Half a century after helping its first customers move off punch cards, Fresche has grown into a strategic technology partner guiding organizations through every era of platform change, and is now leading customers into the age of governed, AI-ready data
MONTREAL, Sept. 10, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fresche Solutions today announced its 50th anniversary, marking five decades of continuous evolution alongside the technology its customers depend on. Founded in 1976, Fresche has grown into a strategic transformation partner helping organizations modernize their core systems and advance their data and AI initiatives.
"Fifty years ago, Fresche was built by engineers who believed the hardest problems deserved the most rigorous thinking," said Joe Zarrehparvar, CEO of Fresche Solutions. "That discipline has carried us through five decades of change, and it's what allowed us to keep expanding what we do for our customers, from modernization to the full breadth of services we deliver today. Resilience isn't something we talk about; it's something our customers have relied on, generation after generation. Now, as we bring AI, data analytics, and outcome-based delivery into everything we do, our promise stays the same: engineering excellence in service of real results for the people who trust us with their business. What's starting now begins the same way everything at Fresche has: with the customer at the center and innovation built to match."
Fresche's customers are under real pressure today. They need to modernize business-critical systems without disrupting operations, all while reducing technical debt, addressing talent scarcity, controlling infrastructure costs, and making better use of the data already inside the systems they rely on.
Built Alongside Every Wave of Enterprise Technology
Fresche has kept pace with nearly every shift in enterprise technology since 1976. As the platforms enterprises depend on have evolved through decades of architectural shifts, language modernization, and new deployment models, Fresche has evolved right alongside them. Each shift brought new demands, and Fresche built and acquired the capabilities organizations needed to meet them. Today that expertise spans application intelligence, modernization, managed services, cloud, disaster recovery, security, and data analytics.
Strategic acquisitions have been central to that growth. Databorough (2013) brought X-Analysis and established Fresche's application intelligence leadership. looksoftware (2014) expanded modernization options for improving and extending IBM i applications. Abacus Solutions (2021) added cloud and managed infrastructure depth. Trinity Guard (2022) advanced security capabilities. Silveredge (2023) brought IT support and homegrown ERP services. Redbourn Business Systems (2024) added IBM i Synon/CA 2E services in the UK and Europe. And OmniData (2025) significantly expanded Fresche's data and analytics business, extending the company's expertise beyond IBM i into Microsoft environments for the first time.
That expansion reflects where Fresche's customers are headed: pulling data from every source across the business, governing it properly, and making it easily accessible so it can drive decisions rather than sit unused in a system of record.
Data and AI Readiness, Not Just Code Conversion
"Modernization is more than converting code and migrating from green screens. Data and AI readiness now shape almost every decision our customers make," said Pete Czornohus, Chief Commercial Officer at Fresche. "These environments need AI that understands context and dependencies, not a general-purpose tool that guesses. It has to return the same answer over and over."
More than 2,200 organizations rely on Fresche today. Across that customer base, the company has delivered more than 800 modernization projects and over 1,000 roadmaps, cutting complexity, improving uptime and recovery, lowering IT costs, and giving teams faster access to analytics and insight.
That depth of expertise is a major reason so many of those relationships continue well past a first engagement. A large share of Fresche's customers return for additional services as their needs evolve, expanding from an initial modernization project into managed services, cloud, security, and data analytics engagements.
The Next 50 Years: Data, Analytics, and AI
Looking ahead, Fresche is doubling down on data, analytics, and AI across IBM i and Microsoft environments. The company has already introduced its Fresche Analytics MCP Connector, which links business data to conversational AI so teams get real-time answers and dashboards while governance stays intact. This fall, Fresche will expand that lineup with OpsIQ, an AI assistant that helps IBM i operators identify and resolve system issues faster, and the X-Modernize AI Web App, which puts code conversion directly in customers' hands, letting teams convert RPG, Synon, and COBOL applications themselves.
X-Modernize AI itself launched in November 2025 as Fresche's third generation of RPG and Synon modernization technology, built on 20 years of modernization expertise and combined with AI to help customers convert legacy applications more efficiently.
"Fifty years in, our job hasn't changed: help our customers get more value from the systems and data they already have," said Zarrehparvar. "What's changed is everything we can now do to help them do it, and that's what the next fifty years are about."
About Fresche Solutions
For 50 years, Fresche Solutions has helped organizations modernize, manage, and extend the IBM i and Microsoft systems that run their business, and turn their data into a foundation for AI-ready decision-making. More than 2,200 organizations worldwide trust Fresche's application intelligence, modernization, managed services, security, and data and analytics solutions. Learn more at freschesolutions.com.
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Jessica Penton
Senior Brand & Content Marketing Manager
jessica.penton@freschesolutions.com
