Just out of curiosity ;
What do you feel are the contributing factors into why the Pro-iv market has become so dead ?
Is it firstly that more companies are moving away from Pro-iv because of the licensing costs, compared to other options.
Or that Pro-iv people are less inclined to move around now for whatever reason.
Me, personally I think that both of these are factors help in creating the current situation.
What do you think ?
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#3
Ross Bevin
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Posted 19 March 2003 - 04:36 PM
I think the biggest factor is the licensing cost. I think the future survival of Pro-IV depends on it's ability to compete with mainstream application development tools. With these tools you only pay for the development environment, not run-time. Pro-IV needs to make it's money on the development side, services and add-on products. The run-time should be free.
Ross Bevin
Ross Bevin
#4
Cleve Haynes
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Posted 19 March 2003 - 04:50 PM
I can think of many reasons...
Current economic climate is such that not a lot is being invested in IT right now.
ProIV is not percieved to be "cool" like Java or similar. (Even though it takes you 10 times longer to code it in Java...
). Therefore new projects are using "new" languages rather than ProIV.
ProIV is not easy to get into. They want to know you have a dev licence before they let you be a partner to download it!!! (Unless I am missing something there.) So therefore, there will NEVER be any new user who just download it and "try it out". (Like you can with Oracle, etc, etc).
I don't think the licence costs ProIV charges companies is a problem - all software providers need to do this. However, I think they should consider letting single users at home have development licences for free (a la Oracle). This won't cost ProIV anything (as support would not be included), and will only promote its use. Once you have written a product and then sell it - then ProIV can recoup their investment through the new licences you generate.
ProIV applications are ugly - although this is starting to change a little bit with v5.5. People don't like ugly looking applications. Therefore apps written in ProIV don't sell as well as pretty windows apps...(even if they are much better...
)
Current economic climate is such that not a lot is being invested in IT right now.
ProIV is not percieved to be "cool" like Java or similar. (Even though it takes you 10 times longer to code it in Java...
). Therefore new projects are using "new" languages rather than ProIV.ProIV is not easy to get into. They want to know you have a dev licence before they let you be a partner to download it!!! (Unless I am missing something there.) So therefore, there will NEVER be any new user who just download it and "try it out". (Like you can with Oracle, etc, etc).
I don't think the licence costs ProIV charges companies is a problem - all software providers need to do this. However, I think they should consider letting single users at home have development licences for free (a la Oracle). This won't cost ProIV anything (as support would not be included), and will only promote its use. Once you have written a product and then sell it - then ProIV can recoup their investment through the new licences you generate.
ProIV applications are ugly - although this is starting to change a little bit with v5.5. People don't like ugly looking applications. Therefore apps written in ProIV don't sell as well as pretty windows apps...(even if they are much better...
)
#5
Mike Nicholson
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Posted 19 March 2003 - 05:32 PM
I also think this goes back to the development environment. People want interesting GUI environments to develop in these days and however fast it might be to knock up a system with pro-aide or Superlayer it's going to get harder and harder to sell ProIV when the company can see you developing using a terminal emulator.
It's a case of never mind the quality, feel the width !
Rob - get a move on with the function developer and maybe we can persuade companies it's actually a windows app then.
Cheers
Mike
(Note the deliberate avoidance of the acronym V.I.P. in this mail, oh, wait...damn!)
It's a case of never mind the quality, feel the width !
Rob - get a move on with the function developer and maybe we can persuade companies it's actually a windows app then.
Cheers
Mike
(Note the deliberate avoidance of the acronym V.I.P. in this mail, oh, wait...damn!)
#6
Bob Filipiak
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Posted 20 March 2003 - 01:35 PM
I tend to agree, the run time licensing costs can be a negative factor. One post suggested that single developers be allowed a "free" license to develop; while I do not think that PRO-IV will ever do that, they should consider a reduced fee. My company inherited a (green screen) PRO-IV installation that dates back to the 1980's (running on Unix). The total development costs to translate this installation into something current can not be justified considering that we are about 1/3 the company we were back then. replacement software from off the shelf is a better (financially based) decision.
Then there is the steep (in my case a 89 degree) learning curve. i do not have the time to essentially learn PRO over again.
What else can i say. To use PRO you have to have the resources; and a small entity just does not have them.
Then there is the steep (in my case a 89 degree) learning curve. i do not have the time to essentially learn PRO over again.
What else can i say. To use PRO you have to have the resources; and a small entity just does not have them.
#7
Guest_An ex PRO-IV user_*
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Posted 20 March 2003 - 06:33 PM
Companies now seek open solutions but PRO-IV is highly proprietary.
Companies set technology strategies (like. "go Java") that rule out PRO-IV.
PRO-IV feels like obsolescent technology (although it will still be with us for a long time).
There have been no major new PRO-IV apps created for several years.
The actual PRO-IV development environments and versions in use vary widely.
PRO-IV on its own cannot implement large-scale Web applications.
The GUI is pretty much Microsoft-specfic but can't compete with VB / DevStudio.
The full Oracle toolset for unrestricted use can be had for the price of a PRO-IV dev license.
People are afraid PRO-IV costs will continue to rise (market not growing).
Fundamental limitations (like workspace) never seem likely to be fixed.
PRO-IV has gained no real O-O features or integration.
MDIS/Northgate/PRO-IV has already been close to the edge once financially.
Basically I guess a lot of people think they can see the writing on the wall.
Companies set technology strategies (like. "go Java") that rule out PRO-IV.
PRO-IV feels like obsolescent technology (although it will still be with us for a long time).
There have been no major new PRO-IV apps created for several years.
The actual PRO-IV development environments and versions in use vary widely.
PRO-IV on its own cannot implement large-scale Web applications.
The GUI is pretty much Microsoft-specfic but can't compete with VB / DevStudio.
The full Oracle toolset for unrestricted use can be had for the price of a PRO-IV dev license.
People are afraid PRO-IV costs will continue to rise (market not growing).
Fundamental limitations (like workspace) never seem likely to be fixed.
PRO-IV has gained no real O-O features or integration.
MDIS/Northgate/PRO-IV has already been close to the edge once financially.
Basically I guess a lot of people think they can see the writing on the wall.
#11
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Posted 25 March 2003 - 09:03 PM
The Pro-iv language is not a development environment of choice, and it is very hard to see how PRO-IV the company can keep up the pace with development tools offered by the likes of Oracle and Microsoft.
I have just been on an oracle course for Jdeveloper, and was amazed on how quick one can create front and backend applications using this tool set. Any prospective customer of Jdeveloper needs only consider the cost of the development tool without any worries of how much it will cost to deploy the application.
Also resource for PRO-IV development is in comparison more expensive than main stream languages, more so if you hire people from the Indian subcontinent/ eastern block countries for languages such as Java/forms/c++
I liked developing in pro-iv but many companies are looking at reducing IT costs in today’s climate, and I think any costs such as Pro-iv licensing will be looked at strongly by the FD/IT Managers of organisations.
I think the writing is on the wall....
I have just been on an oracle course for Jdeveloper, and was amazed on how quick one can create front and backend applications using this tool set. Any prospective customer of Jdeveloper needs only consider the cost of the development tool without any worries of how much it will cost to deploy the application.
Also resource for PRO-IV development is in comparison more expensive than main stream languages, more so if you hire people from the Indian subcontinent/ eastern block countries for languages such as Java/forms/c++
I liked developing in pro-iv but many companies are looking at reducing IT costs in today’s climate, and I think any costs such as Pro-iv licensing will be looked at strongly by the FD/IT Managers of organisations.
I think the writing is on the wall....
#13
DARREN
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Posted 13 May 2003 - 12:09 AM
To answer Bob's point, PROIV are about to release a free "single developer" version targeted at the Windows and Lynux base and complement it with an aggressive marketing campaign (cd's on magazines etc)
Things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler
#15
Cleve Haynes
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Posted 13 May 2003 - 07:59 PM
Darren
This sounds like a positive step.
To accompany this, is ProIV considering some introductory documentation for beginners? I.e A step by step tutorial that teaches a ProIV novice some basics like creating a file, writing a screen, update, etc?
Someone who decides to "try it out" from a magazine CD would probably give up pretty quickly without this kind of help, given the non-intuitive nature of ProIV.
This sounds like a positive step.
To accompany this, is ProIV considering some introductory documentation for beginners? I.e A step by step tutorial that teaches a ProIV novice some basics like creating a file, writing a screen, update, etc?
Someone who decides to "try it out" from a magazine CD would probably give up pretty quickly without this kind of help, given the non-intuitive nature of ProIV.
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