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Here we present the travels of CTO John Schroeder, Account Managers Gale Robledo and Laurence
Guiney, as well as input from Cathy Sweet, a Sales Associate at BASIS's Canadian Distributor, Descore Inc. Cathy Sweet
talks about Descore's Spring Showcase, which took place in Montreal and Toronto in August. John describes presenting
BBj® technical briefings and BBj training. Gale discusses her attendance, along with John Schroeder and Kevin King,
at the Open Systems Reseller Conference. Laurence recaps his trip to the SCO Group's GeoForum event in Las
Vegas.
Descore's annual event that brings together our Canadian resellers and U.S. software developers can be described with
many common terms. "Tradeshow", "Demo Day", and "Showcase" are all popular titles, but none of these seem to capture
the intimate nature of the exchange that occurs between participants. Face-to-face interaction is a highly valued
commodity within the software industry. Through showcase events and training sessions, Descore Inc. has succeeded in
closing the gap between supplier, distributor, and reseller, while creating a unique opportunity for networking.
At Descore's Spring Showcase 2002, our Customers had the opportunity to speak directly with software experts from BASIS
International, J. River, and Synergetic Data Systems. The weeklong agenda featured a showcase and BBj® training session
in each of two major Canadian markets - Montreal and Toronto.
On Monday, June 17, our Customers flocked to the heart of Montreal to attend Descore's first 2002 showcase at the Delta
Centre-Ville hotel. The event was well attended, despite construction on many downtown streets. George Hight and Greg
Grisham came prepared with a projector screen and laptop to demonstrate various features of the BASIS product line.
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Descore Offices in Canada
Throughout the day, Grisham's enthusiasm was mirrored by our Customers' participation. The discussions were guided
mostly by individual requests regarding BBj 2.0 functionality and GUI applications. John Wilson represented Synergetic
Data Systems Inc. at both showcase events. The majority of our resellers are focused on providing real solutions
through BBx® and BBj by offering end users a mix of practical tools. SDSI staples - such as Unform, sdOffice and
General Report Writer, utilize BASIS technology and add functionality to many jobs. Needless to say, John's
demonstrations were of particular interest to many Customers in attendance.
Bob Brose from J. River was able to engage customers in lengthy discussions about the technical components of ICE
products. A 17-year veteran of J. River, Bob is responsible for developing their new and existing applications. Two of
our resellers from Essentus Inc., Ken Mason and Brian Gingrich, participated in the showcase demonstrations and BBj
training sessions. Essentus has offices in both Montreal and Toronto and caters to Customers in soft goods and retail
industries. Gingrich, from the Montreal division, was looking for ways to add functionality. In the future, he plans to
enhance his Customers' existing set-up and "augment what they already have with BBj."
The showcase in Montreal was followed by two full days of BBj 2.0 training, conducted by Descore Technical Specialist
Michael Rainbird. The interactive training sessions were designed for experienced BBx programmers.
Our second showcase, held on June 19, was at the Hilton Suites Hotel and Conference Center in Markham, a high-tech
community on the outskirts of Toronto. Our Customers were anxious to get started, some arriving before 9:00 am.
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Greg Grisham speaking at Descore's Spring Showcase.
Al Wong, one of our resellers from Telesis Inc., brought eight Customers with him to discover the new technological
advancements first-hand. Telesis Inc. serves the needs of Hydro facilities in Vaughn, Richmond Hill, and Markham.
Wong's main goal is to maintain the modifications of existing systems, while migrating to BBj within two years. He
enjoyed the informal showcase setting and was able to ask a variety of questions about BBj and ODBC. Fred Bukansky, a
client from Vaughn Hydro, participated in our Toronto BBj training session to learn about migrating to BBj.
The second BBj 2.0 training session concluded our agenda for the week. (This sold-out event was offered at the CDI
Institute of Toronto. In fact, several CDI educational sites across Canada use BBX in their programmer training
courses.)
We asked our Customers to provide feedback to help us determine future needs. As one of our Toronto-based VARs stated,
"The one-on-one contact with each representative allowed us to ask specific, detailed questions about their products
and how we can integrate them into our current Customer base." We expect and welcome future inquiries about BBj.
– Cathy Sweet,
Sales Associate for Descore
During the second quarter we held two BBj® training sessions with a technology briefing in between. More of our
Customers are looking down the road and questioning what they and their Customers will need over the next few years,
and BBj is giving them some solid answers. With all the language improvements, as well as the ability to run in
configurations from a single PC up to a fully distributed N-tier network with thin clients in web browsers, we are
quite certain that BBj is on the future track. Our Customers agree and are coming to classes and seminars to learn how
these new tools can work for them.
At our Chicago training session in late May, several new and experienced BBX® programmers got their first hands-on
BBj experience. Most were new to GUI programming and were surprised at how easy it was to build screens and manage
events in BBj. The "old hands," who had done GUI in Visual PRO/5®, were very impressed with the improvements that
GUI objects, particularly the grid and tree objects, made in developing graphical programs. They also applauded the
CALLBACK/PROCESS_EVENTS mechanism.
In mid-July, Greg Grisham and I went to Long Beach, CA for a technology briefing and workshop. We had a good group, and
the sessions were lively, with many questions and discussion topics from the floor. The participants saw BBj as a
solution to their Customer's needs and as a strong possibility for their own future needs. They were also impressed
with Greg's demo of the File Maintenance Utility, which allows you to quickly develop queries and file maintenance
programs, given a template or data dictionary describing the data. These participants also brought up several
discussions of client server systems, memory management in Java and BBj, and using BBj in mixed environments.
In mid-August, we followed up the technical briefing in Long Beach with a three-day BBj training session in the same
location. Participants at this training were experienced BBX programmers with little or no experience in GUI. They
learned quickly and by the end were writing simple file maintenance routines, using grids, and Java objects in their
code. Again, these students were impressed with how quickly one could develop graphical user interfaces with
ResBuilder, and use the GUI objects in BBj to manage the screens. The GUI objects took the "magic" out of creating a
GUI program, and these students were pleased with their results.
All in all, the past few months were very busy for BASIS. The rest of the year will be just as challenging, with
training in Europe in September and early November and in Dallas, TX, in mid-November. We will also conduct a technical
briefing in Dallas in mid-October. Visit www.basis.com for the latest information on classes and seminars.
– John Schroeder
In August, John Schroeder, Kevin King and I went to beautiful downtown Minneapolis to participate in the annual Open
Systems Inc. Reseller Conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Open Systems is a large BASIS Customer, with thousands of
end users throughout North America, using the Visual PRO/5® and PRO/5®-based Open Systems Accounting Software. The
conference theme, "Building Tomorrow", communicated the OSAS commitment to provide strategic solutions for the future.
As usual, Open Systems had a great turnout, with a talented group of resellers.
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John Schroeder demonstrates BBj products to visitors at the BASIS booth.
Each of the exhibitors, including BASIS, demonstrated many value-added solutions that are available now. The BASIS crew
stayed busy talking to resellers about their markets, their projections for the future and the effects of the economy.
While I met with Customers and discussed sales and products, Kevin and John held three breakout sessions on Java and
BBj. They also delivered a keynote presentation. During the keynote, Kevin addressed the pervasive use of Java in the
IT world. He also discussed the many reasons for Java's popularity, and why it is good for our Customers. Java greatly
enhances the portability BASIS has been delivering for over 17 years, including providing a robust network platform for
BBj applications.
John demonstrated how BBj® enhanced the programmer's ability to solve business problems, with powerful GUI tools,
and the ability to call BBj programs from Java and/or use Java classes in a BBj program. John and Kevin both emphasized
BASIS's commitment to the OSAS product and detailed some immediate benefits of Visual PRO/5 4.0 and the
soon-to-be-released OSAS 6.5. We worked closely with Open Systems as they developed and released their VPRO/5-based GUI
product and will support them in their move to BBj.
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Kevin King (rear of photo) delivers a lunchtime keynote presentation at the OSAS Reseller Conference.
With improved performance, simplified licensing, and new OSAS features, Open Systems reaffirmed that the company is
ready to launch new solutions today. To view the keynote presentations, visit our web site at
www.basis.com/devtools/presentations.html and click on "The Java Journey." Both are also included on the Advantage
magazine CD.
We were pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this year's Open Systems Reseller Conference. We see many
great opportunities with OSAS and are working on the plans to make them happen. Stay tuned for more cutting edge
solutions building on tomorrow!
– Gale Robledo
Labor Day brings with it a "back to" fever, as in "back to school," and "back to work" after summer vacation. Not to be
outdone, Caldera announced recently that they are going "back to" SCO, or the SCO Group, to be precise. Caldera
recently held their annual GeoForum in Las Vegas, and Greg Grisham and I attended this show. As many of you can attest,
most of the shows BASIS attends or hosts are somewhat like a family reunion. Everyone knows everyone else, and we get
together to discuss what has happened since we last met. GeoForum was a change of pace, as the attendees were made up
of three different segments: existing Customers, or those with whom we speak on an ongoing basis, those who know BASIS
but have lost touch with our technology, and those who have no idea who BASIS is and wonder "what's a BBX or BBj?" What
a thrill it is to be able to show someone the Chile Company demo for the first time!
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Caldera/SCO/GeoForum attendees visit the booths
The attendance was about 400, and those present heard the announcement that Caldera was changing its name back to the
SCO Group. SCO also renewed its commitment to support SCO Open Server and its continued progress with Linux and the
UnitedLinux initiative. This tied in very nicely with our demos (I love it when that happens), as we demonstrated GUI
Linux code, ODBC, JDBC, VPRO5, and a PRO/5 program - all running off of a single license file between a 2000 laptop and
a Linux laptop. Oh, the wonders of BBj! Will they never cease?
Opinder Bawa, SCO's Senior VP, Technology, told GeoForum attendees that about 70% of new applications are being written
in Java. It sure is nice to be part of the "in-crowd." This GeoForum was definitely a success, and we look forward to
borrowing some of these ideas and incorporating them into TechCon2003 to ensure our own conference will be equally
successful.
– Laurence Guiney
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