Did you realize that PowerBuilder turns 25 on July 1st of this year. The product was released to Alpha in November of 1989, Beta in June of 1990, Release Candidate in February 1991 and 1st GA on July 1, 1991! This makes PB 25 years old!
FYI: All About Powerbuilder: History of Powerbuilder
Happy Birthday PowerBuilder!
Regards …. Chris
Here is a classic picture of John Strano at my Ottawa Sybase User Group meeting celebrating OSUG’s 20th birthday …
John was a BIG part of PB’s success in the Sybase era .. thanks John!
Say hi to John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jstrano
Mitchel & Dave bet it all in 1988 on PowerBuilder …
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/04/business/profile-mitchell-e-kertzman-a-company-founder-who-bet-his-ranch.html?pagewanted=all
Bill Rabkin … PowerSoft’s 1st PowerBuilder Evangelist!
My PB mentor … thanks Bill for all your years of supporting PowerBuilder at PowerSoft! 😉
Say hi to Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billrabkin
Thanks a $1M to Dave Litwack – the visionary behind PowerBuilder!
Thanks Dave for sending me my 1st copy of PB in 1989 – v0.08 Alpha! 😉
Say hi to Dave on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidlitwack
Just to make sure that I have not missed anyone .. last, but not least of the great Sybase evangelists – Dave Fish!
Thanks Dave for all your contributions to PB over your years at Sybase! 😉
BTW: Dave is a director on the ISUG-Tech BOD: ISUG-TECH : About : Board of Directors
Say hi to Dave on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidedwardfish
Who can forget Mr DataWindow … the guy that built this amazing object initially and the one who held the patent in the US Patent Office.
DW Patent: US Patent for Method for forming a reusable and modifiable database interface object Patent (Patent # 5,566,330 issued …
It was a privilege knowing Kim at Cullinet Software where the PB prototype was first built around 1986. From there, I personally knew Kim at PowerSoft for many years!
Say hi to Kim on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-sheffield-b1597a?trk=seokp-title_posts_secondary_cluster_res_author_name
That long eh! Started with PB1.0A hand delivered by Klaus Petrat of PowerSoft Australia on diskette. We were only the second or third Australian customer. Time flies.
Shipped with Gupta SQLBase. My favourite error message: “Not enough not nulls”
Very “Kool” Lars! 😎
More trivia for you …
1st customer – Royal Australian Air force.
2nd customer – Microsoft (MS University Registration)
Powersoft’s main PB R&D $ investor – DEC
=>DEC is the reason PB has Octal … “~o371” = ASCII character with octal value 371
(because the VAX’s were base 8 machines) 😉
BTW: The PB v1.0A was known as the Canadian release …. 1.0 EH (pronounced “A”) !
TYPE OF EH
SAMPLE SENTENCE
Nice day, eh?
It goes over here, eh?
Open the window, eh?
Think about it, eh?
What a game, eh?
What are they trying to do, eh?
Eh? What did you say?
Thanks, eh?
I know, eh?
You’re a real snob, eh?
You took the last piece, eh?
This guy is up on the 27th floor, eh? then he gets out on the ledge, eh . . .
From that point onward, I always asked Dave Litwack when the real Canadian working release was was due out … Version NNA –
The last Mr Datawindow who took over from Kim … David Avera
David’s DW chronology (very kool article) … The State of PowerBuilder's DataWindow | David Avera
Thank you David for continuing to carry the DataWindow torch for those many PB years at Sybase! 😎
PB’s master software engineer at Sybase … Reed Shilts!
Also, the originator of Pocket PB. 😎
Thank you so much Reed for advancing PB’s technology prowess while at Sybase!
(I’m still wearing the PK PB shirt you embroidered for me 😉 )
Homage: Great White North Technical Evangelist: Homage
Say hi to Reed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bigreed
I love PowerBuilder 😘
More history & trivia
Powersoft Computer Services is 30 years old on 1st August this year. I have always maintained that we are “The Powersoft” he he. 😆
I remember well when Powersoft (US) first brought PB to the UK. They ran a marketing campaign in the press and did not put their phone number in the adverts! Someone was quite clueless there. 😉
Our phones started falling off the walls as people looked up the phone number for Powersoft and found us….. we had to get 3 people to answer the phones, it was costing us a fortune. We booked a meeting with people from Powersoft (US) and when we gave them our marketing collateral with the strap-line “Total Solution from Powersoft” their faces hit the floor, as we explained that we were established before them. 🙂
The phones never stopped ringing so we became a distributor in the UK. We started developing with PB version 5 as it was then. I think we evaluated PB4.PB was one of many products that I evaluated before developing “Total Solution Travel” or flagship product.
Powersoft (US) started putting their phone number on adverts so our phones went back to normal.
We danced around each other for a while over the name and then Powersoft (US) was bought by Sybase and the name clash went away… We have developed and supported PB applications ever since…. and the rest is history.
A large portion of our business has come from PB, all our products are developed using PB we love it and our business has been heavily influenced by this great product!
Long may it continue… 3 cheers for PB! 😘
David Peace
Technical Director
Powersoft Computer Services Ltd.
Hi David;
Thank you so much for sharing that great story! 🙂
Hmmm .. the PB force is strong with this one! 😉
Regards … Chris
Happy Birthday PowerBuilder, may you finally be looked after!
I was living in Vancouver, Canada many, many years ago and I remember the PowerBuilder surge well. I switched from COBOL to PowerBuilder, and it took me quite a while to get my head around object-oriented programming. At one point I even managed to have my COBOL application call functions from PowerBuilder!
I met many of the above evangelists and experts and I am very grateful to them for all the help they gave over the years to help us keep productive with PowerBuilder.
Nice to wish PowerBuilder a very Happy Birthday. And many more years to come. I hope things will be carried forward.
Chris, Dave, John and other Powersoft, Sybase, SAP and Now appeon (…) lover’s / Bread winners on PB I have met you guys in the presentations and Techwaves. feeling very happy to type this comments.
Started PB from 1996 ( from v3…) and still continuing. Seen so many changes in the Corporate development strategies of either keeping old PB application or replacing it with other apps…Whatever may be the case I always loved using PB and never will stop…
Being a computer science engineer always appreciated the product and it capabilities in RAD database development. Most of the time I was not able to sell project / product to the management and sometimes did…whatever the case always loved it.
Happy Birthday PB and many more to come. 🙂
Ranjith Singh Lakshman
Software Engineer ( For Ever)
Singh Technologies LLC
Chris, many thanks to you and others for all those years of support through the forums. I know you personally have helped me so many times and I am to forever PB indebted to you ;<0) 🙂
Thanks Da! 🙂