PowerBuilder built its
success in the 1990s on the development of client/server applications.
In recent years, Sybase changed its offering to cover new needs
(development of web applications, mobiles, etc).
What success have these technologies had?
PocketBuilder
PocketBuilder has been available for several years for developing
mobile applications. 8% of survey participants said they used
it in 2007 and 21% of them thought they would use it in the future.
In fact, the percentage using PocketBuilder has been oscillating
between 8 and 10% for three years and that figure is unlikely
to change in the future. PowerBuilder has thus been a qualified
success.
Web application development
In the middle of the 1990s, Sybase launched PowerSite, a web
development tool, which was subsequently integrated into PowerBuilder.
Sybase then looked to extend PowerBuilder capabilities for web
application development.
In 2007, 11% of projects used PowerBuilder for web development:
Datawindow.NET
In the battle between Java and .NET for first place in n-tier
development, Sybase went out to support Microsoft technologies.
Sybase thus offered a version of DataWindow for .NET projects.
Like PocketBuilder, 9 to 10% of developers used this component
in the last three years (9% in 2007):
Generation of .NET code
PowerBuilder is now able to generate .NET code from a PB application.
35% of you thought this functionality was strategically important:
There is clearly greater interest in this than in other recent
PowerBuilder innovations (PocketBuilder, DW.NET, etc). Certainly,
it reflects Microsoft's efforts to see its technology adopted.
Are .NET applications going to become widespread among the PB
community? Will PowerBuilder become an IDE.NET?
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