Many PowerBuilder developers are ISVs as well. Sybase recently published an interesting article about ISVs and in particular their relationship to the Cloud. About how hosting can be difficult for an ISV with limited resources:
- They must anticipate what customers will want and try to accommodate as many of these options as possible. Narrow solutions yield limited revenue.
- They must be prepared to accommodate special changes and customization, especially from high-value accounts.
- Because solutions frequently transact data from many different customers (and those customers are often close competitors), ISVs must pay extra heed to security to vouchsafe data seclusion.
- They must be sure that the technologies they use will be relevant and supportable indefinitely.
Different solutions exist for these problems, ISVs can turn to others in the community for products like Visual Guard for security and Customization Studio to tailor their product. Using known products, reduces the risk that ISVs will have to "back pedal their technology choices. A full rewrite of any customer-facing software system means taking their foot off the gas, the impact of which goes straight to the bottom line.
