In 2003, SilverStream was bought by Novell where Dave Litwack still resides. Kim Sheffield has left Novell and is now the principle owner of fyiReporting Software LLC. (www.fyireporting.com/company.html). He has an interesting reporting product written in C# that could be plugged into a PB application (what goes around...). Since I really respect Kim as a developer, it's interesting to see that he has abandoned Java for the .NET world. Maybe Sybase should keep an eye on key developers like Kim as they reflect current trends in the market place (my $0.02 worth). Dave is now a senior VP and general manager at Novell in charge of the Identity Driven Products Group (www.novell.com/company/bios/litwack.html). Bill Rabkin, who left Sybase for Rational, but no longer works there after the IBM merge, is now a WorldServer product evangelist with Idiom Technologies.
Episode V - PowerBuilder Strikes Back
During the PowerSoft/Sybase merge, however, the "tools innovation" direction of PowerSoft was lost (I believe due to the "Server" product mentality at the senior management level). But recently, we can see the recommitment to PowerBuilder in the form of PB 10, 11, etc., the long-term "blueprint" for PB 12.0, the downturn of Java (new statistics for the last two years stated that 60% of all U.S. companies that started a Java project last year canned it), introduction of the PocketBuilder product to address the Windows CE (Pocket PC) direction, etc.
Interestingly enough the PocketBuilder product development is headed up by Reed Shilts (a long time PowerBuilder guru) and John Griffin - from the original Cullinet days and a native Ottawan - still adding some great Canadian content to the PB product line. The iAnyWhere division of Sybase (old WATCOM) subsidiary here in Waterloo, Canada, is turning out some great new products lately and is still producing what I refer to as the best small to medium-sized DBMS available in the market today. Maybe this is a real key turning point to the development refocusing efforts that I have seen lately at Sybase (but that's another story).
About Chris Pollach Chris Pollach is the president of Software Tool & Die Inc. (a consulting company based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) and has been using PB since November 1989 (version 0.8). When not developing in PB, Chris enjoys fishing and martial arts.
Ahmad Ghosheh wrote: I
was a Dbase and Clipper
programmer in the 80s.
When Windows came online
and GUI application
became the new trend PB
filled this void with a
fantastic product. I was
with PB since 1.0 and
still here at 11. I never
used a development
environment I liked
better than PB and don't
expect to find one
either. The very best for
sure. No to mention you
can still make very very
good money doing PB code.
Harvey Kravis wrote:
Thanks so much for
writing this article. It
brought back wonderful
memories for me, and I
have a few corrections to
make. I think it is
worth mentioning that
PowerSoft was originally
called Computer
Solutions. The name
change took place after
the venture capitalists
decided that PowerSoft
needed to get out of the
applications business. I
was one of the 14 people
on the development team
that was sold to Dun &
Bradstreet Software. I'm
not sure where those
references to Vax came
from. We never did
anything with Vax. We
were an HP3000 shop,
hence the relationship
with HP. I was actually
in some of the original
design meetings with
Litwack, Dewan, and
Sheffield, but when they
realized I knew nothing
about Windows I got
kicked out. Oh what
could have been. Anyway,
I'm still using PB today,
an...
Gopi Nathan wrote:
Powerbuilder history has
some date errors.
Cullinet was taken over
by CA in 1989 and not in
1986 as the article says.
Also doubtful whether
the ADS/PC prototype was
made in 1985...must be
much later.
Otherwise the article was
a fantastic one!
Judah Holstein wrote: Hi
Chris!
Thanks for that
great story! I started
with PB in 1992 and we
still use it in many of
our products today.
Every time I try another
technology for GUI
development, I always
regret it, and like
Michael Corleone I get
sucked back in! :)
I didn't know that MS
was using Watcom for it's
products back in the day.
I always remember
Watcom's "claim to fame"
as being the compiler
used for the DOOM game...
I guess PowerSoft people
had a leg up on MS
people!
Perhaps with the recent
erosion of the Microsoft
market they will gain
another leg up by
providing Linux and Mac
OS/X support!
Kevin Kelly wrote: Hey
Chris, great story! I
began using PB v1.0 in
October 1992. I believe
it was one of the first
C/S projects in the
Washington DC metro area.
Microsoft was also
interested in our success
because we were using MS
SQL Server and Lan
Manager. So, they gave
me lots of pre-release
goodies (Workgroup for
Windows for one) to
ensure our success.
Funny story how I
stumbled on to
PowerBuilder. I was
working at Cable &
Wireless Communications
at the time and very
unhappy because the two
micro-systems I was
maintaining were rolled
up under the mainframe
management team. It
wasnt that fun so I
turned in my resignation.
But before I new it, I
was being summoned by a
new IT Director under the
marketing division.
Well, he convinced me to
stay and head up a client
server project,
converting a mainframe
...
SYS-CON India News Desk
wrote: I have been asked
many times by various
clients, students, and
the IT curious about
PowerBuilder: When did
Sybase develop the
product and how did it
evolve? I keep telling
this story and answering
e-mails on the subject. I
am now to the point where
I have decided that I
should have PBDJ formally
publish this story for
posterity.
SYS-CON Italy News Desk
wrote: I have been asked
many times by various
clients, students, and
the IT curious about
PowerBuilder: When did
Sybase develop the
product and how did it
evolve? I keep telling
this story and answering
e-mails on the subject. I
am now to the point where
I have decided that I
should have PBDJ formally
publish this story for
posterity.
SYS-CON Australia News
Desk wrote: I have been
asked many times by
various clients,
students, and the IT
curious about
PowerBuilder: When did
Sybase develop the
product and how did it
evolve? I keep telling
this story and answering
e-mails on the subject. I
am now to the point where
I have decided that I
should have PBDJ formally
publish this story for
posterity.
SYS-CON Germany News Desk
wrote: PowerBuilder
History - A Canadian
Perspective With An Aussi
Twist. I have been asked
many times by various
clients, students, and
the IT curious about
PowerBuilder: When did
Sybase develop the
product and how did it
evolve? I keep telling
this story and answering
e-mails on the subject. I
am now to the point where
I have decided that I
should have PBDJ formally
publish this story for
posterity.
PBDJ News Desk wrote:
PowerBuilder History - A
Canadian Perspective With
An Aussi Twist. I have
been asked many times by
various clients,
students, and the IT
curious about
PowerBuilder: When did
Sybase develop the
product and how did it
evolve? I keep telling
this story and answering
e-mails on the subject. I
am now to the point where
I have decided that I
should have PBDJ formally
publish this story for
posterity.
PBDJ News Desk wrote:
PowerBuilder History - A
Canadian Perspective With
An Aussi Twist. I have
been asked many times by
various clients,
students, and the IT
curious about
PowerBuilder: When did
Sybase develop the
product and how did it
evolve? I keep telling
this story and answering
e-mails on the subject. I
am now to the point where
I have decided that I
should have PBDJ formally
publish this story for
posterity.
Mike Collins wrote: PB
was a great experience in
my career. I was
introduced to PB after a
large Knowledgeware
project where we faced
porting the project to
MicroFocus Cobol or PB3.
At the time PB was the
on-ramp to Windows
programming for thousands
of Cobol\CICS mainframe
developers. Everything
was about Client-Server
in the early 90's.
I'll always remember the
1996 Orlando Conference.
I think 5000 attended,
sessions were packed to
the back wall. PFC was
the talk of the
community.
Steve Benfield wrote:
Chris--thank you so much
for this walk down memory
lane. PowerBuilder was
very good to me and I
loved using it and being
involved in it. I was the
first editor-in-chief of
the PBDJ and it was a
wild and crazy time back
in the early 90s at PB
shot out like a rocket.
Because of PB I was able
to travel the world
teaching and consulting
and I have fond memories
of the whole PB
community. The DataWindow
still rocks.
After PB I moved to
SilverStream and
eventually worked for
Dave Litwack as CTO. He
is truly an app dev
visionary and has a real
feel for getting "real
apps" built vs. theory.
As for Kim, he's doing
what he loves and he's
having a great time.
Thanks again for sharing!
--Steve Benfield
Yakov Fain wrote: Can you
please provide a
reference to the research
that "stated that 60% of
all U.S. companies that
started a Java project
last year canned it"
Thanks
PBDJ News Desk wrote:
PowerBuilder History. I
have been asked many
times by various clients,
students, and the IT
curious about
PowerBuilder: When did
Sybase develop the
product and how did it
evolve? I keep telling
this story and answering
e-mails on the subject. I
am now to the point where
I have decided that I
should have PBDJ formally
publish this story for
posterity.
Two of the biggest
launches in Rich Internet
Application history took
place in 2007/2008 when
Adobe launched AIR 1.0 in
February '08 and
Microsoft launched
Silverlight (September
'07). At the 6th
International AJAXWorld
RIA Conference & Expo in
October SYS-CON Events is
delighted to be
Sybase has just released
the latest version of its
premier .NET development
tool in PowerBuilder
version 11.2. I am proud
to say that I haven't
missed a beta since
November 1989 (version
0.8) and that includes
PocketBuilder and
InfoMaker too. I need to
thank the people at
Sybase for co
In PowerBuilder 11.2,
.NET meets J2EE head-on
with the capability to
deploy .NET Windows Forms
and Web Forms
applications (as well as
assemblies and Web
Services) that access
Enterprise JavaBeans
(EJBs) in Sybase's own
EAServer. As you'll see
over the course of this
article, integratin
HarPB is a specialized
utility for checking
PowerBuilder source
objects in and out of
AllFusion Harvest. It
handles the special
requirements of checking
objects out to
PowerBuilder Libraries
(PBLs) and checking
objects in from PBLs.
These operations are
non-standard to most
source cont
Back in 2002, Sybase
announced their
four-phase approach
toward adding .NET
support to PowerBuilder.
Phase 1 was the
implementation of web
services in PB9 and Phase
2 was the release of
DataWindow.NET, which was
packaged with PB 10.
Phases 3 and 4 were the
more significant phases.
In P
I have been asked many
times by various clients,
students, and the IT
curious about
PowerBuilder: When did
Sybase develop the
product and how did it
evolve? I keep telling
this story and answering
e-mails on the subject. I
am now to the point where
I have decided that I
should have PBD
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.gif)
Two of the biggest
launches in Rich Internet
Application history took
place in 2007/2008 when
Adobe launched AIR 1.0 in
February '08 and
Microsoft launched
Silverlight (September
'07). At the 6th
International AJAXWorld
RIA Conference & Expo in
October SYS-CON Events is
delighted to be
Sybase has just released
the latest version of its
premier .NET development
tool in PowerBuilder
version 11.2. I am proud
to say that I haven't
missed a beta since
November 1989 (version
0.8) and that includes
PocketBuilder and
InfoMaker too. I need to
thank the people at
Sybase for co
In PowerBuilder 11.2,
.NET meets J2EE head-on
with the capability to
deploy .NET Windows Forms
and Web Forms
applications (as well as
assemblies and Web
Services) that access
Enterprise JavaBeans
(EJBs) in Sybase's own
EAServer. As you'll see
over the course of this
article, integratin
HarPB is a specialized
utility for checking
PowerBuilder source
objects in and out of
AllFusion Harvest. It
handles the special
requirements of checking
objects out to
PowerBuilder Libraries
(PBLs) and checking
objects in from PBLs.
These operations are
non-standard to most
source cont
Back in 2002, Sybase
announced their
four-phase approach
toward adding .NET
support to PowerBuilder.
Phase 1 was the
implementation of web
services in PB9 and Phase
2 was the release of
DataWindow.NET, which was
packaged with PB 10.
Phases 3 and 4 were the
more significant phases.
In P
I have been asked many
times by various clients,
students, and the IT
curious about
PowerBuilder: When did
Sybase develop the
product and how did it
evolve? I keep telling
this story and answering
e-mails on the subject. I
am now to the point where
I have decided that I
should have PBD
