Plex 2E

The Forrester Wave™: Low-Code Development Platforms, Q2 2016

What could have been with CA Plex. RAD is making a serious comeback since UML nearly killed it off. Visual programming historically ridiculed by 3GL programmers are seeing their own views bypassed as their 3GL output is just too slow for business agile requirements.

Please down load the Forrester from: https://www.mendix.com/press/mendix-named-leader-among-low-code-development-platforms-independent-research-firm/

and an interesting Gartner report Gartner 2016 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Application Platform as a Service - Mendix 

Three key differentiate low-code development platforms and vendors as highlighted by Forrester

• breadth of tooling provided; more tooling generally means less coding to deliver
• built-in support for modern development processes and practices.
• availability of free initial access to the platform for experimentation and learning. Something we have been asking for years but fell on deaf ears.....yeah yeah new Product Manager will says we will look at it..yeah yeah he/she moves on...yeah yeah end result in black and white is CA Plex is not one of the 14 RAD tools chosen worthy enough to be considered by Forrester. Shame on CA and its management of this once cutting edge tooling which could have been a world beater.

Ah

at least you're using Plex.  So far ahead of its time, at the time, and then stuck in a time warp since.

I'm still dealing with 2e - and there is so much of Ca 2e that's still good to go in the area of internal maintenance of DB2, and with some free issue tooling and some sensible marketing it could still have (had) a place. 

Game over there too, minimum product updates for years - my head hurts from being a brand ambassador in my present gainful employment, so it's soon off to pensioner land for me.  Another one bites the dust. 

R

well Richard I am not using CA Plex....company choose to pursue a new direction instead of CA Plex so I have been unemployed since late dec 2015...found I could not fight for CA Plex any longer...no one wanted to listen any longer....

George,

First a word of caution.  Forrester reports are normally licensed by their customers.  I don't know if the report is in the general domain, it may only be available to Forrester customers.  I have asked Lenn our community manager to review it to see if sharing it could be a problem.

Well the good news is I can assure you that we are not dead yet.  As for this report I can respond with how typically Forrester works.  I was not part of this process so please understand that my comments are not specific to this report.

Normally Forrester sends out a notice that they will be doing a Wave.  They send out a questioner and ask us to fill it out to see if we have products in that market space.  The CA Industry Analyst team then forwards them on to the Product Manager of products that might be in this market space. As a qualifier for this report is that there must be a Free or Freeminum product available, this excludes CA Plex and CA 2E, and for that matter CA Gen would not qualify for inclusion in the report.

As I was not here at the time I don't know if CA responded but even if we did our products would have been eliminated in the qualification phase of the report. 

The report does start an interesting discussion line:  Should there be a Freeminum version of CA Plex or CA 2E.  It would seem that to be evaluated with our peers that this is a requirement.  I am interested in your feedback if you think this should be a high priority for the team.  Doing this work would be an extra cost and would take away from Engineers working on customer support issues and the new release of CA Plex.  If you were the Product Manager would this be high on your priority list?

Hopefully you will be attending the iCAthon conference in June that is sponsored by CM First where I will be presenting the updated roadmaps for CA Plex and 2E.

Cheers,

Steve Solomon,   CA Plex and CA 2E Product Manager.

Steve,

Firstly a word of caution, a new product manager does not mean the user base are to reset their views on the product. I for example have used plex for 17 years and have seen product managers come and go (to be expected) but it is the vendors job to make it a seamless transition. Please get familiar with our plex issues by reading the ideas and Edge Forum Archive - Forums

Secondly unfortunately you have highlighted straight away the issue "The report does start an interesting discussion line:  Should there be a Freeminum version of CA Plex or CA 2E." as you state this is a start. It is not a start it is an issue we requested for years and years. And had the issue been cleared up years and years ago we would have at least qualified for consideration by Gartner or Forrester unlike as you quite eloquently put it eliminated before even being considered.

Lastly please read from 2002 Edge Forum Archive - [Edge] Advantage 2E/Plex Jobs - Plex in the city -- is it dead

Please read from 2001 Edge Forum Archive - [Edge] Advantage 2E/Plex Off the Subject - Is PLex being left behind?

Both written 15 years ago and are as true then as they are now.

Another Future of Plex Post

RE: Plex Vision

Maybe you should also look at Tools and Solutions for Modernizing Your IBM i Applications.pdf that is not Forrester or Gartner but IBM happily acknowledging IBM i tool vendors who keep the platform relevant and CA was no where to be seen but LANSA front and center. What message does this send out to 100% of 2E customers.

Adios.

P.S. Regarding iCAthon I was the first to like it on LinkedIn and I pushed it on this forum https://communities.ca.com/message/241868797#comment-241868797

Hello Steve again,

Errrrrrrr "Hopefully you will be attending the iCAthon conference in June that is sponsored by CM First where I will be presenting the updated roadmaps for CA Plex and 2E." How on the earth can I attend this as in this thread of 5 posts I say I am unemployed for 6 months...the last official plex conferences in 2011 and 2013 I paid for myself and contributed by speaking and releasing free software Stella Tools (CA Plex Developer Tools) maybe CA can pay my ticket to go this time from EUROPE, any chance ?

Secondly " If you were the Product Manager would this be high on your priority list?" again this is kinda bad timing, insensitive or bad luck as I did dearly hope to be the product manager and interviewed for your job getting through screening and onto speaking to your boss and new CA employee Dana! I wanted to be the product manager very badly of a product that I loved. So since you asked me the question " If you were the Product Manager" I will answer it.

"Freeminum " is NOT a priority, idea, enhancement, it is something that should have been around for years, it is what keeps a product relevant in the market without it the product is not relevant, now there are issues that require peer review like idea wall but this is not one of them is it is critical to the survival of the product. See Secure Client - Server TCP/IP communication Unicode Support in 2e  If I was product manager I would release a vision for CA Plex, and if CA prevented me from this I would communicate this back to the users as for years executives who have supported CA Plex have had no idea what the vision for CA Plex has been.

Freeminum has been on the idea wall but no one has faith in the wall as nothing ever happens, a complete an utter waste of time, except doing CA market research for free when they should be doing it on their dime.

Please read Lorenz your new CM chum's perfectly worded vision for CA Plex https://communities.ca.com/message/105385940#comment-105385940

George,

Thanks for the follow up and the information.  And you are correct I am not currently spending my time going through the backlog of items.  So this information is very helpful to me.  What I am working on is the next release of CA Plex and delivery on the important features in the next release.

As for the Product Manager role, I was not aware of any other candidates.  I asked for this role and actively sought it out. Normally I would not share personal information in a User Community however in this case I would like to share why I asked for this job.

Several years ago I had the opportunity to work with a Product Manager that I still think is one of the finest Product Management leaders that I have ever met.  His name is Bill Hunt the former Product Manager for CA Plex and CA 2E.  Bill was doing innovative things to keep CA Plex and CA 2E relevant and useful.  Bill was sick at the time and I asked him several times why he continued to work, he could have easily taken medical leave.  Bill told me several times that he loved the CA Plex and CA 2E customers and being their Product Manager.  During several long conversations I got to know Bill very well and how much he was committed to doing everything he could for these products and how his focus on supporting his customers fulfilled his life.  Bill's passing was personally devastating to me.  When I found out this position was open and that their had been a serious gap in supporting Bill's customers I asked for the job. I am no Bill, and will never be; however I can tell you that I am good at what I do, and will do my best for this community.

George, if you would like to keep submitting your recommendations then I would appreciate them, and the good and the bad comments.  It is by this Communities recommendations and comments that I will make the Business Decisions on what to do with these products.

For the community:  If you want new Features and Functions in these products the Community Ideas Forum is the place to list them and vote for them.  The more votes the more the ideas will get my attention.  I know you are skeptical as not much has happened in the community in the recent past.  If you want me to be your Champion then Post them and Vote for them.  It is the best channel that I have to communicate to my management on the customer requests for these products.

Cheers,

Steve...

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your honesty which has been missing previously. "there had been a serious gap in supporting Bill's customers I asked for the job"

I have ceased helping CA. For years I have said CA lacked honesty and integrity, your honest appraisal only increases my frustration towards previous product managers and users who said I was too harsh but I knew what was happening. All (well if anything does happen which I doubt..and supporting VS201X rather than 2005 does not count as it just highlights the extreme joke and neglect of CA Plex, this should be done already in shame, quietly and on CA's dime, use 2006,2007,2008,2009,2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015 customers support payments) too late now as in my opinion these products have passed critical mass and are not relevant to new business and a hindrance to existing business for some time now. I defiy anyone to say they would advocate the use of CA Plex or 2E at a green field site...who would do the coding for starters...how would you explain the lack of support...

While contributing on purely IBMi forums I was not surprised  by the following opinions by IBMi veterans. Reality is irrelevant; Perception is everything.

Marinus Van Sandwyk, Founder & Chief Executive Officer on IBM i on Power Systems, TEMBO Technology Lab (Pty) Ltd wrote:

 

"There is a also MAJOR difference between IBM i and CA. CA acquired 2E to "milk" the maintenance revenue. VERY little investment was made to take the technology forward, to really drive it."

 

Bob Cancilla, Principal at R.J. Cancilla & Associates wrote:

 

"CA Plex is an entirely support revenue based product and I doubt if you could buy a new license from CA... "

Good luck, Adios

George -- I actually just checked with our Industry Analyst team and they said that it is not a public document and that we really shouldn't have it posted on one of our communities. Would you mind taking it down?