Scope Of Progress

mukeshdel

New Member
hello all of u
toady i am going to be a new member in the PROGRESS family
i am going to join a training program in PROGRESS ru by J K TECHNOSOFT (rS 1 lAKH)
I JUST ONLY WANT TO KNOW that is it worth giving 1 lakh rs for this course as i had never heard about any vacancy in PROGRESS
kindly pls tell me about the scope in PROGRESS
 

joey.jeremiah

ProgressTalk Moderator
Staff member
There are alot of jobs and high payed consultants in Progress but
overall it is somewhat of a niche market.

But computers is a very dynamic field and there having been a great
deal of changes in the company and their strategies and you can never
know how the future will pan out

I think your best bet is getting a bachelors degree in computer science.
I actually believe it's almost the only option and no matter how long
you postpone your decision you'll probably realize it at some point

If you have a job offering by all means go for it. But if you're looking
to acquire a more sellable skill set then maybe you should consider
Java or .NET ? HTH
 
mukeshdel said:
hello all of u
toady i am going to be a new member in the PROGRESS family

Welcome.

mukeshdel said:
hello all of u
I JUST ONLY WANT TO KNOW that is it worth giving 1 lakh rs for this course as i had never heard about any vacancy in PROGRESS
kindly pls tell me about the scope in PROGRESS

As Joey says, Progress is a niche (small) market. You will find far fewer vacancies than for Microsoft or Oracle.

However the flip-side to this is that there are fewer competitors for vacancies, so if you apply for a job opening you have a better chance of getting it.

But...

As he said, you will improve your marketability by achieving a degree, and learning a 'big name' technology, eg. .Net.

By all means learn Progress - it's a good server-side technology, but don't limit yourself to it, or you may find yourself with a skill that too few people want in your neck of the woods (India?).

You can find more information about Progress vacancies by contacting IT recruitment agencies in your country, and asking them for further information.

Lee
 
Incidentally, do the company provide you with a copy of Progress on completion of training?

If not you may be wiser spending your money instead on a Progress development license (which I presume you would get from J K Technosoft), and downloading the manuals and documentation from the main www.Progress.com website.

That way you can experiment for as long as you like, rather than be limited to a course of a short duration (this may be unfair, I don't know how long the training will last).

It's always good to be trained by knowledgeable people, but I know how budgets can be limited sometimes...

Lee
 

mukeshdel

New Member
hello all of you
well thanx for all the support and giudance form all of you,
i think u all had put me in a labyrinthine, i had got more confused, pls get me clear whether is it good enough to do such a course which is having so limited vacancy & pls give me details about its future scope also.
 

Casper

ProgressTalk.com Moderator
Staff member
I think what everyone is trying to say that it all depends on the possiblity's there (India?).

I tell you my story:
After my study of chemistry I worked a lot in a resteaurant and at one time I saw an advert in the papers which said: Become Progress Programmer (100% job guarantee).
I never heard of Progress (sorry folks :) )but still gave it a go and here I am, still making Progress with Progress :). I still work for the same firm where I started 7 years ago and I must say that I never had a regret for taking that course.

Here in Holland there are plenty of Progress jobs around, but then again I don't know how it is in India (if rp = rupee). Offshore development is getting more and more important for company's, I know that lots of work in Progress is done in Eastern Europe and India so if you have the opportunity to take this course and you do this because you can get a job in Progress then by all means take the opportunity --> the more Progress people the better :)

HTH,

Casper.
 
My summary folks, although I suspect I'm confusing the issue even further :

1. If you want a higher paid job with not 100% guarantee that you'll be able to always find work then go to Progress (again dependant upon there being work in your area and also being sure that companies will take on juniors). Also be safe in the knowledge that if you go for an interview you'll probably be the only one being interviewed.

2. If you want a higher availablility of jobs (in most geographical locations), but, with a far lower salary then go for .dot net (or some other popular environment). However, more likely to be in a queue of canditates for the jobs.

Looking closely at the above two points you'll possibly read that both are difficult to find work as in the first there are few jobs, but, with few candidates and in the second there are far more jobs, but, also more canditates.

Be aware that Progress is much more costly to learn and that, as pointed out, it may be worth investing in a development license (Progress are VERY poor on helping developers learn it). There are also far fewer resources available and most involve attending a costly training course which usually isn't in your area so involves travel and hotel costs.

Another point : Progress (by its sheer nature) is aimed at large corporations who are historically more difficult to get into.

Or go for Oracle - similar beast to Progress (in nature, so, please don't shoot me down) and again aimed at large corporations, but, more well known. Again Oracle guys tend to earn larger salaries.

And finally. I think most Progress developers have the very real worry that Progress will suddenly lose the market and the work will dry up !!

I can understand why it is a difficult choice. Think we need a little bit more input to this thread please folks.

I've worked in Progress for 12 years (having started off as a C programmer) and I've never been out of work (yet) !!

Still think that Progress rules though - it's the revolution that worries me !!
 

vinod_home

Member
hi,

what are they offering you. Are they offering you only the training, or is a training and job placement. JK Tech is more than training. I know them more as a marketing company for Progress in India, though they have a lot of clients for who they develop and support (which would give the option for a job placement). I would personally think that kinda money is high for a intro to progress training. But if you are promised a job with it, then maybe you can give it a second thought.

hope that helps,
 

Ach

Member
Mukesh:

The answer is a BIG NO. Don't ever think of learning Progress if you not already into it.

Most of the comments you saw here are true and amount to only this:

1> Progress is a very small community.

2> No language sells by itself. It's the application vendors that basically run the Progress company. Vendors like QAD etc sell their package and that's when Progress licenses get sold. These vendors have already started re-writing their applications in .net and other new technologes (Web based) as it is a lot easier to sell a package written in the new languages and Microsoft even pays for the development. Going forward, these companies are not going to sell Progress based applications so new customers are not going to get created.

3> Senior Progress gurus who have a job may not lose it as it is difficult to find Progress programmers. Since they are already into it, they stay there for job security and a lot of them don't make an effort to move on to something better and they have to sacrifice in terms of money. What a senior Progress developer gets is equivalent to an intermdediate guy in other systems (SAP, Oracle etc).

Here I want to challenge 'Progress_guy' who says that Progress jobs are higher paid. Can you prove it Progress_guy? Post the rates for senior ppl. in Progress vs SAP, Oracle , .dot net etc. I will see what statistics you come up with.

Net conslusion is, you should not get into something on which you will spend a few years, become senior only to realise that you have to move out of that later. That way, you lose your experience and time. I moved out of Progress after spending years and I was lucky I was also doing other things along with Progress so I did not have to start as a junior in the new field.

If you hear comments like 'Progress is a good platform..it can do anything others can do' or 'It's the best blah blah blah', that is because a lot of people are patriots and keep harping about it. Don't believe them.

Spending 1 lac to learn this thing is absolutely useless.
 

Casper

ProgressTalk.com Moderator
Staff member
Hi Ach,

I think you fail to see that Progress is still growing and Progress is a good product. Where I live (in Holland) Progress is pretty big. We get new customers from other platforms so we are able to compete with products like Oracle.

If you're talking about rewriting in .Net en webbased application then you probably haven't been around for a while in the Progress community, otherwise you would know that it's fairly easy to create webbased environments with Progress. Same aplies for making a .net front-end on existing Progress applications. So don't see your point. I know plenty of Progress Application Partners but none of them is thinking of rewriting their application into some other language. You have statistical proof of that? :)

I think the comments given here where objective and true. So no big NO and no big Yes, it all depends on the situation you're in.

I agree that it's always wise to learn other languages as well. But that doesn't apply only if you are a Progress Programmer.

Casper.
 

mukeshdel

New Member
hi
i was coming to a conclusion, but the ACH had confused me
,well i wan't to tell that it's a job gaurantee course ,
i am still in a dilema as all of u i think r from abroad, & none of u are able to tell about the osition in india .
seeit is a fact that b4 thinking about abroad first of all i have to think about my carrer in india.
well pls tell me also the salary structure difference b/w progress eople & other like oracle
 
mukeshdel said:
hi
i am still in a dilema as all of u i think r from abroad, & none of u are able to tell about the osition in india .
seeit is a fact that b4 thinking about abroad first of all i have to think about my carrer in india.
well pls tell me also the salary structure difference b/w progress eople & other like oracle

I can't tell you about India specifically, but the following UK site gives you the ability to compare jobs being advertised in that country.

It won't necessarily reflect the situation in other countries, but might give an indication of the situation.

To emphasize: this is not scientific, just an indication of employment prospects for UK employees.

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/search.aspx

If you search on terms like 'ORACLE', 'c#', 'Progress' you will see that Progress is a niche skillset, and not particularly well-paid.

Lee
 

Ach

Member
Casper said:
Hi Ach,

I think you fail to see that Progress is still growing and Progress is a good product. Where I live (in Holland) Progress is pretty big. We get new customers from other platforms so we are able to compete with products like Oracle.

If you're talking about rewriting in .Net en webbased application then you probably haven't been around for a while in the Progress community, otherwise you would know that it's fairly easy to create webbased environments with Progress. Same aplies for making a .net front-end on existing Progress applications. So don't see your point. I know plenty of Progress Application Partners but none of them is thinking of rewriting their application into some other language. You have statistical proof of that? :)

I think the comments given here where objective and true. So no big NO and no big Yes, it all depends on the situation you're in.

I agree that it's always wise to learn other languages as well. But that doesn't apply only if you are a Progress Programmer.

Casper.

Casper:

I have been (sorry, had been) in Progress community for about 12 years before I switched my career. I don't know about Holland but I am in US and I worked for a mother company that wrote a Progress based application. Along with them, I know 2 other mother companies (Progress Application Vendors) that are moving out of Progress. As for the statistics, what statistical proof can be given until their migration is done? The statistics that can be revealed is .. Check the no. of customers the biggest Progress application vendor has worldwide (ever since they started) and compare that to the no. of customers SAP gets (no. of installations) in TWO years just in US. Get the point?
..and don't ask me the name of the biggest Progress application vendor, otherwise you have not been around for a while.

By the way, is Progress big in Holland because there are not enough big companies who can afford to buy more successfull applications because they are more expensive :) ?

As for Progress being web based, I know about Webspeed but you are not getting the point here. I also said earlier that there will be many answers from people like you who will disagree with me, didn't I say that?

Mukeshdel..if you believe in taking your career decisions based on what answers you get on a Users Forum, I don't know what to say. You should treat these answers (including mine) as a result of different knowledge sets, experiences, analysis but not to take your own decisions. There are other ways to find out about things too. Since you are in India, check it out in India. Check out the major job sites for India, see no. of jobs coming up. See how many companies use Progress. Talk to recruiters (not to get a job but because recruiters only deal with the major market), talk to successfull people in IT industry. Having mentioned recruiters, in US most recruiters haven't heard about Progress. If the market is good in India (which I find difficult to believe as I have seen people trying to move out of Progress there also after being there for years), then go fot it.

Like I said, take your own decision. I personally agree with comments of Lee Curzon.
 

Casper

ProgressTalk.com Moderator
Staff member
lol,

By the way, is Progress big in Holland because there are not enough big companies who can afford to buy more successfull applications because they are more expensive :) ?

I think we play better golf then the guys at SAP :cool: .

Casper.
 

joey.jeremiah

ProgressTalk Moderator
Staff member
I strongly agree with Lee,

In that you have to realize it's a niche market. The fact that you've never seen any vacancies ( and it's not all that different anywhere else ) pretty much settles it and that's the situation you'll find yourself in the next time you'll be looking for a job...

I think, that Progress grew into a different market strategy in that they don't comeout with a great product followed by agressive marketing and wait for the next killer app to come from it. I think, Progress mostly recruits their customers as partners especially in fields they feel have a strong potential for growing ( I'm talking about OpenEdge not the other Progress companies ) ?

With that said don't limit yourself to Progress, although it's big enough and I think interesting enough to keep you busy for years and maybe that's the mistake some of us have done. Learn SQL, Web technologies and Java or .NET etc. Just remember somewhere in the back of your head that it is a niche market.

Another thing you'll have to realize is that it's not a craft you learn that pretty much doesn't change and you only spend time tunning and perfecting it. IT as a whole is a very dynamic and always changing field and requires an ongoing and never ending process of learning. So that's another thing you have to realize you're signing yourself into.

Finally I would say trust your instincts ( I think that's something we should all do more ) and do something you like doing. If you don't feel good about it or you feel stuck in it then do something else. HTH
 

joey.jeremiah

ProgressTalk Moderator
Staff member
man, please be more specific, who is they ???

it's like my mom giving directions - "in the city around the corner beside a store" which could be anywhere in the planet :)
 

karthik

New Member
PROGRESS in INDIA

Well in INDIA."Unilever Corporation" the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods major is the only company which uses PROGRESS.Even they are planning to move away from PROGRESS in the next couple of years.
Well PROGRESS has very few customers in INDIA when compared to UK.
 

vinod_home

Member
there are a lot of customers in India using Progress. Uniliver is one of the largest. JK Tech as I mentioned before markets progress, and they would have the complete list of all Progress based companies in India. But still I would not feel its worth paying so much money for the training course.

It also depends on how bad your searching for a job. If you dont have other options open then its a different picture. But if your just starting to look for a job then there should be more options that you can look at. Java, Oracle, .Net, SAP to mention a few.

Training on each of these cost money (I would guess SAP being the highest at this time) but I still wouldnt think its so high as they have asked for Progress (excluding sap of course). (If they are charging so much money and promise you a job that will pay you 5 oto 10 times that money then I would go with it.)
 
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