A new analyst study compares the cost of building and maintaining .NET applications to OpenEdge applications. This study combines industry research with customer interviews to conclude that OpenEdge 10’s higher-level development solution offers more speed and efficiency than 3GL development environments, such as Microsoft Visual Studio .NET’s for the C# programming language.
The Development Solution and Framework Total Cost of Ownership and Return on Investment Study by Wayne Kernochan of Infostructure Associates focuses on TCO and ROI for small-to-medium-sized (SMB) businesses or enterprise departments running applications for internal use. It also assesses TCO and ROI for Application Partners selling business applications to the SMB market.
The TCO for a 4GL application is typically 22% lower than for a 3GL application and the ROI improvement is 35% stronger over three years. Compare the numbers for OpenEdge: the cost of implementing an OpenEdge application is typically 33% less than C# .NET, while the resulting ROI delivered by the OpenEdge application is 53% greater than .NET.
Here are excerpts from its findings:
§ Higher-level development solutions demonstrate a clear advantage in both TCO and ROI over 3GL tools in a wide variety of situations.
§ Progress OpenEdge Studio is a particularly effective high-level development solution…Initial costs were higher for Progress users compared to 3GL users, while development, upgrade, and administrative costs were lower. Business benefits such as speed to market and related opportunity cost savings increased sharply.
§ The key value-adds of the Progress development solution are speed-to-deliver, development cost savings, software quality improvements, application scalability, and platform and system-upgrade flexibility. Progress value-adds are due especially to programming at a higher level than 3GLs; “built-in” tools and approaches for creating data-access code; extensive software infrastructure components in the OpenEdge platform; and a well-designed developer interface that allows semi-automation within and across steps of the application development lifecycle.
§ User need for speed to value has made the effectiveness of a development tool more important than at any other time in the last eight years. Our research shows that speed to market is now heading the list of key advantages of a variety of new technologies, ahead of cost savings for the first time in recent memory. Users testify that the effectiveness of a development solution is the major determinant of speed to value.
In one of the report’s case studies OpenEdge’s shorter training time, the efficiency of the programming language and tools, and robustness and quality of the code allowed them to more quickly implement real-time management reports for their end users. Using this one feature, some of their customers have been able to achieve a 10% reduction in gross margin through reduced inventory and manufacturing costs. The second case study looks at the cost of developing a new application. It illustrates how one AP developed an OpenEdge application in just under 2 years with an average of 3 programmers at a cost of less than $1 million. If the project had been done in .NET, consultants estimated that it would cost 3 years and $6 million. The Progress 4GL and the OpenEdge platform are not just more efficient and cost-effective—they allow developers to create unique technical solutions. This case study’s partner has been able to build synchronization into their application to upgrade customers overnight. Typically, other suppliers take as long as 3 months to upgrade their customers.
If you need evidence backing up the claim that programming in the Progress 4GL within the OpenEdge platform can dramatically cut down the time between having a new idea and being able to implement it, see the complete study at http://www.progress.com/company_info/news_views/analyst_coverage/index.ssp.
