Most IT systems are subject to continuous change due to business and technological advances. ‘Change’ is at the heart of running successful businesses. At a certain stage in the life of a Visual Basic business application, the cost of implementing changes can become prohibitively high because the original system was not designed to handle the new requirements. For example Visual Basic applications do not have a centralization of business logic whereas in a thin ASP.NET solution or a thin Java client you will achieve that goal resulting in better maintenance through the distribution channel.

Adopting a more ‘open’ technology generally improves the productivity and longevity of the applications, as well as opening the door to pools of new programming resources. This is especially true in the light of Microsoft's decision to 'retire' the Visual Basic programming language. Modernization from Visual Basic to ASP.NET or Java and J2EE can hence achieve the following key benefits:

• Reduction of IT hardware and software costs through the standardization of IT platforms
• Reduced cost of ownership as a result of web-enabling and centralized business logic
• Corresponding reduction in head count
• Improved maintenance and scalability of applications
• Rationalization of existing applications (reduced duplications)
• Improved operational efficiency and effectiveness via the sharing of IT platforms
• Removal of expensive, 'specialist' systems with high support costs
• The production of 'cleaner' applications (removal of dead code) in a scalable environment - one result being increased throughput and thus greater operational efficiency
• Faster turn-around which means reduced training or staff learning curves
• Cost effective solution because of the reuse of business logic
• Accelerated re-training of development and technical staff whilst preserving the large investment already made in existing applications