Plex 2E

Dear Plex/2E community,

As you many of you know, I have been splitting my time between Plex and 2E and CA App Services Orchestrator (ASO) for some time now.

Moving forward I will be focussed solely on ASO.

Therefore, though it feels strange to write these words…I will no longer be the Product Owner for CA Plex or CA 2E. Moreover, I will no longer have any direct responsibility for CA Plex or CA 2E.

I will be handing the reigns over to Dan Short. Dan has been the Product Manager for Plex/2E for good while now, so no change there.

Important: For all Plex/2E Product Management related questions, please contact Dan: (Daniel.Short@ca.com).

Note: You may, quite rightly, ask why I didn’t announce this at the Plex/2E conference last week. The truth is, the decision had not been finalized/communicated until after the conference, and it would have been irresponsible of me to discuss a reorganization that was still in flux. Worry not, I have shared the feedback from the conference and the potential actions to the folks in the Plex/2E teams and management.

It feels super strange, in fact, to be moving on. I began working on the CA 2E development team in 1997, back in the Synon days. About six years ago I moved to be ScrumMaster/PO for CA 2E and in the past couple of years I have been the Product Owner for CA 2E and CA Plex.

It’s been both challenging and rewarding. I’ve worked with a lot of super folks. We’ve worked on a lot of interesting technology and moved the products forward a lot, I think; Both in what we build and how we build.

I am tremendously grateful to all those who have offered support, to me and the community, over the years; waaaaaaaay too many to name individually.

My overarching memories though, will be a lot of laughs, with a lot of super friendly folks. I am, genuinely, very grateful for that.

That said, I am not going far :-) As outlined in the Plex/2E conference, the AppDev Strategy hopes to bring the promise of API-based development to CA customers, and that includes Plex and 2E customers. I find solace in the hope that I will continue to work with many of you, going forward.

If you are interested in taking part in the agile collaboration for CA App Services Orchestrator (ASO) you can register here: http://ca.com/aso

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simoncockayne

Also, you can follow my ramblings on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/simoncockayne

That’s all folks :-)

Cheers for now,

Simon

Sr Principal Product Manager

Product Owner: CA App Services Orchestrator

Twitter: @simoncockayne

CA Technologies | 2291 Wood Oak Dr. | Herndon, VA 20171-2823

P: +1 703 708 3042 | M: +1 434 218 8459

simon.cockayne@ca.com”

Congratulations on the new position Simon. It's been a real pleasure working with you over the last - wow - 18 years. I wish you all the best in your next endeavor...

Crispin.

are you moving with the speed of trust?

Simon,

I receive this announcement with mixed feelings, particularly after our conversation the last day at the conference.

On a personal level I wish you the best in your new endeavors and path.

On a professional level I hope this transition, or whatever term needs to be applied to this move, is taken with the highest seriousness our community deserves so that:

1) A formal transition announcement / meeting with Dan takes place. I wonder why he didn't event assist the conference.

2) The plans and 'homework' we defined during our conference round table with the community are not discarded and really acted upon.

Looking forward to the next steps and actions.

Best,

Lucio

Well put Lucio.  Even as the product manager I would have thought Dan should have been present.

hahaha Lucio and Rob you are trying so hard to be diplomatic. Why do you feel you have to be diplomatic, its your product, Trust, communication, etc etc etc.

Some one gave me sh%t about facts on this forum a few months ago well here is a fact.

RE: Yet...another Product Manager

The product manager of BOTH 2E and Plex was not present at the user conference for both those products. It would be controversial if you suggested he should NOT be there. It is taken he should be there.

Now Q excuses, they will come but they moved the conference once already for scheduling problems.

CA knew about the simon issue and therefore more reasons to have everyone there for a subtle secret handover. But why do I have to justfiy it..he is the product manager..it is absurd he would not be at the conference.

Why has no one pointed out we used to have a product manager and a product owner. Now product manager has become the owner. Who is the new product manager? Dont answer that as I think I know the answer..the two roles has been rolled into one. *that is not a fact and hope I am wrong but I am a betting man I bet I am right.

If you search this forum for Daniel Short contributions to CA Plex or 2E you get 0 hits fact. Now is that an owner.?

Has anyone noticed the long standing architect of CA Plex mentions the words CA Plex once on his linkedin profile...you can barely tell the architect of CA plex has anything to do with the product! Now that is fact, read into that how ever you want. I have made my assumption on this and wont be surprised to hear some news.

I hold nothing against Dan Short or Rob Layzel, they need to get on like will all do, absolutely nothing against Simon serving 18 years for these particular products, my issue is and has always been with CA and myself for fighting for such a lost cause.

Mat Morris once asked me "But is it really living doing Plex" as he had found SalesForce such a inspiring, young, supportive community and product vendor.....He also said whats the point being the best in field of hundred with all the best already moved off....

Thanks for your 18 years Simon and I am on the record for loathing all the softly, nicely, trust speak but I do not dispute your drive and your support for 18 years. Only last night was I reading a post you wrote on an as400 site back in 2004 on PCML files, it helped so thank you but really why am I bothering doing this at night for free Consume & Publish Webservices from IBMi - Solved  CA should have done this years ago, years and years ago about 2004 for Ca Plex. Good Luck Simon

Congratulations on the move Simon.

As someone who 'moved on' from 2E a couple of years ago, I know what a wrenching transition it can be - whilst I'm very happy in my new non-CA, non-2E role, it's such a great group of customers, friends and colleagues, that it was hard to say goodbye and hard to stay away. Simon, I hope you enjoy the new role, and maybe find it easier than me to emotionally make the move...

For those of you that don't know, Simon and I were hired by Synon at exactly the same time - we met on the plane from the UK to San Francisco, and we actually shared an apartment for a month (followed by a couple of weeks of me crashing on his floor, until I could get my own place), followed by several years of carpooling to work together, as Synon/Sterling/CA moved our offices around the Bay Area. Many was the (sometimes heated!) discussion we had on both specifics of code and also on the future of 2E and Plex... We had a lot of fun at assorted conferences (including, memorably, a COMMON conference in San Antonio, TX early in our Synon careers, where we ended up teaching big-haired Texan women assorted drunken versions of rugby songs.

Anyway Simon, I wish you well in the new role. If you bring as much passion to that as you have done to 2E and Plex, and CA will be fine.

Regards,

Rory

Hi Simon,

congratulations for your move. Wish you and ASO all the best for the a successful launch!

For us as the remaining PLEX/2E community here now, just days after the conference with lot of hope and drive for some changes and improvements that's a sad moment. As everyone else already said, Dan should have been around already. I personally hope that all the things discussed during the last week will find a way to the new owner and that some of the promisses heard will be following in the next weeks/month.

All the best,

Andreas

Hi Andreas,

So I've officially joined the CA Plex support team :-)

Can you please refresh my memory about the promises heard at the conference?

Cheers,

Stephen

Hi Stephen,

welcome to the PLEX community!

Right now I can remember the following points from last week:

- keep following the outcome of the Hackathon teams (Sencha, PLEX IDE improvements, 3-way-merging of versionslLevels, ...)

- update status of ideas in consideration/planning/already fixed on the idea wall

- maybe post CA ideas on the wall to get voted by the community too

- build a roadmap for PLEX including the most wanted features like MS Visual Studio 201x, SQL Generation for IBM i, RESTful webservices, consume Java Web services, ...)

To all my community friends here: please add all other promises heard last week here too!

Regards,

Andreas

Stephen,

Welcome to the community, could you tell us a little about yourself? Were you at the conference?

Apart from what Andreas listed, where topping items are the ROADMAP and STATUS UPDATE OF IDEAS WALL'S MAIN ITEMS, we also talked about continuous communications such as scheduled meetings to rebuild eroded confidence.

Regards,

Lucio

Hi Lucio,

Yes, I was at the conference last week as an active listener. Here's a bit about me: Meet CA Support Engineer for Automation Point: Stephen Slaughter

Simon did an excellent job of orchestrating the conference, I mean, WOW! Not only is the guy super smart, but he's a compassionate person too. Simon is a good friend :-) I'm really excited about working with him on ASO (yeah, I'll be supporting that too when it goes GA).

So what is the community's eroded confidence all about anyway?

Cheers,

Stephen

G'day Simon,

Really sad to hear about this as you had so much positive input to the discussions at the conference last week.

I've known you for a very long time and I appreciate the enthusiasm you have displayed on numerous occasions - especially with the work I was doing in China some years ago where you helped my immensely to achieve a successful outcome for the client.

I left the community about six years ago as there was not enough work in Australia to support a full-time job and it has been my passionate hobby since then working evenings and weekends to assist ADC and then CM First with CA 2E migrations to CA Plex. Coming back to the conference this year has actually re-invigorated my enthusiasm for the product as there are so many things that I can do to make the tools more relevant to the bean counters in organisations so that it is not dropped. Here's hoping that your enthusiasm and interest in the product does not see you leave us for good...

BTW - I really enjoyed our discussions last week in Austin.

Regards,

Darryl

Hi Simon

Its been great to work with you recently, after years of long distance contact with 2e, always with 'Simon Cockayne' in the background.

At a personal level, nothing but best wishes for your future.

At a 2e level,  I'm filled with foreboding again.  All those missing years of progress when 2e failed to adopt changes in IBM i and failed to accommodate new paradigms for system construction and interfaces to the new platforms.

Someone above says that the new product manager wasn't at the conference, and that's sad.

So personally - great news for you,

Professionally - I'm hoping CA will come up with another serious round of development akin to the 8.7 release, and do a bit more to convince the senior managers of sites like mine that their investment in 2e is well placed and long lived.

Time will tell.

Best

Richard Wilson

Expected an announcement like that. Congratulations!

Make sure ASO will run on non-US operating systems when it's time for GA :-)

All the best

Lorenz

Hi Simon,

Congratulations!  Good luck in your ASO adventures. They snatched up a good one.

I sure will miss you in the Plex/2E Community. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed!

Is this decision subject to change, perhaps?

Hopefully, some of us will still have contact with you when we start creating our RESTful APIs.

All the best,

Diane

****....Great news and sad news in one hit.

Take care bud.  Will miss your dulcet tones on webcasts and in person.

Regards my friend.

Lee.

Hi Simon

So sad to hear that you moving on, it has been wonderful working with you over the years.

Good luck with the new position.

Gavin

Hi Simon, all the best wishes from the Websydian team for the new position.

George, I understand your frustration and appreciate your candid expression of your sentiments. I do think though that if we try to widen the perspective, we are better off.

From what I have heard, once again there was a great community conference (Thank you CM First for the huge effort) with a lot of dynamic discussions, ideas and creative momentum.

It was a pity Dan didn’t attend the conference, I agree. I don’t know why that was, but I’m sure there is a good reason. And of course Rob and Simon will pass on all the “good stuff” to Dan so he can work further on advancing the products. I also expect that Dan in his new double position will be a bit more outgoing.

One thing that hasn’t changed at all for Plex and 2E is the partner commitment. The partners have always played a significant role, and that will not change if we have anything to say about it. We invest time, effort and money in these products because we truly believe in them. We will continue to do so, and new sponsors have even come aboard for the Austin conference.

The Austin conference will not be the last.