2002 was a very special year for the whole world, for Latin America -particularly the Southern Cone- and consequently for our company. It has been a hard year that has required much work, effort and sacrifice, but has also yielded important achievements.
We have reached 2003 after having walked a long way, and we are even more convinced of the validity of our paradigm: knowledge is and will always be valuable, independent of the technologies used.
Our clients have nothing to worry about; using GeneXus they have the freedom to choose their platform, change it whenever they think it is appropriate and even combine several platforms in one application.
Lately, the fact that multiple applications (some of them developed ten years ago or even earlier) have been easily migrated to new platforms that were unconceivable when these applications were developed (Java and .NET) ratifies this principle.
A particularly outstanding example has been the successful migration from centralized architectures and text screens to Java in BANTOTAL multiple-tier and multi-server architecture in the Neuquen's Bank.
We have also launched new products to provide services to a new public: GeneXus Query for end users; GXPortal, to significantly simplify the development and maintenance of portals in the Internet and GXFlow to help us face complex applications that need a WorkFlow (and are increasing in number). In addition, GXplorer, our Data Warehouse and OLAP product, has been made more powerful.
Our vision is that in the next years, the market will be basically divided into Java and .NET platforms, and we will continue improving our generators for both of them to maximize their features and efficiency and make the platform change or the use of multi-platform applications even easier.
We want to be closer to our customers, and this does not imply the substitution of our distributors, but their consolidation with the support that we increasingly provide to these customers.
Bearing this in mind, this year we have added a second branch in Mexico city (ARTech of Mexico), to the traditional one located in Chicago, USA (GeneXus, Inc.). After overcoming the initial logical problems, the results have been excellent, firstly because customers have showed the highest level of satisfaction and secondly because of its success in the business area.
Following the Mexican experience and learning from it in a constant pursuit of improvement, we are inaugurating our new branch in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, (ARTech do Brazil) at the beginning of 2003.
We also have been `noiselessly´ working in China for two yeas, where we have started to obtain very good results. We plan to increment our activities in this market in 2003.
Also in 2003 we plan to intensify our activities in Europe, where there are very important opportunities.
We are sure that our market is the world and the results obtained in a year full of contextual problems such as 2002 have been excellent and have certainly made us and the GeneXus community stronger. Thank you all for your confidence and for your work, and congratulations for your success!
But, most importantly, today I want to wish ALL OF YOU A VERY GOOD 2003 !!!!
ARTech's President