Golden Path Digital, a leader in enterprise modernization solutions, today announced the launch of AS/Forward, an advanced intelligence and automated transpilation platform engineered to solve the most critical challenge facing the IBM i community: the Workforce Cliff. By combining deep codebase forensics with automated RPG-to-modern-language migration, the platform provides a secure, high-speed bridge for organizations transitioning away from legacy dependencies without disrupting core business operations.
For decades, the IBM i platform, formerly known as the AS/400, has served as the backbone of global commerce. These systems power mission-critical operations in banking, logistics, and manufacturing, handling trillions of dollars in transactions daily. However, the ecosystem is facing a systemic threat. Recent industry data indicates the average age of an RPG developer is now 55 or older. As this veteran workforce reaches retirement age, companies are losing the tribal knowledge required to maintain and evolve these complex systems.
"The Workforce Cliff is not a future risk; it is a present-day reality for thousands of enterprises," said the CEO of Golden Path Digital. "AS/Forward was built to ensure that decades of institutional logic are not lost when these experts retire. We are not just moving code; we are preserving the intelligence that runs the business." This urgency is driven by the fact that many of these systems have been modified thousands of times over thirty years, often without updated documentation, making them a black box for newer IT staff.
Unlike traditional lift-and-shift tools that merely move technical debt from one environment to another, the platform emphasizes Codebase Clarity as the foundational phase of any modernization journey. Before a single line of code is transpiled, the system functions as a comprehensive intelligence engine. It performs deep-tissue dependency mapping and impact analysis, uncovering hidden relationships within the codebase that may have been forgotten over decades of iterative updates. By generating automated, natural-language documentation and audit-ready descriptions of business logic, this solution provides IT leadership with an X-ray view of their entire estate.
A hallmark of the technology is its ability to convert legacy RPG into a wide array of modern, industry-standard programming languages. AS/Forward supports automated transpilation into Python, Java, Node.js, JavaScript, C#, .NET, and more. This multi-language flexibility is a strategic necessity for the modern enterprise. By moving core business logic into languages with massive, global talent pools, organizations can finally break their reliance on a dwindling supply of RPG specialists.
The industry has long been plagued by Big Bang modernization failures—projects that take five years, cost tens of millions of dollars, and ultimately fail to deliver. AS/Forward provides a stark alternative through its incremental de-risking approach. Rather than a total system replacement, the framework enables a program-by-program migration strategy, allowing organizations to move at their own pace and validate every individual workflow before fully decommissioning legacy components.
The financial benefits of utilizing the platform are transformative. Traditional consulting models typically cost between 5 million and 20 million dollars per project. Because it leverages high-fidelity automation, AS/Forward typically delivers a cost reduction of 10x to 50x compared to these legacy models. Speed-to-market is equally critical: organizations using the platform can achieve their modernization goals within a 12- to 24-month timeline, compared to 5-to-7 years with manual rearchitecting.
To meet the stringent requirements of regulated industries, the architecture is designed to be completely provider-agnostic. Organizations can choose to run the engine locally via Ollama or within secure, private cloud environments like AWS Bedrock. This ensures that sensitive proprietary logic and customer data never leave the client firewall, protecting intellectual property from external exposure.
In summary, AS/Forward represents a paradigm shift in how the enterprise approaches the IBM i legacy. It moves the industry away from high-stakes, multi-year gambles and toward a model of strategic control and operational clarity. As the window for a controlled transition begins to close due to the aging workforce, this platform provides the tools and the roadmap necessary to secure the operational future of the enterprise for the next generation.
