August 17, 2011

Result of the 2011 Oracle Forms poll - part 1

I realized the last months, that it is not that easy to find some hours in one piece to write down my results of the Oracle Forms poll.


So I decided to split it into parts and here is the first one:

Why did I start the Oracle Forms poll ?

Ten years ago I heard the first rumors about "Forms is dead and modern software engineers should use Java". It was the time of Forms 6i Client/Server and Forms 6i Web on the Internet Application Servers.

Some years later we got Forms 9i with a lot of new features and 2006 came Forms 10g, which was the stablest version based on OC4J in the Oracle Application Server. But the rumors didn't end.

Oracle launched in 2007 a huge 5-day-betatest in Redwood Shores. I got an invitation and had a close look at the newest versions of all products including the new Oracle Forms 11g. That was amazing!

The new Forms 11g worked so stable in the betatest, that I thought, the production version cannot be far away. One year later Oracle purchased BEA. The new Weblogic Application Server was now strategic and all products had to run on it. This was the reason, why Oracle Forms needed two more years to get ready.

In those years, Oracle was pushing Java and ADF as the best way for developing applications.

That was the point, to hear, how the mood of the forms-developer and forms-projects today is. I started a poll and invited nearly 1000 customers to help me and find out, what they think about the future of Oracle Forms.


To be continued with Question 1: With which forms-version did you work today?

1 comment:

Mia said...

Hi Gerd,

This is VERY impressive undertaking a poll of this size. It brought 3 things to mind:

1) I am also an Oracle Forms modernization avangelist. I have been able to make modern forms applications with migration. I have written a post on it in my blog http://oracleformsinfo.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/oracle-forms-modernization-teaching-an-old-dog-new-tricks/

2) We are holding an Oracle Forms developer Day here in Israel next week with over 200 developers so if you send me a copy of the survey I can pass it around there as well.

3) There is a very cool modernization / integration solution that allow people to run Oracle Forms via a mobile phone or webservice. You should check it out http://www.orasoa.com

Thanks
Mia