PowerBuilder 12 Classic is currently the most-used version among surveyers; adoption of PB12.NET was at 2% for 2013. Between 2011 and 2013, PB 11 usage declined as more developers upgraded to PB 12; however, it still makes up a quarter of the versions being used by those surveyed.
Over a third of participants are looking to migrate to a new version of PowerBuilder. This figure is down by 10% from 2011 as a number of developers have already migrated to PB 12 and are awaiting the release of PowerBuilder 15.
Almost 90% of participants envisage a long-term usage of PowerBuilder within their company; this figure is up 3% from 2011 and up 10% from 2010. The number of companies participating in this survey who no longer use PowerBuilder has stayed fairly static, with a one percent decrease from 2011.
Small and medium size projects remain the most popular among companies developing with PowerBuilder, with these making up 90% of the figures. The number of large projects using PowerBuilder has remained the same since 2011, with 7% of PB Projects using 20 or more developers.
The numbers between 2011 and 2013 remain steady for PowerBuilder developers in companies with over 20 devs. A decrease in medium sized development teams has been met with an increase in smaller teams.
There's been a positive shift in what companies will be doing with their PB projects - 10% more companies than in 2011 will be developing and maintaining their applications. This has been met by a 10% decrease in those only maintaining their existing PowerBuilder applications. Projects concentrated solely on the development of new applications remains the same as 2011 at 5%.
Since 2011, SQL Server has gained in popularity among PB developers surveyed, with a 10% increase. Oracle remains in second with a 3% increase from 2011.
Fifty five percent of developers are including stored procedures in their applications with a 1/3 including just a few. These numbers are similar to 2011.
Deploying to the web is continuing an upwards trend as more companies seek to improve application accessibility; the number of applications remaining client/server is down 4%, and the number of those who intend to web enable is up 2% from 2011. The number of those planning on/already web-enabling their applications with Appeon Web is up from 7% to 11% in 2013.
Half of participants have end-users that need to create reports by themselves, with a quarter needing to do so on a regular basis.
.NET technologies continue to dominate this category, with more companies using .NET technologies than in 2011. There has been a 6% increase in .NET webform usage, which has now overtaken Java as the most used other technology as ranked by our participants.
The feedback on PowerBuilder continues to be strong; 39% are extremely satisfied with it (9/10 or above), and 45% have a very good opinion (7,8) of PowerBuilder. Only 15% gave PB a mark of 6 or below, down from 2011s 16% and 2010s 22%.
As was the case in 2011, this year there's an increase in interest for web service integration (10% increase). Windows graphical objects have taken over .NET integration as the second most awaited improvement. Those who responded other, overwhelmingly commented on the need for mobile compatibility and HTML 5 integration.