I remember the first time I saw Mitchell Kertzman; it was at the first annual International Users Convention. I heaped praise on PowerBuilder, then issued him a stern warning. I told him that I was a great fan of PowerBuilder, but the moment it lost its edge I would jump ship.

It's been a wonderful 10-year ride; however, I'm convinced PowerBuilder will no longer be the absolute leader in the IS industry and being a PowerBuilder programmer won't be enough. So where do we go from here?

Let's look at the IS industry. Most large companies have experienced PowerBuilder programmers they'll want to leverage. They also have C++, Visual Basic and an increasing number of Java programmers. In the typical IS department these little teams are scattered about, each doing its own thing.

Once a product comes along that allows these programmers to work together on the same applications, IS will gobble it up like candy.

Guess what? That product is here and it's mature - it's Enterprise Application Server. With EAServer programmers can produce and use components that can be called from any of those languages. For the first time in the history of our industry (brief though it may be), the language wars can be forgotten and everyone can work together on the same products.

At the moment there's a fly in the ointment. EAServer is not the leader in application servers, but I don't let that bother me very much. Application servers haven't been on the scene long. Although there are significant competitors to EAServer, they don't offer the same flexibility. I sincerely believe EAServer will come out on top.

Put yourself in the position of a director of an IS department. On the one hand you have everyone proclaiming the virtues of Java. You realize this means you'll have to retrain a significant part of your staff or hire others. Neither option will do your budget any good. On the other hand you have EAServer, which will allow your programmers to work in their own familiar languages with minimal retraining. Should you decide to move to Java, EAServer supports that as well.

Go one way and you have significant training and downtime while your programmers break the learning curve; go another way and you have minimal training and almost immediate productivity. If Sybase emphasizes this in their marketing, I don't see how they can lose.

Speaking of Sybase marketing, have you noticed the Whistle Stop tour? Sybase was giving away a developer's version of EAServer to every developer that attended the seminar. That's right, they were giving it away. What's the catch? There was no catch. It was actually a sound investment. The more familiar programmers are with EAServer, the more they'll encourage their managers to move in that direction and increase the talent pool. A large, readily available talent pool is a strong draw for managers. One needn't look any further than the success of Visual Basic as evidence of that.

The implications are obvious. I can't rely exclusively on PowerBuilder any- more. From now on I'm a PowerBuilder/PowerJ programmer. I'll willingly join the ranks of Java programmers out there. With the combination of the two languages, my market value can only be enhanced. Once the industry realizes what I, and others like me, have to offer, there'll be no limit to where we can go.

One of my early mentors in programming, Alex Robinson of Tranzoa Software, once told me, "All things being equal, everything is the same." Well, Alex, the opposite is also true - "When all things change, nothing is the same." This is what we see now. We'll certainly see some confusion and flux in the months to come as industries try the different servers, but this will end.

When it does, wouldn't you like to be the one with the right skills?

So, join me in this new learning experience. Go ahead and fire up PowerJ. Don't let your PowerBuilder skills atrophy, though - you're going to need them. As Charles Darwin once said, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change."