Progress is celebrating it's 40th birthday and we at WITS join the party by sharing some memories with you.
Progress Conference Boston 2000
Back in the year 2000 Wim van der Ham visited for the first time a Progress Conference. It were the guys of a Dutch software company Fortius Internet Solutions and in particular Mark Wouters who convinced him to go and he never regretted that choice. Wim had been using Progress ever since 1987 when we received the "Test Drive" of the Progress 4GL by Data Language Corporation (DLC). Mark was one of his first collegues later that year and like Wim was captured by the power of the product.
During the 2000 conference in Boston Wim had a chance to meet the CEO and co-founder Joe Alsop. The open interaction between (top) management and developers like Wim & Mark has always been one of the strong points of Progress Software. You can literally step up to one of them a discuss whatever problem, suggestion or enhancement request you might have. Later in 2017 when met with the new CEO: Yogesh Gupta. Again, in the spirit of Progress, you could have a chat with him and discuss whatever subject came to heart. #ProgressProud to be part of that family.
Dan Foreman in Italy 2002
One of the most famous Database Administrators and also author of many books about the Progress database is Dan Foreman. When a big Progress customer in Italy, Fondiaria, wanted top DBA consultancy, Wim managed to arrange a visit to Italy for Dan Foreman. It turned out to be both a productive trip with many good information shared with the customer as well as a pleasant stay with a "fun day" in Turin.
Like so many people in the computer industry, Wim also started to work in a Garage Office. But unlike Bill Gates and Paul Allen he still enjoys working from his GO.
EMEA PUG Challenge - Barcelona 2019
The 2019 edition of the EMEA PUG Challenge was the most recent "in-person" edition and was held in Barcelona. It was a great event and Wim was one of the speakers. Here's a picture taken during the presentation of a Change Data Capture (CDC) implementation.
But the EMEA PUG Challenges are not only great technical events with a wealth of information being presented in three days, there's always room for entertainment too. And since the 2019 social event was held on the 30th of October, the theme of the festive event couldn't be anything else than Halloween!
Here's a memory of that evening when Wim - Jack Sparrow - van der Ham met scary Valeriy G. Bashkatov.
Happy Birthday Progress!
So after 40 years Progress is still going strong and supplies developers all around the globe the right instruments to build applications to give their customers a competitive advantage!
Thank you Progress and Happy Birthday to You!
If you to want to celebrate with Progress, submit your memory on this page:
OpenEdge Turns 40 | Progress OpenEdge
Progress has dedicated a blog post to the celabration of the 40 years which you can find here:
Celebrating 40 Years of Progress OpenEdge
There's also a nice video:
So after 40 years, Progress is still alive and kicking! Keep it going Progress!
