IDC ranks Progress OpenEdge number one embedded database

IDC has ranked the Progress OpenEdge business application development platform as the number one pure-play embedded database management system (DBMS) in the world. IDC presented its findings in the report: "Worldwide Embedded Database Management Systems 2007 Vendor Shares".

The report defines embedded DBMS as database management systems sold to independent software vendors (ISVs) for inclusion in their software products, and identifies pure-play vendors as vendors which create products designed to specifically support DBMS software embedded in products offered by ISV partners.

Carl Olofson, research VP for Information Management and Data Integration Software at IDC, comments: "Excellence in the embedded space depends on self-managing database server software and excellent support for ISV partners. Because budgets are expected to be severely squeezed for the next 18 months, it seems likely that applications and tools with embedded databases that require no DBA support will find increasing favour."

The report names Progress Software as "the leading pure-play embedded DBMS vendor”, defining the OpenEdge RDBMS as “a networked-based, multi-user RDBMS that supports applications deployed on Unix, Windows and Linux as well as legacy platforms.”

Olofson continues: “Progress has been the leading player in the embedded DBMS space for over a quarter century, offering a range of products for ISVs to use in building and deploying their applications. Their success comes mostly from the coupling of technical innovation with strong intimate support for their ISV customers.”

Progress Software has over 1 500 ISVs (called Progress Application Partners) who use the Progress OpenEdge platform to develop their own business applications. OpenEdge is the first fully integrated development, deployment and management platform for the rapid creation of business applications that are standards-based and service-oriented. Over 5 000 distinct applications in over 60 000 organisations worldwide are developed with OpenEdge. Additionally, Progress Application Partners deploy their software at more than 10 000 new sites for 600 000 new users every year.

Progress recently released OpenEdge 10.2A, which included new graphical user interface (GUI) capabilities that enable developers to build Microsoft .NET-based Windows GUIs natively within the OpenEdge development platform - without requiring any training or prior knowledge of .NET itself.

Paul Knopf, VP, Technology for QAD, a longstanding international Progress Application partner, says: "QAD Enterprise Applications 2008 provides the next generation of users with a broad integrated product, focused on collaborative manufacturing and supply chain with full deployment independence using a single code base for SaaS or on premise deployment, thus allowing easy migration between the deployment options. QAD has maintained a longstanding partnership with Progress Software and our many joint customers benefit from Progress's open, service-oriented architecture, which enables easier application integration and excellent scalability, underlined with the industry-leading lowest cost of ownership our joint customers enjoy."

Rick Parry, MD of Progress Software South Afrca, notes: “Support and continuous development of OpenEdge for our Application Partners is a critical component to the success of our partner community, as well as for our customers. As our partners and customers adopt software as a service (SaaS) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) strategies, the need for high availability and scalability becomes crucial along with the latest development tools. With OpenEdge platform, Progress continues to deliver the same low maintenance and ease of administration our customers have come to expect, but with the level of scalability and data management that these new architectural models require.

"In South Africa, we continue to grow our OpenEdge licence and revenue base through an innovative approach to SaaS. Our partners have embraced this approach so completely that we grew this part of our business 32% in 2008, and the robustness and power of OpenEdge are key to this success."