A big storm is brewing, as the global economy is becoming more turbulent by the day. Small and mid-sized businesses (SMEs) need to prepare themselves with effective strategies to weather this storm. This is why we will explore five time-tested strategies that can help SMEs navigate the uncertain times lying ahead. By incorporating digitalization into these strategies, businesses can position themselves not just to survive, but to come out ahead of the competition.   Build Cash Reserves Cost reduction is an obvious, but vital, strategy. To establish a healthy cash reserve, your smaller bu ..read more

Inventions, however ingenious, don’t just fall from the sky or happen overnight; they develop over time. And they draw on what is already available: processes that need perfecting, existing technologies, discoveries that make inventions possible… Take the radio, for example. If Maxwell hadn’t developed his theory of electromagnetic radiation in the 1860s, Marconi couldn’t have created his radio transmission system 30 years later. What we call Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) also has a long history to look back on. Gartner first used the term in the early 1990s, but the software had evolved ..read more

Forgive us for speaking of Christmas before November is even over, but we’re too excited to wait until December to share our latest present with you. And while you might tell your children not to open their presents too early, we hope you’ll tear off that wrapping paper now and check it out. No, it’s not an air fryer, a gift card or a pair of crazy socks. It’s better: the latest release of VisionX is now available! Those of you who seek instant gratification will be especially happy about the new design mode, as well as the live previews for mobile apps: you can make a change and see the resu ..read more

“No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks,” Alice Cooper sings in his signature song School’s Out. And while school may be out for summer, we worked hard to finish VisionX 5.7.11 in time before your well-deserved vacation. So check out the great new features before you head off to a mountain chalet, a sunny beach or your aunt’s house in the country. You’ll find that it’s a big update with many highlights.   Facelift: no more 3D Many of you will appreciate our new look. We’ve been wanting to give VisionX a facelift for a while now, and as you can see, we said goodbye ..read more

iTunes is often said to have revolutionized the way we listen to music. Fair enough, but if you used Apple’s service in the early days, you will remember that once you’d purchased a song you couldn’t just share it with your friends. Unless they had the iTunes app or an iPod, you were unable to show them your new favorite tune because it wouldn’t play on their PC or laptop. Robbie Williams, Destiny’s Child and whoever else was featured in your music library were all locked in there. As were you – into the iTunes app and into Apple products in general. A textbook case of vendor lock-in.   ..read more

Here’s a little math for you to do. It’s 2030 and there are 8.5 billion people living on the planet, 45 million of whom are professional software developers. What percentage of the world’s population do these pro coders account for? Calculators are allowed. Those two numbers above are only estimates – from the United Nations and Slashdata, respectively – but they make for a nice division exercise. And the solution is (roughly) 0.005, or one person out of two hundred. In other words, statistically speaking, none of your friends and family can code – and neither can you, for that matter. That s ..read more

Industries that have pretty much stayed the same for decades are now moving at a breakneck pace due to heavily digitized processes. If you work in a software company delivering suitable complex standard solutions that are the cornerstone of your customers’ operations, then you know it all too well: Your customers want you to cover each and every of their requirements and have them added to your standard product. But fulfilling each request would cause your standard software to quickly get bloated. You have to weigh in, and can’t just say yes to every feature request. Staying true to your road ..read more

Christmas is, for most people, a time of traditions. And also a time for good food. We know that Christmas dinner traditions typically involve having your family seated at a large table at home with the presents under the candle-lit tree, but there are also some that are a little more out of the ordinary. Did you know that: In Japan instead of having traditional dinner, families head out to their local Kentucky Fried Chicken. Families in Finland eat a porridge made of rice and milk and whoever finds the almond placed inside one of the puddings “wins”. In New Zealand, Christmas takes place in ..read more

Why do birds migrate? They want richer food sources and better conditions to nest, breed and raise their young. Ultimately, it all comes down to the desire to survive for another generation. And while seeing survival as the primary reason enterprises are migrating away from Oracle may seem a little far fetched, we think the analogy fits – they want to benefit from more choice, have fewer restrictions and enjoy more flexibility. In order to continue running a successful business. More and more enterprises are moving away from Oracle, and PostgreSQL, a powerful open-source database system, is t ..read more

Mark Twain, one of the most beloved and most quoted American authors, was once rumored to be gravely ill or already dead. He was neither. Twain’s response in a New York Journal article: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” He would live for another 13 years or so. In the world of IT, software products are occasionally proclaimed dead too. Or rather, they become antiquated and obsolete. And yet, despite experts agreeing that they’ve run their course, some continue to be used and refuse to go away. Oracle Forms is one such survivor and, much like Twain in the late 19th century, it’s be ..read more