What should be the future of the PowerBuilder Developer’s Conference
I’ve opened up a poll on what the future of the PowerBuilder Developer’s Conference should be. (Completely unofficial, I have no control over what SAP does with it).
I liked this years and the reduced cost (compared to TechEd). However, I would like to see PowerBuilder sessions at all of the TechEds (not just Las Vegas) and I think holding it as a separate event pretty much ensured that there wouldn’t be PowerBuilder sessions in TechEd itself. The downside is that the registration costs double. What do you think?
Note: You have to be logged into SCN in order to vote on the poll. Otherwise it just shows you the results.
Added 10/25: My PBDJ editorial goes into some analysis of the various options (the last half of the editorial specifically).
What about an option to have a developer track - maybe we could reduce the pricepoint for developer focused sessions in this track and include more than PB?
That's an interesting approach, but it seemed a bit ambitious. I could see other groups (analysts, architects, managers) all demanding their own separate tracks with lower registration costs as well.
I'd also be concerned that it might give the impression of a second class standing to people that registered for that track. "Oh, you're not a full attendee, you're just here for the developer track." I got a little of that feel from the Developer Conference at TechEd. I might be the only person that got any of that feeling though.
2012 was the first PB conference my company has ever attended. To be frank, I thought it was a deal! We would have been open to paying more but that probably would have meant only 1 or 2 attendees instead of the 3 that were able to attend at the cheaper rate.
With that being said, if PB is going to grow within the larger SAP community it needs to look, feel and act like part of the community. At a minimum, there should be some PB tracks offered to the non-PB developer attendees. This would allow those who are curious about PB the opportunity to see and experience it in a short 1 to 2 hour session. I personally use many sessions at other conferences just to learn about new technologies that may potentially provide value for my company in the future.
In past Techwaves, I split my time between PowerBuilder and SQL Anywhere presentations. It would be nice to do this again. With all the talk of cloud and mobile this year, it would have been nice to go to a presentation or two on SQL Anywhere On Demand.
On one hand, PowerBuilder needs to be integrated and included into the larger developer community, so segregation runs counter to that purpose. If an attendee pays the FULL TechEd price, they should be able to attend PB sessions, too.
On the other hand, I appreciated the lower price for the PB session track and spent all my time in it, even if I could have had access to other sessions. I suppose the Expo Hall was still open to all where vendors gave presentations. Had I more time, I would have visited there.
I'm proud to be a "developer", but I may use that term in the loosest sense possible. I may be blind to other professional roles, but I thought TECH Ed was for developers.
>> I may be blind to other professional roles, but I thought TECH Ed was for developers.
That was my impression as well before I actually attended one myself. Apparently a lot of non-developer types attend as well.