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 presenting major industry keynotes from the two industry executives with overall responsibility for both of those massive richer-web initiatives: Adobe's CTO Kevin Lynch and Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform.

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 continuing to let me test drive their new code.

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, integrating these 'competing' technologies is quite straightforward and leverages mechanisms that have been available since PowerBuilder 7.

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 control systems, because the PBL is a proprietary binary format of PowerBuilder.

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 Phase 3, Sybase added a number of .NET target types to PowerBuilder 11 and added support for calling non-visual .NET assemblies from PowerScript.

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.

PowerBuilder 11 deploys entire applications as .NET Windows Form or Web Form applications and deploys individual components as .NET Assemblies and as .NET Web Services. Version 11 consumes resources of the default .NET framework as well as resources of custom developer-defined .NET resources. Non-PowerBuilder .NET solutions can interoperate with, and take advantage of, the unparalleled productivity of PowerBuilder's data access and data manipulation capabilities. In short, PowerBuilder 11 creates as well as consumes .NET resources.

The lines between embedded and enterprise computing are blurring. As embedded devices become more and more networked, they form a perimeter at the edge of our enterprise data centers and a rich source of real-time, real-world information. These newcomers to the enterprise are coming of age. Embedded computing is moving beyond the world of hidden computing and a behind-the-scenes role in military and industrial applications.

In this article we're going to take a database and create our own mini version of an 'Amazon-like' item lookup. That is to say, any .NET or .NET-compatible client will be able to look up items in our database via the Web by simply providing a UPC. This article will show you how. To complete this project, you'll need a few items...

If that doesn't ring a bell, it's from the Reagan / Carter debates in the 1980 election cycle. Carter had presented a string of criticisms of Reagan's positions, which Reagan pretty much dismissed with that statement. Back in the heyday of client/server development, the folks at Borland released a hit piece on PowerBuilder written by a Delphi advocate. You can still find a copy of it as a series of articles on the CodeGear site.

XML is increasingly being used as the language of data exchange. An XML document based on a DTD or an XML Schema contains data that conforms to a standard structure. A number of technologies, such as ebXML (Electronic Business XML), UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration), and RDF (Resource Description Framework) are based on XML.

From Application Virtualization to Xen, a round-up of the virtualization themes & topics being discussed in NYC June 23-24, 2008 by the world-class speaker faculty at the 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held by SYS-CON Events in The Roosevelt Hotel, in midtown Manhattan.

Most applications need upgrades and corrections. If you maintain in-house development you want to be particularly sharp about this. You can't afford to lose knowledgeable people to turnover and be left with no one able to maintain mission-critical applications. So you'll have to find a solution to handle any question, evolution or crisis related to these applications. Vincenzo Cianfarani, project manager, explains how New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) deals with such issues.

Does your shipping department have these problems? Extra charges due to incorrect addresses? Difficulty tracking packages? How about duplicate entries? If your shipping department is really ancient, you may even have rolls of preprinted UPS shipping labels. Here's how you can seamlessly integrate your printing function using PowerBuilder.

The Eclipse Data Tools Platform (DTP) is now a top-level project at eclipse.org. Originally proposed by Sybase in February 2005, DTP has attracted strong community support and is currently managed by a committee comprised of Sybase, IBM and Actuate. It is an open source initiative designed to provide solutions in the data framework and tooling domains.

Novalys is holding its 8th annual PowerBuilder Worldwide Survey. This survey is a great feedback mechanism for the entire PowerBuilder community. You'll see how the thousands of responses received in 2007 clearly demonstrate that PowerBuilder projects are increasingly embracing Microsoft technology.

Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens, Citrix CTO Simon Crosby, Egenera CTO Pete Manca, Allen Stewart, Group Manager, Windows Virtualization at Microsoft, and Brian Duckering, Sr. Director of Products and Alliances at Symantec were the top industry executives who joined Jeremy Geelan in the 4th Floor Reuters Studio overlooking Times Square for a special SYS-CON.TV 'Virtualization Power Panel' recorded on June 22, 2008, the day before the opening of SYS-CON's 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo - which was held 23-24 June 2008 in New York City.

Sybase announced that AJAX development capabilities and further Microsoft .NET enhancements have been added to the latest version of Sybase PowerBuilder 11, the premier 4GL rapid application development (RAD) tool. PowerBuilder 11.2 represents another milestone in the PowerBuilder roadmap for delivering .NET interoperability and incorporates new features such as AJAX functionality for WebForms, which enables richer, more interactive data-driven application development.

Last week I posted a screen shot of the new 3D Rendering capabilities being added to some of the 3D graphs in PowerBuilder 11.5. It was met with mixed reviews on the PowerBuilder Futures newsgroup (forums.sybase.com) so I went back to the drawing board to see what I could come up with. Apparently there are quite a few configuration settings one can set programmatically to render better looking graphs.

BluePhoenix announced that it has expanded its collaboration with Microsoft on legacy modernization projects. The collaboration provides customers moving their applications or databases to .NET-based environments the best in both modernization services and technical support. BluePhoenix enables organizations to modernize their legacy data stores such as ADABAS, IDMS, IMS and VSAM to SQL Server, and from application languages such as COBOL, Natural, RPG and PowerBuilder to .NET.

Sybase has released the production version of its flagship .NET development tool - PowerBuilder version 11.2. This latest release of its premier IDE for RAD includes not only standard fixes but also a good list of new features. Here is the 'Coles Notes' version of these new features.

In June of 2007, Sybase released PowerBuilder 11. PowerBuilder developers can now deploy PowerBuilder components as .NET Assemblies or as .NET Web Services. A PowerBuilder developer can now create these .NET resources so that those who develop .NET solutions can benefit from PowerBuilder and DataWindow productivity regardless of what development tool they use. PowerBuilder 11 also gives its users the ability to deploy entire applications as ASP .NET Web Forms applications (WebForm) as well as to deploy entire applications as .NET Windows Forms (WinForm) applications.

A shortcoming of PocketBuilder 1.x and 2.x has always been the difficulty in accessing Web Services. This shortcoming had always irritated us, but the limitations of the PocketPC and the size of the traditional PowerBuilder approach prevented us from providing an adequate traditional solution. We have a sample up on CodeXchange that wraps a simple API around the free 'Pocket SOAP' client, but that had its own limitations and we were never really satisfied with it.

The mouse was the original idea of Doug Engelbart who was the head of the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute. Engelbart's philosophy is best embodied, in my opinion, in the design of another device that he invented, the five-finger keyboard - with keys like a piano, used by one hand. The problem was, Engelbart's five-finger keyboard and mouse combination was very difficult to learn.

'Unlocking content to be remixed into new business value' is the driver of Web 2.0 in the enterprise, says Rod Smith, IBM VP of Emerging Internet Technologies, in this Exclusive Q&A with Jeremy Geelan on the occasion of IBM's release of a new technology created by IBM researchers, codenamed 'SMash' - short for Secure Mashup.

Here is a question that I have been pondering on and off for quite a while: Why do 'cool kids' choose Ruby or PHP to build websites instead of Java? I have to admit that I do not have an answer. Why do I even care? Because I am a Java developer. Like many Java developers, I get along with Java well. Not only the language itself, but the development environments (Eclipse for example), step-by-step debugging helper, wide availability of libraries and code snippets, and the readily accessible information on almost any technical question I may have on Java via Google. Last but not least, I go to JavaOne and see 10,000 people that talk and walk just like me.

Sybase iAnywhere announced availability of support for Apple iPhone during the first international iPhone Developer Summit, colocated with AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2008 East. Information Anywhere now enables IT organizations to provide secure delivery of Lotus Domino and Microsoft Exchange enterprise email to iPhone users, in addition to a broad range of other mobile devices. Sybase iAnywhere?s unique approach to providing enterprise email support for the iPhone reduces potential security concerns while still providing a rich user experience utilizing native iPhone applications.

A sign of a vibrant developer community is the active blogosphere that surrounds a technology. Here's a more or less random selection of what's being talked about this month in the PowerBuilder community's blogs. Support for the Data Pipeline in PowerBuilder .NET Windows Forms Targets - by Dave Fish.

The release-defining feature of PowerBuilder 11 is its ability to deploy existing applications as .NET Windows Forms and Web Forms applications and components of business logic, namely custom-class user objects (NVOs), as .NET assemblies and Web Services. Although PowerBuilder's adoption of the .NET Framework represents a great leap forward for application developers, the implications of converting a desktop, client/server application to an ASP.NET Web application are significant.

This session will provide attendees with an overview of the iPhone SDK, including discussion of the App Store, Apple's planned distribution channel for SDK applications. Keep in mind that the contents of the SDK and experiences while using it are covered under NDA, so be prepared for me to talk in generics and leave out specific details that might be covered by the NDA. I am planning on providing a quick introduction to Objective-C for those attendees who may have never seen it and might be worried that it will be difficult to code in (it isn't!).

Application development and maintenance require frequent iterations between design time and runtime. This process is necessarily time-consuming, imprecise, and somewhat frustrating. True, this is a characteristic of RAD environments...but isn't there a better way? Runtime-driven development represents a step in the right direction. This article talks about Enable Runtime Explorer (Rex) and shows how a new development cycle can benefit the daily activities of PowerBuilder developers.

I received an e-mail from a loyal reader recently complaining that the magazine was no longer 'primarily about PowerBuilder.' The charge is actually true and, despite the title of this column, is not particularly new. In fact, we had an editorial eight years ago explaining part of that shift (http://pbdj.sys-co n.com/read/42184.htm). That shift has continued, and this editorial will explain some of the reasons for that.

For the past ten years application developers have been stuck with only two desktop client choices. Traditionally, they can choose either a very thin Web-client technology implemented in HTML and CSS, or a very heavyweight thick client experience implemented using traditional client/server (C/S) technologies (e.g. Java Swing, MFC). It wasn't until the introduction of RIA technologies (e.g. AJAX, Adobe Flex, Curl, and Silverlight) and widget engines (e.g. Yahoo! Widgets and Google Gadgets) that we were given more options.

A sign of a vibrant developer community is the active blogosphere that surrounds a technology. Here's a more or less random selection of what's being talked about this month in the PowerBuilder community's blogs. Specifying Null Values as Retrieval Arguments in the DataWindow Painter - by Dave Fish...Some of you have been asking for this enhancement for a long time now.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) was founded in 1987 by David Packard. It's located in Moss Landing, California, where its three research ships and two remotely operated vehicles are berthed, giving them immediate access to Monterey Bay. MBARI also operates several autonomous underwater vehicles and maintains moorings offshore, equipped with ocean-monitoring instruments, as well as two moorings in the equatorial Pacific that are part of the NOAA Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) array.

With the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft is introducing a new document format named 'XML Paper Specification' or XPS. Microsoft describes XPS as follows: 'The XML Paper Specification (XPS) describes the format of a new general-purpose document made available by Microsoft to facilitate the easy exchange of documents between applications, platforms and hardware systems...

One of the biggest complaints I hear about PowerBuilder is how the applications developed with it end up looking old and outdated. PowerBuilder allows developers to create complicated, robust, and efficient business applications. What it doesn't do is offer an effective presentation. Sometimes lackluster presentation can hurt an application's marketability. Unfortunate as it is, the look of the application is what gives users their first impression. An old-looking application just won't impress.

I began my career at RCA Aerospace and Defense in 1983 and worked at MITRE Corp., BAE Systems, and the State of NH. I worked in the defense field performing software configuration management (SCM) and release engineering activities from 1983-1996. In July of 1996, I began working for the State of NH, Department of Health and Human Services, performing the software configuration management role. I am the administrator of AllFusion Harvest.

My seven-year-old daughter thinks that there is a knowledge genie that her teacher 'Googles' for answers. While cute, the anecdote also exemplifies how much Google's obsession with simplicity has helped build brand awareness, making their name literally synonymous with search. I can foresee generations X and Y being followed by generation S - one that will rely on search to accomplish almost any task.

At EMI Music Germany, decision makers use detailed business intelligence (BI) analytics to control all sales and marketing activities for new music titles, and to monitor sales success and profitability in real time. To monitor its sales development continuously and respond rapidly whenever necessary, the company analyzes approximately 50,000 sales transactions from five different countries on a daily basis.