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REAL World - Day One

Dax of XSilvaREAL World opens in earnest today. Geoff kicked off the conference with a summary of what occured the previous year. So what has been going on at REAL Software? They've released quarterly releases in their rapid release model, every 90 days or so. Last year, this time, they had 10,000 Linux users. This year they've surpassed 22,000 Linux users. Not bad in a years time. They have approximately 125,000 users on Mac, Win, and Lin. They have released a French, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese versions of RB. They are the only company that creates a software platform that compiles to the Mac Universal Binary format. Swordfish, a web framework to build web applications, continues to be on hold. RB continues to be built in RB. There are over 150,000 lines of code, with 600 project items used to build RB. They had the highest sales in the 1st quarter of 2007 than they have ever had. People all over the world can purchase RB in US$, Euros, Yen, and Aus$.

Pierre Groleau, the RB head of marketing in EU, took over and spoke of their efforts to expand in Europe. They've been marketing RB by providing CDs on magazine covers which puts RB in the hands of developers. They've been attending many events such as Apple Expo in Paris, Mac Expo in the UK, and advertising on EU websites. The fact that customer service is now available in many EU languages has had a positive effect. RB support is now available in English, French, German, Italian, and Dutch. They have had a 300% increase in licenses from '05 to '06. There are over 8,000 licenses active in Poland alone.

Geoff returned to the state to talk about REAL SQL Server. It is touted as easy to install, robust, fast, with aggressive pricing. REAL SQL supports multi-core and proves itself with over 2.4M queries per month. The company is run completely on products developed by RS and is for sale.

Following were presentations touting success stories by ISV companies that have leading industry software. These include Clarity Legal Software, Alta Point selling medical software, and XSilva who make LightSpeed2 which is POS software. Paul MacKay from Novell spoke of the importance of Linux for the future and how important developing software for Linux can be strategic.

Some people on the RB NUG (mailing list) were asking if there were any interesting announcements. I'm what you call a n00b, but I would say that there weren't any really interesting announcements but ... perhaps that's a good thing. RS moves so fast, that there doesn't always have to be an Earth shattering announcement. Sometimes a period of calm is just what this rapid development model could use. There's plenty of time for a big shake-up.

I attended the "Getting Started as a REALbasic Consultant" by Bob Keeney, and Christian Miller. There was some interesting discussion amongst a room full of consultants and future consultants.

Next up (for me) was the sesion on "Advanced Database Programming with ODBC". Unfortunately it was a very high level description of ODBC with few code examples and no actual live demonstrations. I've got some things to check out but I'm still need to track down how to get RB to talk to VFP tables via ODBC on Linux. {g}

SIDE NOTE: In between the sessions, a guy notice that I was wearing a MEPIS t-shirt and asked me about it. It turns out this is Bryan from The Linux Action Show! How cool is that! I'm such a fan boy. Very personable and approachable. I haven't had a chance to meet his bride yet. I've got Episode 45 on my laptop as we speak. Love that show! Guyren (Guy) Howe was next with a mind blowing "Introduction to Object Oriented Programming". Drinking from the fire hose. I was trying to reconcile my understanding of VFP OOP and the inheritance model and the RB OOP and inheritance model. I'm not sure if I came out of there with a much greater understanding, but Guy admitted that it was a huge dump of concepts that needed to be shifted back through days and weeks later.

I decided to get back to RB basics and I attended the "Beginning REALbasic IV" session by Jerry Lee Ford, jr. This is right after purchasing his book from the REALSoftware store. Very practical demonstrations. Much more like a VFP presentation. I liked it.

That was it for presentations on day one. There was a short break. I dropped my stuff back in my room. From my room I saw Geoff (RS CEO) still talking to the attendees so I headed down to (finally) introduce myself. Geoff asked me how FoxForward was coming along. That's customer service. Geoff is very personable and really seems to love talking with his customers.

Trish Murphy rocks StubbsTime to head to Stubbs for some barbeque and live music by Trish Murphy. The restaurant was very cool but almost busting at the seams with all of the RW crowd. Trish Murphy and her band were excellent. She hinted that there may be an auction or give-aways of her CD tomorrow at RW. If I don't win one, I'm buying! She rocked! (For a country girl.) The surprise is when Geoff was called up to the stage to perform as drummer for a cover of The Kinks "You Really Got Me Now". What can I say except that Trish looked totally stunned on what an excellent performance Goeff did. Me too.

Geoff rocks the house at StubbsMore RW tomorrow. Can't wait. Keep it comin.