSPORT. making the switch Rocket Software has made using PASSPORT as an alternative to Attachmate EXTRA! extremely simple. The migration of the configuration settings is straightforward. We will convert Attachmate macros to run with PASSPORT and provide pre-sales technical support and service at no cost. We have years of experience in migrating customers to PASSPORT and can provide references from existing customers from a similar industry and size of your organization. Rocket PASSPORT is widely considered the world s number one replacement emulator for Attachmate EXTRA! and we have already saved organizations literally millions of dollars by making the switch. Let us prove that Upgrading Attachmate EXTRA! doesn t have to cost your organization extra and will save you money. You can download fully functioning PASSPORT Software from our web site, and if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us. 5
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