EMEA RUG update

Last weeks events went very well and whilst the I18N meeting was easy to write about, I’ve only just managed to find a few minutes to get some words down about the RUG. To say that the RUG caused a lot of interest in version 9.1, would be understatement.

The theme of the RUG was primarily OpenInsight version 9.x and, as usual, Mike Ruane took the floor following the usual introductions from around a rather over packed room.

Mike started with an overview of how Revelation has been doing since his last visit, he spoke about some new additions to the team in the USA and how the product has changed over recent releases. Following a short break, he then ran through each of the OpenInsight tools highlighting the key enhancements, many (but not all) are highlighted on my 9.x video. Amongst those enhancements, the edit table enhancements proved to be one of the most popular from the morning session, but many people picked up some very useful tips along the way – such as intercepting drops to the debugger in deployed systems, rather than letting the system appear to hang.

Following lunch, Mike turned to some of the exciting developments that Revelation are working on for 9.2 and later. The SQL-BFS received the most interest and resulted in a number of attendees asking to be included on the forthcoming beta and also wanting to know more about upgrading to 9.1 in readiness for the bond. Following a live demonstration against the Northwind database, people realised just how easy it will be to use the bond (without changing the application) to address the “I need your application to run on a SQL database” question when talking to new prospects looking to buy their OpenInsight systems, currently only running on OpenInsight’s Linear Hash.

As the afternoon drew to a close Mike finished with an overview of O4W, being Revelation’s latest web development tool. The difference with this one is that a fully featured web application can be created online and by largely simply making choices and defining labels. For instance, a form can be created in 9 super simple steps without touching a line of code! Furthermore, menus, pop-ups, online reports, searching, validation and more can all be created in minutes without the need to touch any code. Of course, there is the facility to create and call your own programs if necessary, but the vast majority of the work is done for you if you need a quick, easy to maintain web based application.

With the SQL-BFS and O4W alone, the forthcoming 9.x and version 10.x releases are looking like providing even more tools to make developers lives easier and the inclusion of more interface enhancements will make the end-user experience far better.

Before anyone asks, timescales for 9.2 are early to mid 2010, probably around conference time, but Mike could not promise anything. However, I’m hoping to have a very early ‘pre-beta release’ of the SQL-BFS and O4W around Christmas time, so make a note to contact me in early January if you would like to see more of these two exciting OpenInsight developments.

I then closed the meeting with the usual thank you and touched very briefly on my use of social networking and my changed views on the topic. This month alone we have welcomed ten new OpenInsight WORKS subscribers into the community, two of which came to us through online social networking. I’ll be blogging on this subject over the coming weeks as I refine my use and find more time saving methods of using the key resources, but please drop me an email if you would like to learn more and find out how you can begin to gain greater exposure and credibility in your market.