Alpha Software: Because writing code from scratch once is enough

November 15, 2008

Alpha Software: Because writing code from scratch once is enough
Last week we demoed the as-yet-pre-beta Alpha Five Version 10 for Tech Republic’s Justin James. Justin seemed to like what he saw. But he also brought up a constant concern he hears from developers, which is what we call the “anyone but Microsoft” problem.

What this means is developers are comfortable committing to platforms such as Microsoft’s, Sun’s, or Oracle’s, etc., because they believe — in our view, incorrectly — that these are a safe bet, because they are provided by the big guys. And that means, in developers’ minds, that they will not be making a commitment to a platform that will lock them in or abandon them.

Add to that the fact that Alpha can be viewed by developers as a “proprietary” platform, because it’s an all-in-one solution that you build, debug, and deploy in. (Forget the fact, for a moment, that all commercial platforms can be deemed proprietary.)

Fortunately, we have what we think is a rational answer to this conundrum, which we shared with Justin. It starts with this argument: We’ve been around for over two decades, and our developers have never been in a situation where they couldn’t upgrade from one version to the next, or had to write their code from scratch because we made their version obsolete.

Compare that to Microsoft, for example, which over the past few years forced its Visual Basic and Visual FoxPro developers to throw out 100 percent of their code, and rewrite their apps from scratch, in order to take advantage of a newer platform.

Microsoft isn’t the first dev tools company that’s done this. It won’t be the last. It happens again and again in our industry. In fact, we wrote a white paper on the topic to counter the flawed notion that you don’t get fired for buying Microsoft (or some other big player’s appdev platform).

The demo with Justin reminded me that it’s probably a good time to bring the white paper to the forefront again. I encourage anyone who’s concerned about Alpha being a proprietary platform to take a few minutes and review it.

Pretend to act surprised: I’m speaking at eMetrics!
Today we made the official announcement of my upcoming presentation at eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Washington, D.C. this month.

In typical Alpha fashion, I had already spilled the beans here on the blog (I just can’t help it when I get excited), but the press release was released today.

Are any of our Alpha blog readers planning on attending the conference? Feel free to use our comments section to connect with one another before you go. Hope to see you there!

Alpha Software Chairman to Speak at 2008 eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit

Richard Rabins Will Cover the Latest Techniques for Effective Database Marketing

BURLINGTON, Mass. — (BUSINESS WIRE) – Alpha Software’s Co-Chairman Richard Rabins will be showing marketers how they can strike gold by using database technology to analyze and act on their Web traffic data when he speaks at the upcoming eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Washington, D.C. Rabins and co-presenter Janet Park, an Alpha Five database developer and President of Marketing Frontiers, will share the stage when they present, “How to Discover the Faces Behind your Clicks” at 2 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 23 at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center, Alexandria, Va.

“Most organizations don’t realize that they’re sitting on a wealth of detailed customer information that, when tapped into and used intelligently, can boost sales and revenue growth,” Rabins says. “In less than 60 minutes, we’ll show attendees how they can integrate their existing Web data with easy-to-use analysis tools and reporting, which in the end, will open their eyes to the marketing power of Web analytics. They’ll learn how to clean, standardize, append, slice, and dice their Web data to deliver relevant, targeted communications to customers with the highest buying potential.”

“Most companies are focused on standard analytics reports about visits and pages without realizing how much leveraged value there is in appending that information with company names and addresses and more,” says Jim Sterne, Producer of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit and Chairman of the Web Analytics Association. “This is a great opportunity to learn how a medium sized company takes advantage of significant segmentation power.”

Since its inception in 2002, the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit has been attracting marketing managers, Web analysts, and business intelligence experts who want to learn techniques that will increase the return on their online marketing investments. The international conference series is recognized as the premier event for optimizing online marketing value.

ABOUT ALPHA SOFTWARE

Since 1982, Alpha Software has been providing developers with award-winning tools that make it easy to rapidly build robust database and business applications. Today over 1 million developers rely on Alpha Software’s flagship platform, Alpha Five, to build desktop, client-server, distributed, Web 2.0, and AJAX applications for organizations of any size—from SOHO to the Fortune 100. Every day, tens of millions of people and businesses rely on applications built in Alpha Five. With the introduction of Alpha Five Version 9 Platinum Edition in 2008, Alpha Software set new standards for speed of development, portability, reporting, and security for database applications of all stripes. The company is privately held, and based in Burlington, Mass. Alpha Software can be found on the Web at http://www.alphasoftware.com.

PRESS RESOURCES
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Kate Ritchie
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KateR@GregoryFCA.com

Alpha Five Platinum microsite
http://www.alphasoftware.com/alphafive/platinum/index.asp

Alpha Software blog
http://blog.alphasoftware.com

Alpha Software home page
http://www.alphasoftware.com

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