Golden Path Digital announced the launch of AS/Forward, an intelligence and automated transpilation platform designed to address the critical workforce shortage facing the IBM i community. The platform combines deep codebase analysis with automated migration from RPG to modern programming languages, providing organizations with a secure method to transition away from legacy systems without disrupting core business operations. The IBM i platform, formerly known as AS/400, serves as the backbone for mission-critical operations in sectors like banking, logistics, and manufacturing, processing trillions of dollars in transactions daily. However, the ecosystem faces a systemic threat as industry data shows the average RPG developer is now 55 or older, creating a workforce cliff where companies risk losing the tribal knowledge needed to maintain these complex systems.
The platform emphasizes Codebase Clarity as a foundational phase, performing deep-tissue dependency mapping and impact analysis to uncover hidden relationships within legacy codebases. Before transpilation begins, the system generates automated natural-language documentation and audit-ready descriptions of business logic, providing IT leadership with comprehensive visibility into their entire estate. This transparency allows stakeholders to make informed decisions rather than navigating modernization in the dark, effectively translating legacy code into understandable business terms.
A key capability of AS/Forward is its ability to convert legacy RPG into multiple modern programming languages including Python, Java, Node.js, JavaScript, C#, and .NET. This multi-language flexibility enables organizations to break their reliance on dwindling RPG specialists and tap into global talent pools skilled in modern frameworks. The shift allows companies to integrate legacy systems with modern DevOps practices, cloud-native architectures, and AI-driven development workflows, creating agile IT environments capable of responding to market changes rapidly.
The platform employs an incremental modernization approach rather than risky big-bang replacements, enabling program-by-program migration that allows organizations to validate individual workflows before decommissioning legacy components. This methodology reduces business interruption risk to near zero while providing a clear path to full modernization. Financially, the platform delivers transformative benefits with cost reductions of 10x to 50x compared to traditional consulting models that rely on manual rewrites, while reducing implementation timelines from 5-7 years to 12-24 months.
For regulated industries like banking, insurance, and healthcare, the architecture is designed to be completely provider-agnostic, allowing organizations to run the engine locally via Ollama or within secure private cloud environments like AWS Bedrock. This design ensures sensitive proprietary logic and customer data never leave client firewalls, maintaining local control over the migration process while protecting intellectual property from external exposure. The platform represents a paradigm shift in enterprise legacy modernization, moving the industry away from high-stakes multi-year projects toward strategic control and operational clarity as the window for controlled transition closes due to the aging workforce.
