The purpose of this section is to give a short overview of some of the technical aspects of the software and hardware environment that RSG products are offered in.
RSG utilizes the Pick D3 operating system for its development vehicle. The PICK System was originally developed in the 1960's as a relational database for the Department of Defense. It was then made commercially available to the business world primarily via a variety of mini-computers. Today it has become one of the most successful relational databases with thousands of installations. Some of its keys to success, particularly with software development companies, are due to the following characteristics:
The designs of RSG's packages have benefited from years of prior design experience specifically in the reinsurance field. In fact, the project team that designed the RSG Reinsurance Package had completed three prior (and successful) reinsurance system designs. This prior experience, coupled with the power of the D3 database, gave the analysts a unique opportunity to design a truly flexible, powerful and modern on-line reinsurance system. No other systems available today have the on-line characteristics and flexibility of the RSG offerings.
The D3 programming language provides a tremendous competitive edge over other languages (such as COBOL and RPG) in that is very efficient. D3 often needs less than 10% of the lines of code to perform a function than other languages (particularly COBOL)) and it has been specifically designed to work with the D3 database (as opposed to other languages like COBOL) that have been simply adapted to the various database products. Thus, the RSG products have a relatively small amount of program code which greatly reduces the maintenance cost involved and also allows for easy modification.
RSG's products can operate unmodified on personal, mini and mainframe computers. We don't need a different package (like our competitors) for each type of computer. This allows our customers to move from one size of computer to another (and even change manufacturers) without any modifications to the software. Also, as RSG products can operate on computer offerings from almost every manufacturer (including IBM, DEC, NCR, Honeywell, Wang, Compaq and Unisys), the customer has the unique opportunity to "comparison shop" for price and functionality amongst hardware vendors. The customer can also subsequently change manufacturers later if desired (compare with other software systems that "lock" one into one manufacturer's hardware offering - usually with a much higher cost and overhead (for example, IBM's AS/400)). RSG's portability gives the customer the flexibility to buy the correct size computer that he needs now and then move to a larger machine at a later date. Thus one may start on a PC and then move to a mini-computer later - without any change to your system.
RSG's products, due to their reliability and design, require minimal customer support. Most of our smaller customers have no support staff while our medium sized clients average one or two dedicated staff. Compare this with our competitors offerings which require a very high number of dedicated (and expensive) staff.
Many of our clients have incorporated our software into their in-house networks (typically Novell or NT). RSG's ability to operate its software on personal and mini computers has resulted in easy integration into these networks.
The computer industry's push for an "open systems" orientation in the last few years has become the single most important issue since the development of local area networks. The idea behind open systems is that if all computers can use the same operating system (and attendant items) than one may run one's application software (like RSG's packages), without change, on any computer. The open systems approach was contrary to the vast majority of computer manufacturers philosophies as they wanted one to use their proprietary operating systems and development software so that leaving the manufacturer (after the hardware and software investment) was extremely difficult and costly. But in spite of this proprietary inertia, open systems has arrived and is, without question, the path to follow.
When purchasing a software package to replace an existing system, the issue of converting one's old data to the new system is always an important item. Typical problems encountered in data conversions include: translating codes (old to new), different field sizes and inconsistent or corrupt old data. The combination of RSG's database design and the extreme flexibility of the D3 database has allowed RSG to successfully convert over 20 systems in a very timely and cost effective manner. Code translations are automated using table-to-table translation programs and are made even easier as RSG allows the customer to define his own codes. Since the D3 database structure allows for variable length fields, the old systems field sizes are simply converted to the RSG files with no change (compare with competing packages that can not change their field sizes). Also, as a result of RSG's experience in conversions, we have developed a variety of automatic software conversion programs that can convert most of the existing software packages to RSG with little or no manual effort. Finally, RSG's and D3's flexibility has allowed us to correct poor quality data during conversions quickly and effectively. The cost of an RSG conversion is typically a small fraction of what competing vendors would charge.
Follow this link for further information on the D3 database environment.