PowerBuilder Community Update
Dear Customers and Partners,
Recently we have received messages from many of you about the future of PowerBuilder. First, we would like to express the tremendous respect SAP has for the passion and power of the PowerBuilder community. We apologize for the delay in providing you with an update, and realize that we need to improve our communications. You have our commitment that we will be as open and transparent as possible going forward.
Our highest priority is to protect the significant investments you have made in PowerBuilder over the past two decades. We are still reviewing PowerBuilder and are working at the moment to determine the best way forward.
We want to thank you all for sharing your thoughts and concerns so openly and honestly with us, your loyalty to PowerBuilder, and your continued support for SAP. We know that the PowerBuilder community is waiting to hear from SAP, and will provide a response as soon as possible in the SAP Community Network (SCN) and other channels.
Sue Dunnell, PowerBuilder Product Manager
Is there a time line?
Powerbuilder community has been waiting for almost a year!
I assume that "Since PowerBuilder was brought into the Development organization at SAP only three weeks ago" means the recent reorg within SAP. I believe PowerBuilder used to be under the mobility group and three weeks ago was moved to the Business Intelligence group as part of that reorg. Correct?
Yes, that's correct Bruce.
Another question a lot of people have: Is it on the SAP Price Book yet? Some people have said they wanted to upgrade or buy new licences but could not.
Hi Sue
Many thanks for once again sticking your head above the parapet. I'm sure you can sense the huge frustration in the PB community....
"Since PowerBuilder was brought into the Development organization at SAP only three weeks ago"
What you are basically saying is that all the information we have been fed this last year has been purely to pacify the masses and if I were to put it bluntly was complete Bullshit! Once again you are forced to ask us to wait for an undetermined time till we are fed the next shovel load.
This is not targeted at you directly as I appreciate you are just the poor mug who has to say something, but our business has been completely screwed this year by this indecision. We have had no new contracts relating to PB and when your business is based on that product you can imagine the outcome is quite catastrophic. You have shot us all in the foot and now it's pretty much game over!
Sadly Yours
David
Hi Sue,
Thanks for the note.
Are you talking about PB15? PB15 is one of the most searched terms on my PowerBuilder website called The DisplacedGuy so many people are patiently awaiting. 🙂
I have asked to be part of the beta test team as well but haven't heard anything yet.
Thanks
..... and then?
What is new about this post? Absolutely nothing !!!
Yup, There is NOTHING new. Same COOL AID to buy more time.
If I could have fired them I would have but I am stuck with stupid. This gives you an insight to what you are dealing with.
If someone has a good migration tool away from powerbuilder they will make lot of money.
I've thought about this too however there really isn't an easy migration from PB for the very reason we love it so much, the datawindow. I had an idea about how to simulate the datawindow but it would be a lot of work, maybe a good open-source shared project but then what would be the motivation for developers working on a temporary migration tool?
Hopefully SAP responds to the petition Bruce created but I won't hold my breath. 🙂
Sue, all of us know you from your years of advocating for Powerbuilder. Our frustration and the beligerance of some is not directed at you. We know you don't steer the ship.
Two years have gone by yet the computing world has changed IMMENSELY...all while Powerbuilder has sat there collecting dust. Mind you this is all occurring after years of Sybase "missing the ball" and failing to deliver the innovations needed to keep Powerbuilder current. Still, there's a HUGE difference. Sybase made the investment, communicated with customers and kept the product moving in the market. SAP "buried it" in the merger, occassionally mentioning it in a footnote before burying it again.
Look at the following post about ASE and where it fit into the SAP world. ( http://scn.sap.com/community/database/blog/2013/01/15/why-did-sap-buy-sybase )
If many feel ASE has been subjugated to step-child status, what does that make Powerbuilder?
One skill possessed by good managers is the ability to make educated decisions and move on from them...not dwell on them forever. I wish SAP executive management would decide whether Powerbuilder has a viable value in SAP's product portfolio SOON. If it does have a value, innovate it and get the next version out to market ASAP. If not, sell it or open source it while it still commands a value. Powerbuilder may not command a hefty value to SAP but it does to thousands of companies that have invested millions in mission-critical software. The costs to these companies and the risks related to having Powerbuilder wither is astronomical.
From: Powerbuilder Community
To: SAP Executive Management
Re: Powerbuilder
Do something! Inaction is death in the technology arena where 2+ years of the status-quo seems like an eternity. Innovate it. Open source it. Sell it. Just do something to keep thousands of companies from having the rug pulled out from underneath them. We believed SAP would be a better partner than Sybase. Please don't prove us wrong.
Sue,
I'm sorry, but telling us to continue to wait is not an "update". The loyal and passionate PB community deserve better. Please give us real UPDATES real OFTEN. If the updates are good then great. If they're not no worries, we've got our big boy pants on.
Thanks,
Mark
I sent an email to PBDJ about not receiving any magazines since March. I just got the response - "Please note at this time we have suspended print publication for PowerBuilder Developer’s Journal". No wonder I haven't received them in 4 months! So...someone at Sys-Con knows more than SAP knows?
Chris Craft
So they stopped mailing the printed version. What about the digital publication? I haven't received a copy of it either. Since Bruce is the editor maybe he can shed some light on it.
Unfortunately, they became as uncommunicative with me as they did with you. I didn't find out until July myself, and only when I started nagging them about articles I had submitted and had never seen published.
They did indicate that it was the 'print' version that was on hold. However, they gave me permission to submit the articles they hadn't published to other journals (e.g., ISUG-TECH) so I infer that means the digital edition is on hold as well.
I also asked about the web site. They said they are working on getting it straightened out, because all of the *.sys-con.com sites (including pbdj.sys-con.com) look like a mixture of posts from all the different sites. They said they were working on it, but they've been working on it since they switched hosting providers some time ago.
So I don't have much more to tell you than you already know. They did tell me to refer any questions directly to them.
Thanks as always for the update Bruce. I cancelled my subscription to ISUG-TECH a few years back mainly because the PB content was a repeat of what was in the PBDJ.Assuming PBDJ is gone I guess that's one less learning avenue. Is there a restriction agreement that anything you have published can't be published elsewhere? IE your blog or here
IMHO The sys-con site is horrendous.
The one thing I submitted to ISUG-TECH was a product review of a software automation testing tool called AscentialTest from Zeenyx. The rest I just posted on my wordpress blog (which may move to blogger soon). I imagine that the vendor may ask for reprints of that review to make available.
By the way, I started a PowerBuilder 'magazine' on Flipboard. It's free. Basically it's just a collection of links to articles (and previews of them) elsewhere on the web. I check daily for new information and 'flip' to the magazine when it becomes available.
You don't have to have Flipboard on a mobile device to view it. You can see it on a desktop as well here. http://flip.it/YAY1y
Flipboard is pretty cool. I don't have an Android or iPhone and I don't use Facebook so I guess I can't subscribe. I can however flip through your pages (I see 4). I'm guessing I can see everything you've posted there without signing in. Thanks for the links.
And I agree about the PBDJ web site. That's why I posted this on my wordpress blog:
http://brucearmstrong.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/well-i-guess-this-explains-why-the-syrians-never-hacked-the-pbdj-website/
That is funny must be why they leave my site alone too. There isn't any money in ad-placement on technical sites either, it is barely worth the hassle.
To help out Powerbuilder community, SAP can open the conversion/migration from powerscript to c# that they already have and provide source for all the .net framework dlls.
This would help any PB source to migrate to c#.