OpenEdge Sparks Discussion at #PRGS14

Now that we’ve a we’ve had some time to recuperate after Exchange 2014, I’d like to reflect on some of the conversations and experiences I had at the event. First of all, the Hilton Orlando was a blast – from the food to the parties to the sessions – everything went as smoothly as possible!

We kicked things off on Monday, October 6^th with the Partner+ Business Forum during which keynote speaker Todd Hewlin spoke about the need to think about staying relevant and keeping ahead of new competitors. Sometimes it’s good to step back from day-to-day efforts and sit back and think about what we should be doing to make sure the business continues to grow and innovate. Feedback from his session was very positive.

Over the next few days, during the general sessions, we heard keynotes from Progress CEO Phil Pead, Jerry Rulli (new OpenEdge Business Unit President) and CTO John Goodson, among others. Some of the attendees I spoke with after the sessions remarked that the presentations made them step back and think about their business and what they are doing to stay ahead of the competition. It’s critical to keep up with changing times! I also heard that it was nice to see that Progress is partnering with large vendors like HP for their cloud infrastructure – especially when it comes to the need for more security or privacy addressed.

Overall, OpenEdge customers were happy to see the way that their peers were using our technology to change the world everyday – it made them feel good to be part of the Progress community. Specifically, there was a lot of interest around all of the OpenEdge technical breakout sessions. The breadth of material was so extensive that some of the people were spilling out of the rooms and into the hallways!

During the event, we also had the pleasure of announcing our new Pacific Application Server for OpenEdge, which provides an enterprise-class web/application server that simplifies the task of creating, deploying and operating business applications. Not only were attendees thrilled about the solution, but many of them are also planning on beginning to use it after it’s available.

Did you attend Progress Exchange? Let us know your favorite part at @ProgressSW!