Are you a long-time PowerBuilder user who's still developing on an early version such as 5.x or 6.x? If so, now is the perfect time to move to PowerBuilder 9.0 for two reasons:

1.  You'll get the latest version of the industry's leading RAD environment with new client/server, Web, and distributed functionality.
2.  You'll be on a supported version of PowerBuilder. Engineering support for PowerBuilder 5.x and 6.x is no longer offered, and Sybase has announced the end of engineering support for all versions of PowerBuilder 7.x effective July 15, 2003.

Update to PowerBuilder 9.0
PowerBuilder Enterprise 9.0 has just been released and if you've been reading PBDJ regularly, you've already learned about many of the new features in this exciting release.

If you've always wanted to be a Web developer, with RAD JSP, you can easily build JavaServer Pages that access and consume Web services.

If you need to use XML but haven't had time to read up on it yet, or maybe you just find it tedious and time-consuming, the DataWindow's SaveAs(XML!) or PBDOM provides XML power with 4GL ease. You can do data exchange via XML without ever having to read, parse, or manipulate one word of XML.

If your company has BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, or Oracle9iAS, with PowerBuilder 9.0's EJB client functionality you can access all the business logic in these J2EE application servers. You'll be able to build new applications and access the EJB business logic they're accessing, in a fraction of the time with a better-looking and richer user interface.

If you need to integrate your application with .NET, PB's Web services capability will allow you to make your PowerBuilder application interoperate with any Web services component within the Microsoft .NET Framework, or with any other Web service.

To take advantage of the powerful new PowerBuilder Native Interface (PBNI) functionality to solve problems, free downloads and samples are available at the new Sybase CodeXchange Web site, http://CodeXchange.sybase.com.

PowerBuilder 9.0 will launch your development in new directions. Download the evaluation copy from the Sybase download site, www.sybase.com/powerbuilder, and check out these great features, as well as enhancements to Source Code Control and the new OrcaScript tool, which will speed up coding and building your applications. It's the beginning of the next generation of PowerBuilder.

Update to PowerBuilder 8.0
If you're not ready for PowerBuilder 9.0, you can update to PowerBuilder 8.0.3 instead.

When PowerBuilder 8.0 was launched in June 2001, it introduced a new development environment. Like 9.0, PB8.0 enables you to work on more than one application at a time, and allows you to access and manage your application through the new System Tree.

Do you need to bring your applications to the Web? PowerBuilder 8.0 incorporates Web functionality into the IDE with 4GL Web target programming and ASP support. And there are over 50 other productivity enhancements, all requested by our customers. New programming functionality - like Java style try-catch error handling and user-defined exceptions - is also included. This adds more power to PowerBuilder's language. In addition, there are many new PowerScript functions, wizards, and more. Download the evaluation copy from the Sybase Web site.

The latest version of PowerBuilder 8.0, version 8.0.3, was released in October 2002. It's the first version of PowerBuilder to provide support for the Windows XP operating system and includes enhancements such as improved Source Code Control and memory management, Unicode support in databases, and the PowerBuilder Resource Monitor. The PowerBuilder 8.0.3 Maintenance Release is available on the Sybase download site.

Whether you're using PowerBuilder 8 or 9, Sybase knows that either one of these releases will help speed your application development and propel you to higher levels of productivity.

• Figure 1