"And this is like we usually struggle with the people from
Finance (over the budget), form Purchases (to buy GeneXus) and from Human
Resources (so that they do not deduct the absence to go to the Nikko Hotel)."
Sounds familiar?
Wednesday, November 5th finally arrived and Sergio
Gazzolo, from the podium of the Constelaciones II Room, greeted the attendees
and gave a brief introduction of what the 8.0 version of GeneXus held in store
for us. That included new horizons in descriptions with objects, greater
productivity, and impressive figures in terms of other parameters from far away
countries.
After that, our host and executive expert, Mr. Pizarro,
appeared to entertain us with a dynamic talk about GeneXus' future and the added
value it provides, differentiating it from other tools. It is worth mentioning
the importance of the economic growth indicators for our country, as well as
those of ARTech Mexico with GeneXus. An impressive 100% growth, simply because
it counts on the best Humanware in systems: The GeneXus Community members, as
Gazzolo pointed out, are important evangelizers of the tool.
IBM was present with e-business, leading the new
"on-demand" concept, which was overseen by Roberto Tellez. It was an excellent
presentation that explained the future of business servers and the way in which
they work and interact with GeneXus: i-series leads an array of machines ready
for their administrative exploitation. An entertaining talk, with useful and
ingenious slides (those who did not understand English could not get it). In the
room, we all paid attention and talked about GeneXus' business partner, just
arrogance and excellence in software.
After that, there was a coffee break, where we all
exchanged "personalized business cards," (where the GeneXus logo stood out) and
shared our experiences with the new 8.0 version of GeneXus. We went back to our
"curules" (like representatives after eating tacos) because Mr. Nava, from that
company that created Windows was there. What's its name? Yes, that is the one!
Microsoft. In that slide show, he presented an introduction that would make a
great commercial about the impact Microsoft has had on our lives. And about how
much we would, or would not, have to thank Mr. Gates for his
software.
Success stories with GeneXus in the leading role would
follow. In this business world, everything seems to revolve around GeneXus and
its allies. These presentations were exceptional, well, almost all of them.
Everyone showed individual and team experiences working with this CASE tool, as
if it were a forbidden love or simply a road trip that left a mark and was very
convenient.
GeneXus caught, convinced and let itself be exploited by
companies such as Mabe, EMI Music Mexico, and Grupo Modelo, among others. It is
worth mentioning the very animated and constructivist presentation given by EMI
Music Mexico. It was a totally conceptualist vision of what can be administered
with GeneXus, a design developed by The Power of GeneXus in a very short time.
Promotional CDs were given away (good music is not given away.) of some
individuals or groups that are starting the road of commercial
pentagrams.
After coffee and cookies (that existed in abundance),
issues where terms we are familiar with were discussed, this time explained in
detail and with examples (as in our college days). Terms like GeneXus
Applications Worldwide, with concepts and objective applications; Grid
Computing, which consists in working while the other sleeps; TOC, known as the
Total Ownership Cost and what it costs all of us; IT, which appeared in almost
every slide and is a term that affects all of us directly, whether or not we are
aware of it; KB, Knowledge Base, which is the main component of our intellectual
capital (read part of our IQ expressed in Terabytes). And the terms we all know
and use, such as GeneXus Query, GXFlow, GXplorer and especially for our friend
Pizarro: the GUORKFLOU, (read Work Flow or Workflow, I hope he keeps
practicing). At any rate, that is how the time went by, as if we were flipping
through a GeneXus manual, without watching the clock.
The time arrived for our colleague Gonzalo Echague, who in
a fast, concise and technical way demonstrated the 8.0 version "online." Simply
more powerful.
But that is not how it ends, still to come were words from
the Nostradamus of the 21st Century, a visionary of the present (the future will
never come) and a great leader: Breogán Gonda, president and founder of one of
the most solid IT companies.
His lecture took on the subject "A Vision of the Future."
He analyzed the economic crisis that the whole planet suffers. He also commented
on the presence of GeneXus in it, and showed us the cold, real numbers. We only
have to look at them to think a little, or a lot, about how much we should and
have to work: The rising of China and its impact on global technology. Those
were just cold figures, like the score of a game that ends 1-0. The Humanware of
Software development is still lead by India, but China is catching up fast, and
is expected to do so by the year 2007: cheap labor, cheap quality of life. Do
the Chinese know what added value is and what it represents? Our defense against
them and their system: Our Knowledge.
Magical words, realities or taboos, ones or zeros, but
there they are. It only rests to wait for the 3rd GeneXus Meeting in Mexico and
we will, once again, share experiences and opinions.
Finally we were invited to the closing cocktail and a
raffle of computing equipment and some licenses. Should I stay or should I
leave? Well, should I take the time to go on sharing moments with people I know
and have not seen for a year? Chat? And suddenly: I am called as the winner of a
GeneXus 8.0 License! As I put these words in Word, I still do not believe it.
Thanks a lot to all of the members of ARTech Mexico, the
presenters, people from the University, GeneXus developers and administrators,
and especially to all of us?the 2003 GeneXus Community.
Comments: czaldivar@tcs.org.mx