![\"blogpic4-300x193\"](\"http:\/\/127.0.0.60\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/blogpic4-300x193-300x193.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
2013 in Review<\/p>\n
We are coming off an exciting year and bouncing into the new year of
\n2014. It\u2019s a good time to look back and see all that we have done and
\nwhere our ventures have taken us this year.<\/p>\n
First up was our attendance at RPG Summit in Atlanta in March. Susan
\nGantner and the System i Developer group always organize a great conference
\nfor both attendees and vendors and this was no exception. While at
\nleast 50% of attendees already have our products, it\u2019s still great to
\nget out there and visit with them on their wants and needs as it
\npertains to our products or to technology in general. This show, in
\nparticular, uncovered a gem. Nic Thelen, head of our technical department,
\nspoke with a customer that really needed some way to log the \u2018before and
\nafter\u2019 shot of his team\u2019s interactive SQL statements on IBM i. He
\nbrought this idea back to our office and\u2026..<\/p>\n
Knowing there was a need, the technical team rolled out SQL Audit shortly
\nthereafter for customers to track and monitor any IBM i data touched when
\nexecuting SQL. The beauty of this is that journaling on the system does
\nNOT have to be enabled (although it can be and will still operate nicely).
\nSQL Audit will automatically journal the before and after picture of the
\ndata for tracking and reporting as needed. We\u2019ve found that it\u2019s also a
\ngreat tool for programmers to use who are just learning SQL. They can
\nexecute their SQL statements and see the results of that statement.
\nThey can tweak it, if they have to and play with it to understand how
\nthe data is changed.<\/p>\n
So off we rolled to the Spring COMMON in Austin, Texas. SQL Audit was
\nannounced to a warm audience. Right across the aisle in our vendor
\nshowcase we spotted our banner ad for the new product on Penton\u2019s
\ndisplay. While attendance seemed a little light, we had the opportunity
\nto have in-depth discussions with many of our customers and potential
\ncustomers, as well as ISV\u2019s like ourselves. We spoke with a lot of
\nattendees who had many disparate systems in-house and their need to be
\nable to talk to them from the IBM i. This explains the uptick we have
\nseen throughout the year with our RDB Connect product. RDB Connect offers the
\ncustomer the APIs to communicate and access data on platforms other than
\nIBM i (MS Sequel Server, for example). This product has filled the void
\nfor these customers in their technology centers and they are now sharing
\ndata across platforms.<\/p>\n
Over the summer, with the threat of an end to IBM\u2019s technical support
\nfor i5\/OS V5R4, we saw a lot of processor upgrades with serial number
\nchanges. We processed and emailed many new access codes and upgraded a
\nlot of standard DBU licenses to DBU LPAR licenses. This allows our
\ncustomer to access DBU on any number of partitions using one access
\ncode. They can add or remove DBU to or from partitions as they need.
\nDBU LPAR version is really the direction we see many shops moving
\ntowards. With LPAR boxes, some businesses have a development partition
\nand production partition and with DBU LPAR you can have access to your
\ndata via DBU, live on both partitions. This simplifies our customers
\n(especially systems administrators) lives!<\/p>\n
We also need to note that we celebrated the IBM i\u2019s 25th birthday! While
\nwe celebrated with IBM, we also were reminded of our longevity. We just
\nhit our 30th birthday in 2011. DBU was actually alive and running on
\nthe System 38 at quite a few companies even before IBM rolled out the
\nAS\/400 in 1987! It\u2019s really amazing to see the longevity and evolution
\nof this box and our software\u2026..attesting to the quality of these products!<\/p>\n
In the Fall, we attended both the COMMON in St Louis and RPG Summit in
\nMinneapolis. It\u2019s always nice to get back to the Midwest. We saw a lot
\nof familiar faces. It seemed quite a number of programmers that we knew
\nat one business, moved to another business. Sometimes the business they
\nmoved to did not have our database utility, but \u2018our\u2019 programmers
\ndemanded it! We have a lot of new businesses this year which are
\nfirst-time, happy owners of DBU!<\/p>\n
Overall 2013 was a good year of business for ProData. We have a lot of
\n\u2018buns in the oven\u2019 as it pertains to the web, mobile applications,
\nRational Developer for i, optimization of modifications in the operating
\nsystem\u2026.and the list goes on. We will implement our NEW look for our
\nwebsite the first of the year and enhancements to our portals and
\ncommunications throughout the year. We look forward to even more
\nexcitement in 2014!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"