Thoughts on the latest PBTV webcast

[christophe_dufourmantelle]

Thanks again to all the attendees and speakers who joined yesterday’s « Latest news from the PB world » webcast.

For info, Bruce Armstrong just published a summary on his blog

What can we take away from this webcast?

The first thing is that no, Dirk Boessmann was not able to announce SAP’s plans for PowerBuilder after 12.6. The length of time taken to give us an answer is not the only problem; SAP’s lack of transparency - stricter than Sybase’s concerning preliminary announcements – has increased uncertainty among PB shops and on their past and future investments.

That being said, I see some positive points from the webinar: It’s the first time a Senior VP has spoken about PB on PBTV – from either Sybase or SAP. Taking into account the restrictions imposed by SAP, it’s not so easy. Dirk Boessmann has already made the trip to Berlin to meet with a group of eager PB developers. Maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt he would have made all of this effort if SAP didn’t intend to move forward with positive actions for PB…

Despite these restrictions, I noticed some interesting information:

• As highlighted by Bruce, Dirk has reiterated that there’s no intention to kill PB, especially silently. If such a case were to occur, SAP would communicate far in advance to give PB users enough time to migrate their applications.
• There’s no intention either to simply release a “maintenance mode”, but on the contrary, there’s a real will to evolve PB – even if no precise information was given on the nature of this nor the timing.  
• The next meet-up is at Charlotte, where Dirk Boessmann will attend. He should present a plan for PB, upon validation by the upper management of SAP.

Also, I really do find refreshing the continued involvement of the PB community. The Webcast yesterday beat all PBTV audience records, and not just during Dirk Boessmann’s part, but during almost the entirety of the webcast. Developers of PB companion tools remain very active, with a number of new products coming out this year. PowerBuilder events remain popular, and the discussion in PB forums just as lively.

Finally, I’d like to correct an oversight: we spoke about the Charlotte PowerBuilder Conference yesterday but forgot to mention the upcoming ISUG-TECH conference from March 29 until April 2 in Atlanta that includes 9 dedicated PowerBuilder sessions.