Robert Houben Email & Phone Number

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Managing a number of Financial Regulatory Projects.

The project started as a contract engagement (through FusionWare) that involves migrating Coast's Temenos T24 application from jBASE hashed files to Oracle tables in a RAC clustered environment. In addition, this change makes it possible to run the application on multiple application servers concurrently. This capability is also being implemented to increase performance and ensure future scalability of the system. In October 2014 I became a full-time project manager for Coast Capital Savings.Additional projects include moving a DR datacentre, assessment and design phases of Interac Flash and Apple Pay.

Vancouver, Bc, Canada

Through my leadership, FusionWare has been an IBM Business Partner since 1996 and is currently an Advanced Business Partner specializing in IBM SmartCloud and security services. I have the experience, skill and passion for helping my customers find competitive advantage in disruptive technologies while reducing and mitigating their risks. I am a lifelong learner, and have recently taken training on IBM PureSystems, validated products for IBM SmartCloud, tested on Microsoft Azure, developed an iPhone app, collaborated on the development of Windows Phone 7/8 applications and have used HTML5 and jQuery to create responsive, mobile-friendly web sites.Over the years I have architected, designed and built middleware and middleware based solutions that have delivered clear business value to my customers, enabling them to benefit from disruptive technologies, confident that they have adequately mitigated their risks. My middleware solutions span Windows, Linux, Mainframe, IBM i (AS/400), Oracle and many other platforms.Customers:Most recently I have assisted Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spas and Mario Tricoci Spas with the following:• Social Media: Sales, referrals and promotions• QR Code promotional campaign in multiple magazines• Migration to a new POS system• PCI complianceI assisted another customer in converting their entire IBM optical library to a SQL database with a web front end, and converted a Crystal report with 48 sub-reports, that ran for over 4 hours, to use SSRS and run in under 10 minutes.One of our fortune 500 customers uses our middleware to securely transfer over 200,000 EDI over http instructions to third party logistics providers per year.Contact me to see how I can help your business create competitive advantage from today's innovations!

I developed connectors and supporting innovations to enable Microsoft Dynamics CRM to extend its incident tracking component to OnForce, a North America-wide, web based, on-demand, system support provider. (This is known as an XRM application.) Note: (2018-02-18) OnForce has been acquired by ADP and has been renamed to WorkMarket.I developed the following innovations to the Liberty ESB tooling:• Integrate tightly with IBM i (AS/400) data and RPG programs.• Integrate tightly with MultiValue data and MV/BASIC programs.• Integrate with CLEO’s VLTrader to enable EDI over HTTP using the AS/2 standard.I continued to increase the patent portfolio for the company throughout these innovations.I obtained both Microsoft certifications and IBM validations for our middleware products.Customers:For Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spas and Mario Tricoci Salons, we provided high-speed access to their booking and POS systems from their web sites, allowing for sales of gift certificates and gift cards, and online booking, and supporting in excess of 1 million transactions per day.For Arbonne International, I provided a suite of high-performance middleware and integration components that allow them to keep legacy non-relational databases in sync with SQL Server and Oracle databases.

This was concurrent with my FusionWare Corporation CTO position.

Senior Software Developer for the iWealthview Banking Developer's Kit (iWBDK) for their iWealthview Banking application. This component (was previously known as Probe and the company's former name was Prologic. The iWBDK was originally a 4GL product that included an IDE that integrated with Visual Studio and a run-time component.After my original manager was "downsized", I was recognized as the defacto manager of the iWBDK group, because of my contributions to communicating the activities of the group to its stakeholders and my involvement in soliciting feedback from stakeholders and giving them the comfort that their needs would be heard and responded to.I spearheaded the conversion of their credit union software from using Netbios, for which support was being discontinued by Microsoft, to TCP/IP. I also co-designed and developed a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) based console for managing the complex build process for WBDK and the Wealthview Banking system.

GA eXpress (originally known as General Automation) acquired Liberty Integration Software in October of 1996. GA eXpress went out of business in 2003. FusionWare was formed to buy the Vancouver (Liberty) assets and business from GA eXpress' bankruptcy.I was responsible for middleware product development and working with marketing, legal, senior executive and investors to ensure that they knew the role of these products and to ensure that these products played their role in the company.

This company actually went through several name iterations, "Liberty ODBC", "Liberty Software Corporation", then "Liberty Integration Software". I was one of the original founders of this company that was heavily involved in the original SQL Access Group (SAQ) work that eventually became ODBC. We released the first ODBC driver outside of Microsoft and one of our founder's staff wrote most of Microsoft's ODBC drivers under contract to them.While there, I was one of the key authors of several SQL engines for non-relational databases, several ODBC, JDBC OLE DB and Java based drivers, as well as assisting both large enterprise and SMB customers with their integration projects.For several years I was a Microsoft MVP for ODBC technology.I led the architecture, design, development, deployment and market evangelization for these products from their inception to when the company was acquired by GA eXpress.My Java based middleware software has been deployed to 60% of the automotive dealer systems in North America.I have supported high-volume, highly scalable, robust web solutions, supporting millions of transactions per day.I worked with patent and trademark lawyers to build up a portfolio of patents for our key product innovations.Working with some of the authors of the XML standards, I architected, and did some of the initial development for a pure Java, web services enabled, light-weight Enterprise Service Bus product.I developed co-marketing relationships with Microsoft and IBM, and my JDBC driver was among the first 300 product to achieve 100% pure Java certification.Customers:Our customers ranged from very small to larger companies like the US Army, Reynolds and Reynolds, ADP, Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spas, Mario Tricoci Spas, Meadwestvaco Calmar, and span 5 continents, in a broad range of market segments, including government, manufacturing, distribution, automotive, health, finance and more.

We were the sole providers of ODBC connectivity for the Sequoia variation of the PICK (MultiValue) database system sold by Sequoia. This included our ANSI 92 compliant SQL Engine and our mechanism for mapping MultiValues to a relational view.

Developed (originally as a contractor) an integration product that allowed MAI BASIC IV, Thoroughbred BASIC, and many other Business BASIC systems to export/import data to/from Lotus 1-2-3, Excel, comma separated, fixed length and other formats. Also developed a product to allow the same functionality for MultiValue systems (called PK Harmony), which also supported full automation of MultiValue processes from a PC or PC processes from a MultiValue system. Developed first Windows compatible version of this tool as well as first networked version. Responsible for team of developers and support staff for the product set.Customers:Synex provided licenses to Dynix, allowing library systems across North America to use IBM PC technology both with internal PCs and dial-up customers, to access their library catalogs.I also provided software to the largest McDonald’s franchise in North America.