// An era ends, another begins... - Xbase++ goi Cloud First

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unixkd
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// An era ends, another begins... - Xbase++ goi Cloud First

#1 Post by unixkd »

/ An era ends, another begins...


For almost 20 years, the Xbase++ platform has focused on the Windows desktop. Tens of thousands of developers worldwide have created thousands of end-user applications, serving more than one million users every day. Some Screenshots of applications developed with the Xbase++ platform can be found here.

But times are changing. Alaska Software has added web technologies to the Xbase++ platform since the early days. We first launched the Web Application Adaptor (WAA) almost 20 years ago as a secure on-site application server servicing public web servers via a secure gateway, this way protecting your data from unwanted access. Today, this is called hybrid cloud. Then we released the Compiled Xbase++ Pages (CXP) for fast and easy web application development. With the release of 2.0, we added WebHandlers to support MVC for connected web/mobile application development and RESTful APIs.

Besides support for various internet protocols and native SSL, we also added HTML/CSS for the desktop to the Xbase++ core platform. The latter technology has innovated the way in which custom UI design is done on the desktop. A video about styling your desktop application with HTML/CSS can be found here.

Still, internet technologies have only played a secondary role within Xbase++ until now. Although we innovated in this area, the preferred way of developing applications still was desktop or server- centered. However, the IT landscape has changed in the past few years and will continue to change in the future. We clearly see a point of time ahead of us where desktop applications will be banned for various reasons. Be it because of security or deployment considerations, or due to complex infrastructure requirements. Because IT desktop infrastructure-related costs are constantly increasing while agility keeps decreasing, there will be a point in the future where desktop applications are superseded by web and mobile applications as well as virtualized desktop applications.

Said that, Alaska Software herewith announces that it is starting the process of aligning its product development and product strategy for transforming the Xbase++ development tool into a cloud-first development platform. This alignment will also affect our plans to deliver a next-generation Visual FoxPro toolchain for the Windows desktop in such a way as that the UI experience and deployment become cloud-first.

Unaffected of this alignment is our ability and commitment to deliver monthly updates with fixes and new features for the Xbase++ platform. We believe this alignment is the starting point into an exciting new era for Xbase++, Clipper and Visual FoxPro developers with a great potential ahead for all of us.

Curious? Read more about our Cloud-first alignment here.
Sincerelly yours,
Steffen F. Pirsig

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