What is DesignBais? Part 1
As many of you know I have been working with DesignBais for a while now. I’ve been impressed with it from the first time I saw it. This article contains excerpts from various forum postings I’ve made, and new material, to describe the product and explain my relationship with DesignBais International (DBI).
DesignBais has been in our MV DBMS market now for over three years and has done well since the initial release. The software is a web-browser-based GUI RAD IDE (Graphical User Interface, Rapid Application Development, Integrated Development Environment) for creating new apps or putting a new front end around old ones. It’s not a radically new technology, they don’t push the envelope, but their product addresses the needs of many developers and appeals to a developer’s sense of elegance and simplicity in design.
It is interesting that DesignBais used Ajax techniques long before the term AJAX was coined. (Ajax is essentially field-level validation and browser interaction with servers that don’t refresh the entire page. See the entire blog category I have dedicated to this topic.) This is one great way to web-enable software using a popular technology without having to know anything about it.
I originally was introduced to the software at the Spectrum conference in 2004. What amazed me was that so many people who walked out of their packed sessions seemed to be star-struck by what they saw. Being a techie I’m a bit jaded because I know what goes on under the covers with products like this, but leave me out of this, developers and end-users alike were walking around going "I gotta have this!"
I’ve grown quite fond of DesignBais for all of the things that it is Not: It’s not a "bells and whistles" product and not buzzword compliant. There are no new languages to learn, no VB or Java or .NET, no scripts, no "studio"-style RAD IDE, and no OOP libraries.
DesignBais is a simple product to work with but very powerful, and is constantly getting improved. It’s easy for junior and senior Pick programmers to use without hiring GUI developers or graphic artists. It’s familiar to SB+ developers but does not require any knowledge of SB+ whatsoever.
It’s a fast way to put a new face on an existing app. There are a number of success stories of short term development that have led directly to large sales. It’s ideal for license control and floating licenses for ASP (Application Service Provider) deployment, where the apps are hosted for remote users (for many developers this is an entirely new revenue stream). DesignBais is also now supported with almost all MV environments over Windows or Linux, non-IE browsers, smart devices etc.
The company is dedicated to the products, they’ve proven responsiveness to a happy user-developer base, and all of this has paid off with rapid growth. For these reasons I think the software and the company behind it are an ideal fit for a lot of Pick developers who are on the fence about GUI. What else are we looking for?
We’re so pleased with DesignBais here at Nebula R&D that we’ve forged a relationship with them. We’ll be helping to support DBI clients, and while we are not resellers of the software, we will be helping DBI Sales by doing presentations, providing information to prospects, and occasionally taking orders as agents for the company. We are also in the process of training other developers to use the software so that Nebula R&D can offer development services across every supported platform. If you are interested in GUI development but don’t have the time to do it yourself, please contact us to discuss your requirements.
Other articles soon to come in this series will discuss some of the more technical aspects of the software, include screenshots, even video demos – and maybe audio if I can get my microphone working. 