“What do we want to talk about 20 years later? We could review what happened in these past 20 years as an introduction and make it the basis for our celebration. However, I think that the best way to celebrate the achievements of the past is to work towards our future success,” Artech President Breogán Gonda said in his closing speech at the XX Meeting.
“I’m not really inclined to dwell on these wonderful 20 years that have passed, because what's most important about those 20 years is that now they allow us to thrust ourselves into the future and the next 20 years of GeneXus with much more strength. We are positioned on a much higher launch pad and that's what we will do," he continued.
“About the past I will only say this: from the beginning we've had some clear ideas. We want to automate everything that can be automated, we want to achieve a descriptive approach in such a way that, if we correctly and rigorously describe our customers’ realities, we can later automatically generate the systems they need.”
“We have worked very hard; we have invested hundreds of man years in research to get where we are. We have succeeded in making these descriptions in terms of pure knowledge, with a complete abstraction from any technology. Therefore, descriptions that are valid today will continue to always be valid and will drive us into the future, creating a huge opportunity for our community in the next 20 years,” he said.
“We resorted to abstraction and sophistication to enable our customers to solve their problems in a simple manner. Today’s world is amid great turbulence, and some countries are benefitting the most by emerging as 'winners' in this crisis. One such example is Brazil, as well as other countries that have faced it resolutely and will overcome their problems soon. On the other hand, there are also other countries that have applied a more conservative approach and haven't actually dealt with problems, and for this reason it will be more difficult for them to find a way out.”
“Each case is different, but for us all cases are opportunities,” he stressed.
Mr. Gonda pointed out that in 2010 he is celebrating his 50th year in the IT sector and that, even though during this long period technology "has always improved and there has always been a constant increase of value with a great leap forward taking place every once in a while, in these 50 years I have seen only two such leaps.”
According to Gonda, the first great leap took place in 1981 when the IBM PC entered the market.Why? There were two reasons: "it made computer technology available to a much larger number of people and it created the basis for the software industry to become feasible."
The next great leap was the release of the Internet for business aims, in 1995. "It was an explosion," Gonda stated and explained that it took quite some time in both cases, since it took 10 years for the PC "not to be considered a toy" and five years for "really dynamic Internet applications to be broadly adopted."
Gonda went on to explain that today’s technology world revolves around two main concepts: smart devices and cloud computing. "There’s a major difference with the other two stages: there were 10 years of preparation for the PC stage; and some used up those 10 years but it didn’t mean they were left behind. Preparation time for the Internet stage was five years. What’s the preparation time today? Four years, three years, one year? No, my friends, this is happening here and now. The main difference between this stage and the previous ones is the speed of adoption, because decisions are not made by large corporations or middle-sized companies, they are made by common citizens — hundreds of millions worldwide — and they are being made rapidly," he claimed.
"We’re facing a great challenge — we need to meet this market’s needs now and embrace this major opportunity. It’s a worldwide market, larger than we had ever imagined," he stressed.
Within the frame of a commitment with the GeneXus community, Gonda made an important announcement: the upcoming publication of the knowledge exchange protocol, with full details and all the relevant concepts. And he informed, "It’ll be open-licensed so any company on the planet may use it as they wish, change it and be inspired by it, as the case may be."
The president of Artech highlighted — "in all humility and no modesty" — GeneXus’ leadership in its market niche. According to Gonda, the leading position achieved is based on the following factors: "the power of what we generate," "geographic expansion," "permanence" and "most importantly, our community. The worldwide professional community that develops its identity every day around GeneXus and today brings together over 75,000 members."
He concluded, "We are at a crucial point in history. For years we’ve been reading about the user era, the power in the hands of the user; but we've now reached the point where it's feasible and will become a clear requirement for our customers and our competitors' customers. This technological revolution will exponentially increase needs, and as you have seen over these past few days, we’re ready to meet those needs. It doesn’t mean we’ve earned our place in heaven because that's an everyday job, but we’re well positioned at the starting line of the race."