Intro
Elevate 2025 was similar to Elevate 2024 in that it was a two-day online event. Elevate 2024 had multiple tracks running simultaneously. Elevate 2025 had a single track each day. In 2024 we had 4 separate Cafe Chat Zoom sessions. In 2025 they expanded that so that there was a 10-minute Zoom Q&A session after each presentation. There was also a 1-hour Product Roadmap Zoom Q&A session after the keynotes. The intent was to allow for more feedback and interaction than the basic text chat that YouTube streaming allows.
Registration
Like 2024, the initial registration was just an indication you were going to attend and wanted updates. This year we got the list of initial sessions about a week and a half before the event but without any indication of when each session was scheduled. A week later the session catalog was updated to provide the actual schedule. There were sessions in the morning (US Eastern Time) for about 2 hours, followed by a 2-hour lunch break and then another block of sessions running for 5 hours. This year, to address a complaint I've made for a number of years now, I put together a shared Google Calendar with all of the sessions so that people could select all or individual sessions and add them to their own calendar.
Keynote
As always, the conference started with Armeen Mazda (Appeon CEO) with his 30,000-foot overview. He stressed that in the longer term (not just this next release) Appeon is focused on four areas when developing new versions of PowerBuilder:
• Continuously Improving Developer Productivity
• Strengthening Security of your Applications
• Open Integration with Other Apps and Systems (Interoperability)
• Compatibility with changes in hardware, software and data formats
He also emphasized that they are a customer driven company and will shift those priorities if their customers shift their priorities.
Next was Julie Jiang (Product Manager) with the roadmap for PowerBuilder and PowerServer. The change here from last year is that last year they didn't indicate when the next new major version of PowerBuilder was planned. This year they indicated it would be in 2028.
She also noted that some of the older Appeon PowerBuilder releases are approaching end of Standard Support and recommended upgrading to at least PowerBuilder 2022 R3, which is a long-term support version.
In the following discussion, I'm focused on what is planned for 2025 R3. PowerBuilder 2025 R2 will be in official beta by the time you read this, so I'd suggest trying it out yourself or at least watching the replay of my session on those enhancements.
Developer Productivity
Main take away here was:
• AutoScript enhancements
• Drag to detach tabs.
Compatibility and Interoperability
Main take aways were:
• PDF ISO 14289 compliance
• Modification of data types for window sizing to support larger values
• ARM support
• Terminal Server Aware flagging of EXEs and DLLs
• Right to left support for Ribbon bars and Menus
Security
Main take aways were:
• Security flags added to DLLs (not just EXEs)
• Git SSH support
App Features
Main takeaways were:
• DataWindow per column padding settings
• Improvements to string, rounding and JSON methods
Next Major Version
Some general areas they were considering were listed, but for the most part no specific enhancements, although support for 64 bit database drivers and 64 bit OCX controls in the IDE was mentioned.
Annual Survey Results:
I'm just going to present the slides here, rather than type them up like I did last year.
Chris Pollach (Director of Developer Relations at Appeon) did a 20-minute demo of many of the new features in the upcoming PowerBuilder 2025 R2.
Product Roadmap Feedback Session
Next was a Zoom session where participants had a chance to provide feedback on the product roadmap. I think that went well, but unfortunately the session was limited to the first 100 participants (including the Appeon presenters) so there were a number of people that attended the keynote were unable to participate in the feedback session.
Technical Sessions
The afternoon of the first day and the entire second day were technical sessions. I did three, one on all of the new features in 2025 R2, one on the Open Source PowerBuilder Foundation Classes (PFC) and one on using OAuth2 Authentication with the SMTPClient object. There was a 10-minute (or longer) Zoom session for Q&A after each technical session. As we didn't have more than 100 people in any of the technical sessions, so everyone who watched the technical session was able to participate in the Zoom sessions.
I thought all the sessions were good. With AI being all the rage right now, Patricia Guzman's presentation on "How to Unlock the Power of AI in PowerBuilder 2025 with ChatGPT" was one of the most popular sessions and Christophe Dufourmantelle's session on "Leveraging AI to Improve PowerBuilder Code Analysis and Maintenance" gathered a lot of interest. Francisco Martinez's session on "Integrating Python into PowerBuilder" was also well attended. It looked like the PYPB architecture he demonstrated might allow PowerBuilder developer access Python.NET libraries without having write .NET wrapper assemblies, which drew a lot of interest.
There was a Closing Remarks video at the very end of the conference, but it got added late to the schedule and I'm pretty sure many of the conference attendees weren't aware of it.
The keynote and all of the sessions of course are available for replay on the Appeon Streaming Center. Recordings of the Zoom sessions (the product roadmap feedback and the Q&A sessions) have not been made available though.
Conclusion
My only recommendation to Appeon is that they would use the same format but increase the participant limit for the Product Roadmap Feedback Session so all attendees can participate.
I've recommended in the past that we have a post conference chat session to help wrap things up. I don't think the Closing Remarks video accomplished that, but I was still glad they did it. I think it puts a more positive spin on the end of a conference than just having the technical sessions fade out. The reason I thought what I was asking for got addressed though is because of the Zoom Q&A sessions. Particularly the one after the last session I presented, because we had approximately 2 hours before the next session ended. So, I opened it up for a more general discussion and we went well over our 10 minutes. I started asking questions like "What do you think of the conference so far?" "What were the most exciting features you saw coming in R2?" "What features in the next major version of PowerBuilder are you most interested in?" That's the kind of discussion I wanted to have at the closing session.
My last recommendation is for the attendees. Many of the Zoom sessions, even the Product Roadmap Feedback Session, were rather subdued. I don't know if it's because the Zoom sessions are new, or if people don't feel comfortable talking when there are a lot of people they don't know in the sessions. Or maybe it's because many of us (me included) were multi-tasking between the conference and work. But this is our chance to have a direct discussion with Appeon staff and product experts, something we don't often have an opportunity to do. We should make the most of it while we can. If they give us the same opportunity next year we should take better advantage of it.