Peter Walser, CTO of ABAS Software AG

Nov. 26, 2010 - PRLog -- Karlsruhe, November 26th, 2010 - Peter Walser has been the Chief Technology Officer of ABAS Software AG since 2007. His rise to the top at the software provider in Karlsruhe was gradual but continuous. In 1983 the computer scientist got to know the company as a student. The foundation for the upgradeable business software had just been laid when he started working in development after finishing his degree. The objective pragmatist developed alongside the growing ERP software and started to be increasingly responsible for product, coordination and employees. He is proud of the upgradeable abas Business Software, "It is our strength that we control the maintenance phase of our software product. This makes abas Business Software unique on the market," summarizes Walser.

http://www.youtube.com/user/abasBusinessSoftware#p/u/15/7UdxLRffhkM

Practical experience spices up overly theoretical studies
"In the spring of 1983 I wanted to earn some money during the semester break for a trip to Ecuador. I found an advertisement from ABAS at the university, they were looking for student assistants. I went there for an interview and they hired me," remembers Walser. "At that time, studies at the university were overly theoretical. In my day we were still working with punch cards during my basic studies. For me it was a real plus to gain some practical experience. The originally planned semester break, quickly became four years at ABAS. From the very beginning I was able to realize small projects, for example, to program a final payment system or to develop the sales order processing for a timber wholesaler. I realized all steps from definition of the project up to completion. This early contact to customers was a huge professional benefit for me. My projects were quickly getting more sophisticated. After four years I decided to resume my studies and to get my degree."

The beginning at ABAS: database
"Werner Strub and Peter Forscht gave us the advice that we should hire Peter Walser before he went to another company," remembers Erich Sartori, one of the original programmers. "I still knew him from the time he was working at ABAS as a student and was very happy when he agreed to work for us. I wanted to go on a vacation and really needed someone who could take care of the database. I was, however, surprised that he only nodded while I was explaining things and after two hours, he said, everything was clear. I had actually anticipated more questions," says Sartori. "My big advantage was that I had a couple of years programming experience with COBOL, and index sequential files were not that different from the former database," explains Walser. At that time, remote access was still a foreign concept. If a customer database had a defect, the tape was sent to Karlsruhe, the data was analyzed and then the error was solved together with the customer by phone.

Erich Sartori, original developer and a good mentor
"In the early years I was allowed to deal with the basics of computer science and I really felt at home with this," remembers Peter Walser. His fields of responsibility were mainly tools and database. "As is normal at ABAS, I gradually passed on my knowledge . Then I developed mostly in the production area for some time. I have always been more of an all-rounder than someone who needs a special niche. At ABAS responsibility grows with knowledge. In Erich I had found a good teacher and mentor. We supported each other and I did not shy away from taking responsibility. Erich is a smart man with regard to programming, but he's not a fan of organizational things. We complemented each other well."

abas Business Software proves standard product life cycle ad absurdum
"During my studies I learned that a software's product lifecycle is seven years. When looking at the development of abas Business Software, this assumption does not hold up. It is our strength that we control the maintenance phase of our product. We have customers that have been working with the software without break for 20 years and are always using state of the art technology thanks to our upgrades. To my knowledge no one else in the ERP area can do this. We would have lost many customers if we would have allowed any interruptions. Continuity is our strength."

Upgradeability means continuous progress
Since 1990 the ABAS Software AG has ensured that customers always have the most recent developments available through annual upgrades. "This upgradeability is something special on the ERP market. Today, our first customers are using most modern technology, and they never had to migrate their data." Sometimes the versions provide small effective improvements, sometimes there are large leaps in technology in an upgrade which brings the software to the next generation of technology. There were numerous improvements in computer science and as many developments in the abas Business Software. Which steps were really relevant? In the following Walser names the developments that were most significant for him.

1993: first multilingual version of abas Business Software, 2003: Unicode

More Infos:
http://www.abas-software.com/en/aktuelles/30jahreabas/pet...

# # #

ABAS Software AG is a leading provider of cost-effective ERP and eBusiness solutions for midsize manufacturers and distributors. More than 2,200 customers have chosen ABAS and work successfully with the internationally applicable abas Business Software.