JBA Holdings

British software developer that traded as JBA Software Products Ltd. in its home country and as JBA International in the USA but was originally founded in 1985 as Harncroft Ltd. and took over AS/400 software specialist Bluebird Software Ltd. in 1992. JBA initially specialised in developing software for IBM's AS/400 platform but later moved more towards software for the manufacturing industry.

Best known for the Business 400 application for AS/400, a modular (or "package" systems in AS/400 terminology) business system that had supported general modules such as accounting, warehousing/logistics, marketing, production and so on in addition to more specialised products such as modules developed specifically for the fashion and drinks industries, this product line was later renamed System 21.

The company did deliver a small number of OS/2 and Windows hosted tools in the early to mid 90s, the tools that targeted cross-development for the AS/400 system sold reasonably well but the tools that were primarily generic OS/2 development tools were badly marketed and most OS/2 programmers never became aware of them, to a point that some of them complained when news of JBA products appeared on USENET or on OS/2 news sites, thinking they were intended for other systems.

JBA Holdings was taken over by Geac Computer Corporation in 1999, but the chaotic financial environment at GCC meant that the bulk of the JBA staff was let go later that year, a number of them going on to form AROQ.

Products

 * JBA Guidelines

Links

 * The rise and fall of JBA software - AS400 ERP System21