PDF Format

Here we present a recap of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Nico Spence and Account Manager Laurence Guiney's trip to Chicago for the BASIS Reseller Partnership Briefing. Also included in this road scholar journal is BASIS President George Hight's TechCon Europe 2003 report where BASIS presented its latest technology and previewed the upcoming BBj® 4.0 product release.

Reseller Partnership Briefing

An enthusiastic group of Business BASIC developers attended the event. The morning session kicked off with a benefits explanation for the most recent decision to simplify the pricing of BASIS's products. The simplified product pricing removes much of the complexity associated with configuring BASIS products and reduces the opportunities for the customer to order the incorrect product.

Lively debate followed the presentation of the BASIS Partnership Program 2004. The program offers extended partnership levels with additional revenue opportunities. The new program seeks to create a greater flow of information between BASIS and the reseller channel.

BASIS values the importance of the developer community and expects that the new program will help BASIS gain a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities in developer and reseller environments.

The resellers saw a live demonstration of the Application/Services Directory on the BASIS Web site www.basis.com/appdir/index.html. BASIS provides this service to resellers and developers so that they can expose their products and services to the BASIS Web site's new 14,000 monthly visitors.

Laurence demonstrated the updated b-commerce site that enables multi-user execution within a reseller's organization. For a more detailed description and example of the b-commerce functionality, see the b-commerce article.

The afternoon session updated the resellers on the progress of the BASIS Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and a preview of BBj® 4.0 features. Nico demonstrated using the IDE as a development environment for both PRO/5® and BBj. To learn more about the recent enhancements to the BASIS IDE, see www.basis.com/advantage/mag-v7n2/speed.html. In addition, Nico demonstrated how easily a developer can move existing tokenized code to a more modern text source code repository without having to change any of the tokenized program names.

The afternoon ended on a high note with a demonstration of some of the features in the upcoming BBj 4.0 release. Developers can preview some of these features in the current shipping version, BBj 3.02, and in the nightly builds. Of particular interest was the new capability of binding data to a graphical control. This new feature boosts developer productivity substantially. For more information about databound controls, see BBj Databound Controls.

Nico and Laurence relished the one-on-one interaction with the cross section of BASIS developers, and received positive feedback from the session's attendees. BASIS scheduled similar sessions for California in November and for New York, Florida and Texas early in 2004. Keep an eye on the events section of the BASIS Web site to register for these important events www.basis.com/events/index.html.

  – By Nico Spence

Recap of TechCon Eurpoe 2003 - October 1st and 2nd in Aachen, Germany

Figure 1. Session Preparation

The conference attendees included participants from Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. TechCon Europe 2003 followed the same format introduced at TechCon in Albuquerque last May, featuring an agenda demonstrating the use of BASIS's new product features. A very talented BASIS team presented the technical sessions. Dr. Kevin King and Nico Spence presented in English, while Falk Spitzburg and Peter Scholz presented the same material in German. The conference also featured four keynotes from Gunter Schroeder of Schleupen, Jos Schrier of Audev, Nico Spence, and George Hight.

Figure 2. George Hight, Herbert Schmitz, Peter Scholz, Dr. Kevin King, Falk Spitsberg, and Nico Spence at TechCon Europe 2003 Aachen, Germany.

TechCon Europe covered the enhancements and additions made to BBj since the release of 3.02 and provided a preview of upcoming BBj 4.0 features. The BBjPrintObject was a favorite among the new features presented, engineered after receiving input from our German developers during the second quarter of 2003. The new BBj databound control also drew strong approval from the attendees.

With the Internet now being more important to business applications than ever before, the conference attendees enjoyed the demonstration of BBj applications integrated with Web services via a live connection to a Web site offering language translation and shipping tracking services.

Figure 3. Aachen Street Scene.

In addition, the demonstration of the latest version of the BASIS IDE generated considerable interest. The IDE now has the ability to compile Business BASIC source text files into tokenized files for three generations of BASIS programs from within the IDE. This means that if developers are supporting an installed base of BBx PROGRESSION/4® or PRO/5®, they can now compile tokens for those versions, as well as for BBj. The new IDE provides developers with a graphical front-end interface to CVS (Concurrent Versioning System), allowing for better source code control.

On the marketing side, the newly proposed rental pricing model received the most interest, because it gives the customer a way to eliminate the upfront capital expenditure traditionally associated with purchasing new software.

The technical prowess and enthusiasm of the conference attendees was impressive. The technical sessions were intense, but the evenings provided relaxation, good meals, and some very pleasant entertainment arranged by Herbert Schmitz, manager of BASIS Germany and host of the conference. Everyone enjoyed the Broadway songs while the party went on until 2:00 a.m. The conference attendees proved that hard work and revelry in the proper balance make for a great time.

Figure 4. Aachen Shopping Area.

Many thanks to everyone that participated in TechCon Europe 2003!

  – By George Hight