OpenEdge Sparks Interest in Aspiring Developers

Early on Saturday morning last week, over 110 aspiring developers crowded into the main hall at Telerik Academy in Sofia, Bulgaria to learn about a brand new offering from Progress. As they asked questions and engaged in conversations with the speakers afterwards, it was clear that these developers had their interest sparked by Progress OpenEdge® and the new OpenEdge Developers Kit: Classroom Edition, a free kit of development tools aimed at students and future entrepreneurs.

The marketplace for business applications is growing quickly, particularly in the mobile space. OpenEdge® is uniquely placed to be a factor in this market, thanks to a versatile product offering and a wide base of application partners and users. The Classroom Edition of the OpenEdge Developers Kit provides an opportunity for new developers to explore OpenEdge and see how quickly they can create applications that will have an impact.

Many of the attendees were very new to Progress, and care was taken to really teach what OpenEdge and the business application market is all about. For over 30 years, Progress has enabled developers to turn their big ideas into business reality, and that continues through today. Those in attendance learned a great deal about both the history of past problems solved, and the support Progress continues to give developers who are trying to solve tomorrow’s problems.

The bulk of the event focused on showing exactly what OpenEdge can do. There were demonstrations of developing a robust application with the easy-to-use, easy-to-learn ABL, beautiful UI/UX options with Kendo UI, and the minimal coding required to make a mobile app. As the seminar wrapped up, there was plenty of time for Q&A and a highlight of resources for getting started developing right away. Along with the free software download, Progress provides free education tools, information resources and access to a secure, online networking and sharing community of experienced OpenEdge developers.  Progress will also be working with colleges and universities to provide onsite seminars, similar to what was shared at Telerik to help information technology students around the world learn how they can make an impact through business application development.

The seminar was led by Colleen Smith, GM for OpenEdge, John Goodland, Senior Sales Engineer and Gary Clink, Senior Sales Engineering Manager, who are all experts that are deeply committed to what OpenEdge can do. We want to congratulate them on a wonderful seminar. Most of all we’d like to thank the many young developers who took the opportunity to enjoy some snacks and drinks and an amazing day of learning.

We’re very excited for the future of the Classroom Edition, and there will be more seminars and boot camps to come. You can learn more about these opportunities as they arise here.