n Australian company that tracks the movement of large land-based storage and shipping containers, Global Electronic Transport Systems (GETS), manages a heavy load. From the moment these massive containers leave the storage lot, or container park, as they are called in Australia, until they arrive at the shipper or leasing company's local destination, GETS tracks them. Throughout the entire process, GETS must coordinate transportation, track which containers require repairs, update the accounting systems, and provide timely status reports to their customers.

Company manager David McGregor established GETS in 1997 to provide an improved software solution for container parks. To assist with developing an integrated solution, McGregor hired IT Consultant Ian Campbell. The result of their combined effort is ParkMaster, a business application written in PRO/5® and deployed on SCO UNIX. "We developed ParkMaster in PRO/5 because the character-based application's functionality meets the company's needs, while a speed advantage over GUI-based systems gives GETS a competitive edge," Campbell explains. "Additionally, ParkMaster is tightly integrated and interfaces with the tracking, rail, and road transportation, leasing, accounting, and reporting modules. GETS's competitors don't even have these modules."

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is completely integrated in ParkMaster. This is a major competitive advantage because it allows GETS to provide services that its competitors cannot. With a comprehensive set of integrated modules for the transport industry, and full EDI integration, ParkMaster keeps GETS ahead of the competition.

Parkmaster in Action: Three screenshots demonstrating the integration and functionality of GETS's application.

GETS has another significant advantage over competing container park systems' software suppliers because of ParkMaster's ability to generate daily status reports. While the other companies' software also provides daily reports, the software is limited to hard copy printouts sent via courier. ParkMaster, on the other hand, has the capability to transfer these documents electronically, by either fax or email, saving time and money.

Six years after establishing GETS, McGregor is looking to expand into the international market. GETS is exploring technology that will give his application further functionality for this expansion. Once again, McGregor has called upon Ian Campbell's expertise, and Campbell is recommending BBj®. According to Campbell, there are several reasons why he thinks GETS should migrate to BBj. First, BBj allows GETS to develop a GUI interface, while maintaining a character-based application for the speed-sensitive data entry programs. Second, the ability to use the word "Java" when marketing GETS to both existing and potential customers will generate interest. "Java is still a buzzword to which people respond positively," claims Campbell, "and I feel that this will appeal to many potential customers - and we will be able to migrate to BBj with very few coding changes."

Campbell completed preliminary testing of BBj online with BASIS last December. While vacationing in the U.S. this past January, Campbell stopped by BASIS's office in Albuquerque and worked with the engineering team to test his applications running in a BBj 3.0 environment. Campbell is now sold on BBj. As Campbell attests, "I ran a lot of data through the tests, and the performance was great under Linux. As a result, what had been David McGregor's mild curiosity about BBj has now developed into keen interest." According to Campbell, McGregor is particularly intrigued with what the MDI (Multiple Document Interface) and BBjNamespace (InterProcess Communication) features can do for the ParkMaster system. MDI will allow ParkMaster to display the same fields in multiple screens on their control console, while BBjNamespace will make it possible to dynamically update all screens when a change is made to any one of them. Further, BBjNamespace will be used to update critical data on workstations throughout the organization, keeping the ParkSystem users fully informed on each day's progress. While McGregor's quest to grow his business is no small feat, the seamless migration, combined with the competitive advantage that comes with migrating to BBj, will simplify the achievement of McGregor's goals.