[English] - Devs On Tape - Mike Hichwa - Exploring the Evolution of Oracle APEX

00:00:21: Kai: Hello and welcome to another episode of

00:00:23: Kai: Devs on Tape Today again at APEX Connected

00:00:26: Kai: Dusseldorf this year at first.

00:00:28: Kai: Hello Caro.

00:00:29: Caro: Hi Kai.

00:00:30: Kai: I promise not to forget that.

00:00:32: Kai: And yes, last but not least, we have a very

00:00:34: Kai: tremendous guest on our podcast today the

00:00:36: Kai: founder of APEX, mike Hitchwa.

00:00:38: Kai: Hi, hi, how are you doing?

00:00:40: Kai: Excellent, excellent, right after your

00:00:42: Kai: keynote, right?

00:00:43: Kai: That's right?

00:00:43: Kai: That's right, that's right, all right For

00:00:45: Kai: our listeners.

00:00:45: Kai: I could not pretend that or expect that

00:00:47: Kai: anyone doesn't know who you are, but maybe

00:00:50: Kai: for the small amount of people who doesn't

00:00:52: Kai: know or who don't know you, please

00:00:58: Kai: introduce yourself for our listeners.

00:00:59: Mike Hichwa: Sure, I'm Mike Hichwa, responsible for

00:01:00: Mike Hichwa: database tools for the Oracle Database

00:01:01: Mike Hichwa: Group, and I was original creator of APEX

00:01:02: Mike Hichwa: but also an application developer.

00:01:04: Mike Hichwa: So we build the tools for APEX, but my

00:01:07: Mike Hichwa: personal preference is I just love building

00:01:09: Mike Hichwa: applications.

00:01:10: Mike Hichwa: I love building apps with the Oracle

00:01:12: Mike Hichwa: database and with APEX, and so truly use

00:01:16: Mike Hichwa: what we create, and it's been a great

00:01:18: Mike Hichwa: career.

00:01:19: Kai: So was it your first APEX Connect this year.

00:01:22: Mike Hichwa: No, it was one before in.

00:01:24: Kai: Berlin In Berlin at now.

00:01:26: Kai: Okay, yeah, I remember that.

00:01:28: Kai: Yeah, you introduced new features today.

00:01:30: Kai: So you said you introduced the new starter

00:01:32: Kai: apps in APEX.

00:01:33: Kai: What about those applications?

00:01:35: Mike Hichwa: So I felt it was the 10th anniversary of

00:01:37: Mike Hichwa: the conference.

00:01:38: Mike Hichwa: I definitely wanted to bring something, and

00:01:39: Mike Hichwa: so I made it a priority to create some

00:01:41: Mike Hichwa: applications.

00:01:43: Mike Hichwa: We decided not to talk about new features

00:01:45: Mike Hichwa: of APEX.

00:01:47: Mike Hichwa: The starter apps are available right now.

00:01:49: Mike Hichwa: You can download them today.

00:01:51: Mike Hichwa: But we want to have greater exposure to

00:01:54: Mike Hichwa: marketing, and so the marketing group told

00:01:56: Mike Hichwa: us, if we discuss all of our new features

00:01:58: Mike Hichwa: in advance, that no analyst or press will

00:02:00: Mike Hichwa: want to have a scoop, because there'll be

00:02:02: Mike Hichwa: no scoop to be had.

00:02:03: Mike Hichwa: And so we think it's just fine, like why

00:02:05: Mike Hichwa: should we be talking about that?

00:02:08: Mike Hichwa: We should talk about you know other things,

00:02:09: Mike Hichwa: and then when APEX comes out, the next

00:02:10: Mike Hichwa: version, the features will become obvious.

00:02:13: Kai: Can you tell us more about the amount of

00:02:15: Kai: new features in the next version of APEX?

00:02:17: Kai: So just not specific on features, but there

00:02:20: Kai: was one slide in your presentation, if I

00:02:21: Kai: remember correctly, that is showing the bar

00:02:23: Kai: chart of how many features are introduced

00:02:25: Kai: for each version.

00:02:26: Kai: And I saw this green new bar with the new

00:02:29: Kai: version and it was way bigger than the

00:02:31: Kai: other ones.

00:02:32: Mike Hichwa: Way bigger.

00:02:32: Mike Hichwa: Perhaps it should be released with the most

00:02:35: Mike Hichwa: features and it should have more features

00:02:37: Mike Hichwa: than the previous one, which is the

00:02:38: Mike Hichwa: previous record holder.

00:02:40: Mike Hichwa: So, yeah, we have a larger development team.

00:02:41: Mike Hichwa: We're very proud of that.

00:02:42: Mike Hichwa: We have over 100 APEX developers and, of

00:02:45: Mike Hichwa: course, APEX sits on the shoulders of our

00:02:47: Mike Hichwa: database, where we have 7,000 developers.

00:02:50: Mike Hichwa: So there's quite a bit of effort going into

00:02:52: Mike Hichwa: this technology stack and, yeah, so we

00:02:55: Mike Hichwa: expect to have a lot of new features in a

00:02:57: Mike Hichwa: lot of different areas in this next release.

00:03:00: Caro: When you presented the sample applications,

00:03:03: Caro: I wondered if a strategic planner is

00:03:06: Caro: something like this p-track application.

00:03:08: Caro: We had a few years it's very similar to

00:03:10: Caro: p-track.

00:03:10: Mike Hichwa: It's sort of the successor and I was trying

00:03:13: Mike Hichwa: to correct things that I felt that were not

00:03:15: Mike Hichwa: right in p-track, so p-track had the

00:03:18: Mike Hichwa: strategic planner.

00:03:19: Mike Hichwa: I think is is more in line with what we

00:03:21: Mike Hichwa: want to do for planning out next releases

00:03:24: Mike Hichwa: of APEX and also because it was created 10

00:03:27: Mike Hichwa: years later, it's got a much better user

00:03:29: Mike Hichwa: experience from my perspective.

00:03:31: Caro: So I've noticed that some people were very

00:03:34: Caro: sad that you didn't update the P-Track

00:03:36: Caro: application anymore.

00:03:37: Caro: So every listener which was sad you can

00:03:40: Caro: download it now.

00:03:41: Caro: The strategic planner on the APEXoraclecom.

00:03:44: Mike Hichwa: That's correct, and I was surprised that

00:03:46: Mike Hichwa: P-Track was actually used by over 10,000

00:03:49: Mike Hichwa: people and used it regularly.

00:03:51: Mike Hichwa: And I met people at Oracle and I was

00:03:53: Mike Hichwa: sitting next to them at some event and they

00:03:55: Mike Hichwa: had their P-Track open doing their own

00:03:57: Mike Hichwa: things and I thought quite strange.

00:03:59: Mike Hichwa: They had no idea who I was and I was just

00:04:01: Mike Hichwa: running this.

00:04:01: Mike Hichwa: Oh yes, we use this software.

00:04:03: Mike Hichwa: It's called P-Track, but yeah, so now it

00:04:05: Mike Hichwa: has a successor and apologies for taking so

00:04:08: Mike Hichwa: long to have it out.

00:04:10: Caro: I also like P-Track from the perspective of

00:04:12: Caro: designing, so you had some special design

00:04:16: Caro: things like this sidebar on the right side,

00:04:19: Caro: I think, and this comment section, et

00:04:21: Caro: cetera, and I really liked it to show the

00:04:24: Caro: customers what is possible with Oracle APEX

00:04:27: Caro: design-wise.

00:04:28: Mike Hichwa: Yeah, I think that's important to show

00:04:30: Mike Hichwa: these starter apps where they're actually

00:04:32: Mike Hichwa: functioning apps.

00:04:33: Mike Hichwa: You might not like what the software does,

00:04:35: Mike Hichwa: but the idea is that it shows a reasonably

00:04:37: Mike Hichwa: complex piece of software, maybe 150 pages,

00:04:40: Mike Hichwa: with quite a bit of interactions, different

00:04:42: Mike Hichwa: types of user interfaces, and so you know,

00:04:44: Mike Hichwa: you can like it or not like it, but I think

00:04:46: Mike Hichwa: that it's good to see an example and I

00:04:48: Mike Hichwa: think that a lot of customers will be able

00:04:49: Mike Hichwa: to take it and then just customize it,

00:04:51: Mike Hichwa: change the tables, you know, remove the

00:04:53: Mike Hichwa: parts they don't like, add the parts that

00:04:55: Mike Hichwa: they would like to have in their

00:04:56: Mike Hichwa: environment and make it their own.

00:04:58: Caro: Yeah, so we take a few steps back.

00:05:01: Caro: So I've seen on your LinkedIn profile

00:05:04: Caro: you're at Oracle like almost 36 years.

00:05:08: Mike Hichwa: Yes, it's been a while.

00:05:09: Caro: Really impressive.

00:05:11: Caro: So how did you get there?

00:05:15: Mike Hichwa: I had a job for two years prior.

00:05:16: Mike Hichwa: I was working at this company called CACI,

00:05:17: Mike Hichwa: but we worked on the Oracle database and we

00:05:19: Mike Hichwa: worked on Oracle 4 where we had a predate

00:05:22: Mike Hichwa: SQL+.

00:05:22: Mike Hichwa: It was called UFI, user-friendly interface,

00:05:25: Mike Hichwa: and so when I eventually came to work for

00:05:27: Mike Hichwa: Oracle, I had to explain that we no longer

00:05:28: Mike Hichwa: had a user-friendly interface.

00:05:29: Mike Hichwa: We have SQL Plus.

00:05:32: Mike Hichwa: But anyway, yes, it was Oracle at the time.

00:05:35: Mike Hichwa: It was a very small company, maybe 2000

00:05:38: Mike Hichwa: people at most, and I was fortunate to get

00:05:41: Mike Hichwa: an interview and get a job in sales

00:05:43: Mike Hichwa: consulting, and so you would think that

00:05:47: Mike Hichwa: people would want to go into development.

00:05:48: Mike Hichwa: But I was local to Washington DC area and

00:05:51: Mike Hichwa: so sales consulting was it.

00:05:53: Mike Hichwa: But I thought that it was a great way to

00:05:54: Mike Hichwa: start your career because as a technical

00:05:57: Mike Hichwa: sales consultant, my job was to travel to

00:05:59: Mike Hichwa: all of our customer base, listen to all

00:06:00: Mike Hichwa: their complaints about our software and

00:06:02: Mike Hichwa: show them how to fix it.

00:06:03: Mike Hichwa: So I did performance tuning, I built out

00:06:05: Mike Hichwa: applications in Oracle Forms, and so I

00:06:08: Mike Hichwa: thought it was really a great way to have

00:06:10: Mike Hichwa: an education.

00:06:11: Mike Hichwa: So I would travel the world and the United

00:06:13: Mike Hichwa: States listening to customers explain

00:06:16: Mike Hichwa: exactly how they do their business and

00:06:18: Mike Hichwa: exactly what they need from software and

00:06:19: Mike Hichwa: then they asked me to show them how the

00:06:21: Mike Hichwa: Oracle software would solve the problem and

00:06:24: Mike Hichwa: I thought that was the best education one

00:06:26: Mike Hichwa: could get.

00:06:27: Mike Hichwa: So I thought I was very fortunate to start

00:06:29: Mike Hichwa: there and then transition into a

00:06:30: Mike Hichwa: development track.

00:06:32: Kai: And Cal already said almost 36 years at

00:06:34: Kai: Oracle.

00:06:35: Kai: So we asked Chris Rice the same question.

00:06:37: Kai: In today's time, many people, mostly

00:06:40: Kai: younger people, are not staying that long

00:06:42: Kai: at a company.

00:06:43: Kai: So I mean, in your case it's obvious what

00:06:45: Kai: keeps you there?

00:06:46: Kai: Right, it's APEX.

00:06:47: Kai: You couldn't go away and see a different

00:06:49: Kai: company.

00:06:50: Kai: Yeah, raising up whatever you created back

00:06:52: Kai: then, but what are the additional points?

00:06:54: Kai: Why are you staying for so long in one

00:06:57: Kai: software company?

00:06:58: Mike Hichwa: You know, things get easy when things go

00:07:00: Mike Hichwa: well right, so if you're successful once,

00:07:02: Mike Hichwa: then you're successful twice, or something

00:07:03: Mike Hichwa: like that.

00:07:08: Mike Hichwa: Things are easy, but it's not necessarily

00:07:09: Mike Hichwa: true for every generation or every person.

00:07:10: Mike Hichwa: And, just to be clear, I'm so pleased with

00:07:11: Mike Hichwa: my career and I thought that's gone well,

00:07:13: Mike Hichwa: but there's a lot of luck involved too, and

00:07:14: Mike Hichwa: so I think that people do change jobs

00:07:17: Mike Hichwa: because they feel like that they're

00:07:19: Mike Hichwa: constrained or they're unable to fulfill

00:07:21: Mike Hichwa: what they want, and so one of the things

00:07:22: Mike Hichwa: that I did, which I feel really lucky about,

00:07:25: Mike Hichwa: is that I was able to do exactly what I

00:07:27: Mike Hichwa: wanted to do.

00:07:27: Mike Hichwa: I wanted to build application development

00:07:29: Mike Hichwa: and I wanted to provide it for other people

00:07:31: Mike Hichwa: to use, and so I was able to fulfill that.

00:07:34: Mike Hichwa: So for me, there was no question to want to

00:07:36: Mike Hichwa: change, because I was doing what I wanted

00:07:37: Mike Hichwa: to do.

00:07:38: Kai: So now Senior Vice President of Software

00:07:40: Kai: Development at Oracle.

00:07:41: Kai: How many people are working for you right

00:07:42: Kai: now?

00:07:43: Mike Hichwa: Probably about 330 or thereabouts, so it

00:07:46: Mike Hichwa: spans multiple responsibilities.

00:07:48: Mike Hichwa: So SQL Net product, the database drivers,

00:07:51: Mike Hichwa: jdbc and all the database drivers, the

00:07:53: Mike Hichwa: tools for Org and SQL Developer, the

00:07:56: Mike Hichwa: database consoles for cloud and, of course,

00:07:58: Mike Hichwa: APEX and a number of APEX special projects

00:08:01: Mike Hichwa: that are building out solutions for the

00:08:03: Mike Hichwa: company in APEX.

00:08:04: Kai: I was very surprised and I was very happy

00:08:05: Kai: to see that of APEX special projects that

00:08:06: Kai: are, you know, building out solutions for

00:08:07: Kai: the company in APEX I was very surprised

00:08:12: Kai: and I was very happy to see that let's call

00:08:12: Kai: it a manager having 300 people working for

00:08:14: Kai: him and stood on the stage and said I

00:08:14: Kai: programmed a little application for you all.

00:08:16: Kai: I think it could be nice and I decided to

00:08:18: Kai: have this three dots, dot, dot dot

00:08:20: Kai: navigation thing.

00:08:21: Kai: I thought it was a great UX and UI for you

00:08:23: Kai: and try it out and let me know how you like

00:08:26: Kai: it.

00:08:26: Kai: This is very sad to see that someone is

00:08:28: Kai: still in development.

00:08:30: Mike Hichwa: Yeah, and what's interesting is that I

00:08:31: Mike Hichwa: really like building out APEX applications.

00:08:34: Mike Hichwa: It's not that technically difficult,

00:08:36: Mike Hichwa: especially if you can use the declarative

00:08:39: Mike Hichwa: parts of it, and so the hard part is the

00:08:41: Mike Hichwa: parts that you can't do declarative.

00:08:42: Mike Hichwa: You want to do something, but you can't,

00:08:44: Mike Hichwa: and so that was one of the things that

00:08:46: Mike Hichwa: building these apps gives me a perspective

00:08:48: Mike Hichwa: on the whole platform to make sure that it

00:08:51: Mike Hichwa: meets what developers want, and so, yeah,

00:08:53: Mike Hichwa: so we definitely got them ready for this.

00:09:00: Kai: Literally while.

00:09:01: Mike Hichwa: I was sitting in the chair.

00:09:01: Mike Hichwa: We were making the final changes and

00:09:03: Mike Hichwa: deployments to GitHub.

00:09:04: Kai: It was done with 15 minutes to spare Great.

00:09:06: Kai: So how much influence do you have still on

00:09:07: Kai: APEX?

00:09:07: Kai: So you already said that a hundred people

00:09:09: Kai: are working in the APEX team.

00:09:10: Kai: There are a couple of product managers that

00:09:12: Kai: are influencing what features coming in the

00:09:14: Kai: product, but how much influence do you have

00:09:16: Kai: still in introducing new features in APEX?

00:09:18: Mike Hichwa: I think I have some, but I try to keep it

00:09:20: Mike Hichwa: very balanced because I know when I was

00:09:23: Mike Hichwa: coming up that you know you want to get the

00:09:25: Mike Hichwa: most out of your employees and ask to

00:09:27: Mike Hichwa: unleash their own creativity and you don't

00:09:29: Mike Hichwa: want to tell them everything to do.

00:09:30: Mike Hichwa: I don't think it's good for I don't think

00:09:32: Mike Hichwa: the employee likes it and I don't think you

00:09:34: Mike Hichwa: get the best results.

00:09:35: Mike Hichwa: And so you want to have this balance

00:09:37: Mike Hichwa: between you know giving, allowing people to

00:09:39: Mike Hichwa: do what they want to do and bring their

00:09:42: Mike Hichwa: level of creativity and their special sauce

00:09:44: Mike Hichwa: to the mix, but also to have that direction.

00:09:47: Mike Hichwa: And so I thought my keynote presentation

00:09:49: Mike Hichwa: today was kind of trying to outline a

00:09:51: Mike Hichwa: number of the key tenants that make APEX

00:09:53: Mike Hichwa: APEX and to be able to innovate within that.

00:09:56: Mike Hichwa: But, having said that, I definitely have my

00:09:58: Mike Hichwa: pet projects and my favorite features, and

00:10:00: Mike Hichwa: so you know I like faceted search.

00:10:02: Mike Hichwa: I thought that was the thing I drove pretty

00:10:04: Mike Hichwa: hard, and there's other areas, like this

00:10:06: Mike Hichwa: APEX language.

00:10:07: Mike Hichwa: I have the same thing, but I want to make

00:10:09: Mike Hichwa: sure that I leave space for people to.

00:10:11: Mike Hichwa: You know, I'm happy to review things and

00:10:13: Mike Hichwa: look at things, but I'm actually more happy

00:10:16: Mike Hichwa: that someone has a better idea than I am

00:10:18: Mike Hichwa: that if I tell them the idea, because I

00:10:19: Mike Hichwa: want the technology to be successful and I

00:10:22: Mike Hichwa: think that you know, I'm just so happy that

00:10:24: Mike Hichwa: a new developer could create something or

00:10:26: Mike Hichwa: come up with something that I didn't think

00:10:27: Mike Hichwa: of.

00:10:27: Mike Hichwa: That was just really a great idea.

00:10:29: Mike Hichwa: That makes me super happy.

00:10:31: Caro: I wondered because you are also responsible

00:10:34: Caro: for, for example, for SQL developer right.

00:10:36: Mike Hichwa: Yes.

00:10:37: Caro: Et cetera, and now that Chris got promoted

00:10:40: Caro: also to senior vice president.

00:10:42: Mike Hichwa: That is correct.

00:10:43: Caro: Okay, perfect, Is it still?

00:10:46: Caro: Are you still working together?

00:10:48: Mike Hichwa: You know, in fact, we're actually working

00:10:50: Mike Hichwa: more closely together.

00:10:51: Mike Hichwa: So, as you might know, chris Rice is also

00:10:53: Mike Hichwa: responsible for ORDS, oracle REST Data

00:10:55: Mike Hichwa: Services, which is the mid-tier to APEX,

00:11:05: Mike Hichwa: and so there's a great opportunity moving

00:11:06: Mike Hichwa: forward to have a tighter integration, to

00:11:07: Mike Hichwa: make APEX more efficient and to leverage

00:11:08: Mike Hichwa: more capabilities of Orgs within APEX, and

00:11:09: Mike Hichwa: so we're working on special projects inside

00:11:10: Mike Hichwa: of Oracle as well, and so it's really the

00:11:14: Mike Hichwa: APEX team and the Orgs team are really two

00:11:16: Mike Hichwa: sides of the same coin, and so Orgs

00:11:18: Mike Hichwa: provides the ability to publish RESTful web

00:11:20: Mike Hichwa: services from the Oracle database, so it's

00:11:23: Mike Hichwa: more of an API tool and APEX is more of

00:11:25: Mike Hichwa: like a user interface tool.

00:11:27: Mike Hichwa: But it's the same technology and the same

00:11:29: Mike Hichwa: thing, and so there's a lot of areas in

00:11:31: Mike Hichwa: common.

00:11:32: Mike Hichwa: So Chris Rice also wrote the original SQL

00:11:35: Mike Hichwa: workshop, which is still used inside of

00:11:37: Mike Hichwa: APEX, and so that was from way back and

00:11:41: Mike Hichwa: yeah, so it's really just one big team that

00:11:43: Mike Hichwa: builds out the whole stack, and a lot of

00:11:45: Mike Hichwa: customers just use ORDS because they just

00:11:48: Mike Hichwa: want REST APIs on Oracle Database Data, and

00:11:51: Mike Hichwa: some customers, you know, just use APEX

00:11:53: Mike Hichwa: because user interface, so they don't need

00:11:55: Mike Hichwa: an API, but the you know, the best is to be

00:11:58: Mike Hichwa: able to marry both and have both APIs and

00:12:01: Mike Hichwa: user interfaces with APEX and ORDS.

00:12:03: Mike Hichwa: Have it be a seamless experience all from

00:12:05: Mike Hichwa: one company, with one team and designed and

00:12:08: Mike Hichwa: tested together.

00:12:09: Caro: I think I also talked about the new object

00:12:13: Caro: viewer.

00:12:14: Mike Hichwa: Object browser.

00:12:15: Caro: Yeah, things in APEX and that you had also

00:12:19: Caro: discussions about should we redesign it,

00:12:21: Caro: should we change it, or should we just use

00:12:24: Caro: the SQL developer web, which is also coming

00:12:27: Caro: with the RDS?

00:12:30: Mike Hichwa: Yeah.

00:12:30: Mike Hichwa: So there's kind of a conundrum there.

00:12:32: Mike Hichwa: There's a where when you log into APEX,

00:12:34: Mike Hichwa: you're logging in as an APEX username,

00:12:36: Mike Hichwa: password and that gives you your privileges

00:12:39: Mike Hichwa: and your parsing schema, and with a SQL

00:12:42: Mike Hichwa: developer you're connecting as a schema and

00:12:44: Mike Hichwa: so there's a slight difference in your

00:12:46: Mike Hichwa: privilege model.

00:12:47: Mike Hichwa: So we want to make it as easy as possible

00:12:50: Mike Hichwa: for any APEX developer.

00:12:51: Mike Hichwa: So we added in 23.2 a click where you just

00:12:54: Mike Hichwa: click and run SQL developer web so you can

00:12:56: Mike Hichwa: get.

00:12:56: Mike Hichwa: Sql developer web has a nicer SQL interface.

00:12:59: Mike Hichwa: You can run multiple SQL statements at a

00:13:02: Mike Hichwa: time more easily.

00:13:03: Mike Hichwa: It has a better syntax highlighting.

00:13:06: Mike Hichwa: You can have auto-complete of your table

00:13:09: Mike Hichwa: names, which is not available in APEX at

00:13:11: Mike Hichwa: this time, and so the ideal is to have a

00:13:14: Mike Hichwa: mix.

00:13:14: Mike Hichwa: But one might say well, why don't you just

00:13:15: Mike Hichwa: use SQL developer and not have APEX and the

00:13:18: Mike Hichwa: different?

00:13:18: Mike Hichwa: The rationale is because the authentication

00:13:21: Mike Hichwa: and the user experience is integrated.

00:13:23: Mike Hichwa: So hopefully we'll be able to provide the

00:13:26: Mike Hichwa: best of both native to APEX as well as the

00:13:28: Mike Hichwa: same code path working in SQL Developer Web.

00:13:31: Mike Hichwa: That would be the ideal.

00:13:32: Mike Hichwa: We're not exactly there yet, but we're

00:13:34: Mike Hichwa: working on it.

00:13:35: Kai: So, talking about the size of the team and

00:13:37: Kai: the traction APEX got, that Larry Ellison

00:13:40: Kai: is talking about in his keynotes and so on,

00:13:42: Kai: one of those questions that is happening

00:13:44: Kai: each and every time is how long does APEX

00:13:47: Kai: stay for free?

00:13:49: Mike Hichwa: Yeah, yeah.

00:13:49: Mike Hichwa: So there's no dynamic that I can see that

00:13:52: Mike Hichwa: would change that model, and so it's kind

00:13:54: Mike Hichwa: of weird like you do something for 20 years

00:13:56: Mike Hichwa: consistently and they're wondering why

00:13:58: Mike Hichwa: would you do it the 21st year if you did it

00:14:00: Mike Hichwa: for 20 years and there's really no benefit.

00:14:04: Mike Hichwa: I don't think to having it being a costed

00:14:06: Mike Hichwa: model.

00:14:07: Mike Hichwa: I think that the reason people think of

00:14:08: Mike Hichwa: that is that the competition is costed

00:14:11: Mike Hichwa: because they have companies that are just

00:14:13: Mike Hichwa: dedicated to doing one thing, and if you

00:14:14: Mike Hichwa: have a company dedicated to do one thing,

00:14:16: Mike Hichwa: you have to charge for it.

00:14:17: Mike Hichwa: But Oracle has many products like we're

00:14:20: Mike Hichwa: trying to get customers to move to our

00:14:21: Mike Hichwa: cloud.

00:14:22: Mike Hichwa: We think we have a competitive cloud and we

00:14:24: Mike Hichwa: want people to use our database and like

00:14:25: Mike Hichwa: our database, and we specifically want

00:14:27: Mike Hichwa: application developers to use and like our

00:14:29: Mike Hichwa: database and we think that APEX is a great

00:14:32: Mike Hichwa: draw for that, and so, yeah, there's no

00:14:35: Mike Hichwa: intention that we have to make APEX costed.

00:14:38: Kai: That's exactly what I thought when I

00:14:40: Kai: started with APEX 4.2,.

00:14:42: Kai: I guess that a team of like 10 or 15 people

00:14:45: Kai: at most is working on a product that might

00:14:47: Kai: influence the developers to stay at the

00:14:49: Kai: Oracle database or go to the Oracle

00:14:51: Kai: database for their applications.

00:14:53: Kai: And now if the team is like a hundred

00:14:54: Kai: people marketing and everything and so on,

00:14:57: Kai: that sometimes I ask myself if it's getting

00:15:00: Kai: a bigger product that should be not should

00:15:02: Kai: be, but would be considered at some point

00:15:05: Kai: to earn.

00:15:06: Mike Hichwa: Yeah, so Oracle is building out APEX

00:15:08: Mike Hichwa: functionality in Cerner and hopefully in

00:15:11: Mike Hichwa: the future for Fusion Apps.

00:15:12: Mike Hichwa: We haven't done it yet.

00:15:13: Mike Hichwa: We have an intention to do it.

00:15:14: Mike Hichwa: We're trying and we're building out for the

00:15:17: Mike Hichwa: GBUs.

00:15:18: Mike Hichwa: There's maybe 30 or 40 APEX SaaS

00:15:20: Mike Hichwa: applications available through those, and

00:15:22: Mike Hichwa: so the size of the team is because, to

00:15:24: Mike Hichwa: support those applications which have

00:15:26: Mike Hichwa: sizable business, you don't want to

00:15:27: Mike Hichwa: underfund the tool that builds them.

00:15:28: Mike Hichwa: So the idea is that you invest in the tool.

00:15:32: Mike Hichwa: You don't have to invest in all the

00:15:33: Mike Hichwa: workarounds that developers need to write,

00:15:36: Mike Hichwa: and so the theory is that it's cheaper to

00:15:38: Mike Hichwa: hire an APEX developer than it is to you

00:15:41: Mike Hichwa: know, work around the deficiencies of APEX

00:15:43: Mike Hichwa: to build out SaaS.

00:15:45: Kai: How does the hierarchy, hierarchy yeah,

00:15:47: Kai: hierarchy Inside the company when the team

00:15:50: Kai: grows so much?

00:15:51: Kai: So I saw that mark safes was like as a

00:15:53: Kai: product manager on the top line with many

00:15:56: Kai: people working for him.

00:15:57: Kai: But is this big, this big team sometimes

00:16:00: Kai: kind of a competition to work all together

00:16:02: Kai: on the same product?

00:16:03: Mike Hichwa: that was just built by 10, 10 to 15 people

00:16:06: Mike Hichwa: yeah, I mean, I've never really cared about

00:16:08: Mike Hichwa: who works for who or who has what title,

00:16:11: Mike Hichwa: and I think that that maybe I'm naive, but

00:16:13: Mike Hichwa: I somehow feel like no one really cares,

00:16:15: Mike Hichwa: right.

00:16:16: Mike Hichwa: Like we just kind of work together who

00:16:17: Mike Hichwa: works for who or what.

00:16:18: Mike Hichwa: That is an HR responsibility thing and what

00:16:21: Mike Hichwa: we really just want to do is to fight up

00:16:23: Mike Hichwa: the work for APEX and Ords and other things

00:16:25: Mike Hichwa: and see it through.

00:16:28: Mike Hichwa: But internally the hierarchy is kind of

00:16:30: Mike Hichwa: like a necessary thing that we have to do

00:16:32: Mike Hichwa: because just the way it is.

00:16:34: Mike Hichwa: But I never go into a meeting thinking, oh,

00:16:37: Mike Hichwa: we're going to make a hierarchical decision

00:16:39: Mike Hichwa: here.

00:16:39: Mike Hichwa: That's something that I don't think happens,

00:16:42: Mike Hichwa: that often Try to be driven by what the

00:16:45: Mike Hichwa: customers want, what the product needs, and

00:16:48: Mike Hichwa: just be driven by the facts, right, and

00:16:50: Mike Hichwa: that they are what they are and the best

00:16:52: Mike Hichwa: person for the job is the best person for

00:16:53: Mike Hichwa: the job yeah, that's a great position point

00:16:56: Mike Hichwa: of view, maybe thanks thanks point of view.

00:16:59: Caro: yeah, okay, so you're already talking about

00:17:02: Caro: this.

00:17:02: Caro: Make this happen for, or make this

00:17:05: Caro: reachable for, everyone, so you also.

00:17:07: Caro: You have the APEXoraclecom workspaces you

00:17:11: Caro: can create, and you also published a new

00:17:13: Caro: cloud service for APEX developers, which is

00:17:17: Caro: not that expensive like the rest might be.

00:17:21: Mike Hichwa: Right.

00:17:21: Mike Hichwa: So on the cloud service, we have the

00:17:25: Mike Hichwa: autonomous database, and the autonomous

00:17:26: Mike Hichwa: database is different than other cloud

00:17:28: Mike Hichwa: databases in that it's fully managed.

00:17:30: Mike Hichwa: So it's for the customers that don't want

00:17:33: Mike Hichwa: to manage their own patches, and that when

00:17:35: Mike Hichwa: there's a patch needed, you don't have to

00:17:38: Mike Hichwa: be even alerted.

00:17:39: Mike Hichwa: We'll just take care of it for you, and

00:17:41: Mike Hichwa: we'll do it with the least amount of

00:17:42: Mike Hichwa: downtime hopefully zero downtime and so we

00:17:44: Mike Hichwa: have a whole autonomous database

00:17:46: Mike Hichwa: infrastructure that we've been working on

00:17:48: Mike Hichwa: and continue to work on, and so the

00:17:50: Mike Hichwa: autonomous database is a strategic

00:17:51: Mike Hichwa: direction for Oracle.

00:17:52: Mike Hichwa: We want to run all of our apps on that, and

00:17:54: Mike Hichwa: so it's one of those things where you

00:17:56: Mike Hichwa: invest in an autonomous database and it

00:17:58: Mike Hichwa: makes all the other parts of your business

00:18:00: Mike Hichwa: go better, and so we feel that Oracle has

00:18:03: Mike Hichwa: such a pretty broad portfolio of

00:18:05: Mike Hichwa: applications through acquired technologies

00:18:08: Mike Hichwa: as well as our homegrown, like Fusion apps,

00:18:10: Mike Hichwa: and if we leverage our autonomous database,

00:18:13: Mike Hichwa: whatever deficiencies it might have, we'll

00:18:15: Mike Hichwa: be able to improve it to be able to run,

00:18:18: Mike Hichwa: you know, hundreds of large companies,

00:18:20: Mike Hichwa: total ERP systems in our autonomous

00:18:22: Mike Hichwa: database.

00:18:23: Mike Hichwa: If we can pull that off, we think that the

00:18:25: Mike Hichwa: autonomous database will be able to run,

00:18:27: Mike Hichwa: you know, most company applications, and if

00:18:29: Mike Hichwa: not, of course we have Xdata, but that was

00:18:32: Mike Hichwa: the philosophy there.

00:18:33: Mike Hichwa: And then on the APEX service.

00:18:35: Mike Hichwa: So when you buy an autonomous database you

00:18:38: Mike Hichwa: have the full capability at a certain cost,

00:18:41: Mike Hichwa: and for about a quarter of that cost you

00:18:43: Mike Hichwa: can get the APEX service, which is the

00:18:45: Mike Hichwa: identical piece of software, but it doesn't

00:18:47: Mike Hichwa: provide the SQL net connectivity.

00:18:49: Mike Hichwa: So if you had a Java application you wanted

00:18:51: Mike Hichwa: to connect, there's no SQL net and so it's

00:18:53: Mike Hichwa: just only APEX.

00:18:55: Mike Hichwa: And so if you were just an APEX developer,

00:18:57: Mike Hichwa: you literally get the same product minus

00:18:59: Mike Hichwa: the SQL net and you pay it one quarter of

00:19:01: Mike Hichwa: the price.

00:19:02: Caro: When I started, this whole cloud thing was

00:19:05: Caro: not a thing there out there and there were

00:19:09: Caro: many on-premises and it was expensive

00:19:12: Caro: because it was enterprise etc.

00:19:13: Caro: Etc.

00:19:14: Caro: Now, with the cloud and the autonomous

00:19:16: Caro: database, it was much cheaper then, and now

00:19:20: Caro: we also have the APEX service, which is

00:19:22: Caro: cheaper again, and so it's more possible

00:19:25: Caro: for maybe small businesses and maybe also

00:19:27: Caro: private people to develop applications.

00:19:31: Kai: Don't forget Oracle XE right.

00:19:32: Kai: So we got an upgrade on there so you can

00:19:34: Kai: get an almost complete new database with

00:19:37: Kai: all patches up and running with APEX 2.

00:19:40: Caro: Yeah, it's the free edition developer.

00:19:43: Caro: Free edition, Free developer edition,

00:19:44: Caro: somehow the name.

00:19:47: Mike Hichwa: Yeah, xe is saying XE internally as well,

00:19:49: Mike Hichwa: but yes, it's called that too.

00:19:50: Mike Hichwa: Yeah, but speaking of AE internally as well,

00:19:50: Mike Hichwa: but yes, it's called that too.

00:19:51: Kai: Yeah, but speaking of APEXoraclecom, so you

00:19:54: Kai: already said that the new APEX version

00:19:56: Kai: comes with a lot of marketing from Oracle,

00:19:58: Kai: and that's therefore it's not allowed for

00:20:00: Kai: you, or not?

00:20:01: Mike Hichwa: No, it's not that it comes with marketing.

00:20:03: Mike Hichwa: It's that we would like the marketing group

00:20:05: Mike Hichwa: to help us publicize our 24-1 release and

00:20:06: Mike Hichwa: to publicize it.

00:20:07: Mike Hichwa: So, publicize our 24-1 release and to

00:20:09: Mike Hichwa: publicize it.

00:20:10: Mike Hichwa: You want to get people in the press

00:20:11: Mike Hichwa: Bloomberg News, other people to write

00:20:13: Mike Hichwa: stories about it, and they can't write a

00:20:15: Mike Hichwa: story that's already been told.

00:20:24: Mike Hichwa: So they just told us hey, why don't you not

00:20:25: Mike Hichwa: pre-announce your product and then we can

00:20:26: Mike Hichwa: help you.

00:20:26: Mike Hichwa: And so when people Google for APEX, I want

00:20:27: Mike Hichwa: them to see articles by respected news

00:20:29: Mike Hichwa: agencies, and I think we can do that by

00:20:31: Mike Hichwa: having this marketing program.

00:20:32: Mike Hichwa: So I hope I'm not withholding information

00:20:35: Mike Hichwa: from our customer base, because we're

00:20:36: Mike Hichwa: transparent.

00:20:37: Mike Hichwa: We don't really, you know, it's not what

00:20:39: Mike Hichwa: we're trying to do at all.

00:20:41: Mike Hichwa: We're not trying to hold secrets, because

00:20:42: Mike Hichwa: there aren't any.

00:20:43: Mike Hichwa: We're just trying to get the maximum

00:20:46: Mike Hichwa: visibility for the product.

00:20:47: Mike Hichwa: And it helps the people in the APEX

00:20:49: Mike Hichwa: community as well, because when someone

00:20:51: Mike Hichwa: says, hey, I want to do this project with

00:20:52: Mike Hichwa: APEX, and someone might not know what that

00:20:54: Mike Hichwa: is, and they Google it, they're like, oh

00:20:55: Mike Hichwa: well, here's some really great articles by

00:20:57: Mike Hichwa: respected journalists, that kind of back it

00:20:59: Mike Hichwa: up.

00:20:59: Kai: I mean, on the other hand, there's the

00:21:01: Kai: community that is not informed about the

00:21:03: Kai: new features and you don't get the feedback

00:21:05: Kai: from the community earlier, right, earlier,

00:21:07: Kai: right.

00:21:07: Kai: So I I remember the last APEX conferences

00:21:09: Kai: where we all saw, like APEX from the lab or

00:21:12: Kai: a sneak peek into the next version, and

00:21:14: Kai: mark says, patrick wolf and all the APEX

00:21:17: Kai: team, carson saski, for example, too they

00:21:19: Kai: they got the feedback from us to see, okay,

00:21:22: Kai: this feature is coming.

00:21:23: Kai: Did you thought about this and that and

00:21:25: Kai: this and that?

00:21:26: Kai: And then you get feature feedback.

00:21:27: Kai: Before the, the new release was out there

00:21:30: Kai: and on APEX Oracle COM, if it's not updated

00:21:33: Kai: like an early adopter version before we can

00:21:36: Kai: download APEX in the new version, then you

00:21:38: Kai: are losing or not losing.

00:21:40: Kai: You don't have the big community beta

00:21:42: Kai: testing the new software, right?

00:21:43: Mike Hichwa: Yeah, those are clearly the downsides.

00:21:46: Mike Hichwa: In terms of the testing.

00:21:47: Mike Hichwa: We do have APEX WorldCorp, and so it's used

00:21:50: Mike Hichwa: for application development, but it's also

00:21:52: Mike Hichwa: used for deploying omission-critical apps.

00:21:54: Mike Hichwa: So if we screw up APEX, we do deploy it

00:21:57: Mike Hichwa: there first, and if we mess it up, we'll

00:21:59: Mike Hichwa: get a call within minutes.

00:22:02: Mike Hichwa: So that's a very good test for us.

00:22:04: Mike Hichwa: We run it for a month or more mark see if

00:22:07: Mike Hichwa: it stays, and I think that that's critical

00:22:10: Mike Hichwa: for the quality of APEX.

00:22:12: Mike Hichwa: In regards to new features, if you're

00:22:15: Mike Hichwa: willing to be under non-disclosure, we're

00:22:16: Mike Hichwa: happy to have any conversations and show

00:22:18: Mike Hichwa: you anything you want to see.

00:22:19: Mike Hichwa: We just don't want to broadcast it and blog

00:22:22: Mike Hichwa: it, and so I think there's a balance to be

00:22:24: Mike Hichwa: had about working with the community.

00:22:26: Mike Hichwa: I understand that there's a slight drop in

00:22:28: Mike Hichwa: accessibility to it, but we release it

00:22:31: Mike Hichwa: twice per year, so that each incremental

00:22:33: Mike Hichwa: release is you know, we've released like 42

00:22:35: Mike Hichwa: releases, so is our 43rd going to be so

00:22:37: Mike Hichwa: transformative?

00:22:38: Mike Hichwa: It's really going to be additive or

00:22:39: Mike Hichwa: complimentary, and so I think that

00:22:42: Mike Hichwa: hopefully we have a relationship with our

00:22:43: Mike Hichwa: customers such that in the community that

00:22:46: Mike Hichwa: they'll tell us like hey, why are you going

00:22:47: Mike Hichwa: in this direction, why is this not working,

00:22:50: Mike Hichwa: or I want to do this, and they do no one's

00:22:52: Mike Hichwa: shy, from my experience, and so yeah, so

00:22:55: Mike Hichwa: anyway, it's something we're trying out.

00:22:57: Mike Hichwa: Hopefully it'll work.

00:22:59: Mike Hichwa: So if you compare the size of

00:23:01: Mike Hichwa: APEXcorporaclecom and APEXoraclecom, like

00:23:05: Mike Hichwa: the public and the intern, yeah, so the

00:23:07: Mike Hichwa: external one has a lot more users, a lot

00:23:11: Mike Hichwa: more college students, a lot more churn,

00:23:13: Mike Hichwa: but less sophisticated apps and less data.

00:23:16: Mike Hichwa: And so the internal one.

00:23:17: Mike Hichwa: Some of the customers there are running

00:23:19: Mike Hichwa: sophisticated apps used by thousands of

00:23:21: Mike Hichwa: Oracle employees every day for

00:23:23: Mike Hichwa: mission-critical jobs, and so they're just

00:23:25: Mike Hichwa: a slightly different case where the

00:23:27: Mike Hichwa: evaluation instance the external one is

00:23:29: Mike Hichwa: really just to become familiar, familiar

00:23:30: Mike Hichwa: with the technology, and the internal one

00:23:32: Mike Hichwa: is to get the business working.

00:23:36: Mike Hichwa: People don't internally, when they run

00:23:40: Mike Hichwa: these applications, they don't know that

00:23:41: Mike Hichwa: they're APAC.

00:23:42: Mike Hichwa: I mean people that know the URL structure

00:23:42: Mike Hichwa: of course they do, or they understand that

00:23:44: Mike Hichwa: the UI patterns would know, but in general

00:23:47: Mike Hichwa: they're just doing their job and they just

00:23:48: Mike Hichwa: click on the web and it's like you know,

00:23:50: Mike Hichwa: it's just a web application.

00:23:52: Caro: So Kai already talked about the community

00:23:55: Caro: aspect of the new features, but there's

00:23:58: Caro: also a community aspect in general for

00:24:01: Caro: Oracle APEX and I think it's a big part of

00:24:03: Caro: it that, for example, in this conference,

00:24:06: Caro: there are several developers you, chris,

00:24:08: Caro: etc.

00:24:09: Caro: Which are also talking to the people, to

00:24:12: Caro: the attendees, in one-to-one sessions or

00:24:13: Caro: just at the food or so Absolutely.

00:24:17: Mike Hichwa: If you want the scoop, just come and corner

00:24:19: Mike Hichwa: us and we'll disclose anything that would

00:24:22: Mike Hichwa: help you understand or help you give us

00:24:24: Mike Hichwa: advice on that.

00:24:25: Mike Hichwa: And we're so happy for having such a

00:24:28: Mike Hichwa: supportive community, because I think that

00:24:30: Mike Hichwa: that's what drives the whole product.

00:24:33: Mike Hichwa: I think that's been the secret sauce to

00:24:34: Mike Hichwa: success is the community, because people

00:24:37: Mike Hichwa: want to use a technology that has a

00:24:39: Mike Hichwa: community.

00:24:39: Mike Hichwa: It has support, and the fact that you can

00:24:41: Mike Hichwa: get these plugins and you can get

00:24:43: Mike Hichwa: consulting services and you can get all

00:24:45: Mike Hichwa: this expertise available in the community

00:24:47: Mike Hichwa: makes it work, because the software is not.

00:24:50: Mike Hichwa: You don't just like install the software

00:24:51: Mike Hichwa: and have your company work.

00:24:52: Mike Hichwa: It's a tool.

00:24:53: Mike Hichwa: You install this tool and then the tool,

00:24:55: Mike Hichwa: when operated by professionals, works out

00:24:57: Mike Hichwa: best, and so, anyway, the community is

00:24:59: Mike Hichwa: critical to success, obviously.

00:25:01: Caro: Yeah, and I think it's also.

00:25:02: Caro: The community is so passionate that the IT

00:25:05: Caro: people are doing this APEX wave.

00:25:09: Caro: Yeah, no, it's great.

00:25:11: Mike Hichwa: And I think that at least my experience is

00:25:12: Mike Hichwa: that people have this experience inside

00:25:14: Mike Hichwa: their own companies, where they create a

00:25:15: Mike Hichwa: solution APEX and they're asked to build

00:25:18: Mike Hichwa: something.

00:25:18: Mike Hichwa: A week later or a day later, they come up

00:25:20: Mike Hichwa: with a solution and it works, and it just

00:25:22: Mike Hichwa: works better than somebody else.

00:25:23: Mike Hichwa: And then there's alternative technology and

00:25:26: Mike Hichwa: then they do it again and it's like wow,

00:25:28: Mike Hichwa: this is great and it makes you feel good.

00:25:35: Mike Hichwa: You go home, you're like well, I

00:25:36: Mike Hichwa: accomplished that and people are using what

00:25:37: Mike Hichwa: I built and people like it, and it only

00:25:38: Mike Hichwa: took me a couple of days.

00:25:38: Mike Hichwa: And so I think that that's what's

00:25:39: Mike Hichwa: infectious about APEX and that's what we're

00:25:41: Mike Hichwa: trying to fulfill.

00:25:42: Mike Hichwa: And if it was just quick to build the

00:25:45: Mike Hichwa: application, that's wonderful.

00:25:46: Mike Hichwa: But then if you had to do all your

00:25:48: Mike Hichwa: experience to upgrade it, that wouldn't be

00:25:50: Mike Hichwa: that fun because you'd have to spend half

00:25:52: Mike Hichwa: your time fixing what you built a year ago

00:25:55: Mike Hichwa: and two years ago and three years ago.

00:25:57: Mike Hichwa: And so we think that having that dual

00:25:59: Mike Hichwa: capability of being quick to develop and

00:26:01: Mike Hichwa: having an easy support model where you can

00:26:04: Mike Hichwa: modernize the app without too much effort

00:26:06: Mike Hichwa: is really the secret sauce for APEX.

00:26:08: Caro: A year ago maybe you also published new

00:26:11: Caro: learning paths, which one of them is also

00:26:14: Caro: for free.

00:26:14: Caro: The foundation free, yeah.

00:26:17: Mike Hichwa: I made an effort to make them all free all

00:26:19: Mike Hichwa: the time, but I don't control everything,

00:26:21: Mike Hichwa: obviously, but yes, we have the learning

00:26:24: Mike Hichwa: paths and we also have the hands-on labs,

00:26:26: Mike Hichwa: which are good ways to get started, and

00:26:28: Mike Hichwa: we're hoping to have a lot of YouTube

00:26:30: Mike Hichwa: videos and the community puts out a lot of

00:26:32: Mike Hichwa: information as well, and so I think the

00:26:34: Mike Hichwa: combination of the two is pretty good and

00:26:38: Mike Hichwa: the educational stuff is great.

00:26:39: Mike Hichwa: You can get certified, you can get

00:26:41: Mike Hichwa: certified on new releases, you can get all

00:26:43: Mike Hichwa: kinds of badges and such, and so it's good

00:26:46: Mike Hichwa: to have that.

00:26:47: Mike Hichwa: I think that as more people start using

00:26:49: Mike Hichwa: APEX, that the education becomes even more

00:26:52: Mike Hichwa: important, and it's good to have that.

00:26:53: Mike Hichwa: I think that as more people start using

00:26:55: Mike Hichwa: APEX, that the education becomes even more

00:26:56: Mike Hichwa: important and it's not so simple.

00:26:57: Mike Hichwa: And so we think we did a good job, but we

00:27:00: Mike Hichwa: think there are areas to improve.

00:27:01: Mike Hichwa: And so there's there's sort of like do you

00:27:02: Mike Hichwa: want to learn everything the software does

00:27:03: Mike Hichwa: and have like a like here's feature one,

00:27:04: Mike Hichwa: feature two, feature three or do you want

00:27:06: Mike Hichwa: to be taught in a way where it's like, hey,

00:27:08: Mike Hichwa: let's just start with relational database

00:27:10: Mike Hichwa: and build on top of this and build on top

00:27:11: Mike Hichwa: of that, and so there's a lot of thinking

00:27:13: Mike Hichwa: we need to do about how effective to do the

00:27:16: Mike Hichwa: education, and a lot of people in the APEX

00:27:18: Mike Hichwa: community actually are senior and have a

00:27:20: Mike Hichwa: lot of expertise, and so the idea is to

00:27:22: Mike Hichwa: show them new.

00:27:22: Mike Hichwa: Maybe they're really good at one area but

00:27:24: Mike Hichwa: they're not good at, say, restful web

00:27:27: Mike Hichwa: services or interoperabilities with that.

00:27:30: Mike Hichwa: Or maybe they're really good with that but

00:27:31: Mike Hichwa: they're not very good with, you know, being

00:27:33: Mike Hichwa: able to customize themes or doing some

00:27:34: Mike Hichwa: other things, and so everyone has their

00:27:36: Mike Hichwa: strengths and weaknesses, and so the idea

00:27:38: Mike Hichwa: is to have education that's targeted to

00:27:40: Mike Hichwa: each.

00:27:40: Mike Hichwa: You know each person's needs Nice.

00:27:43: Kai: Speaking of education and learning, so you

00:27:45: Kai: made some jokes in your keynote today.

00:27:47: Kai: Obviously, our listeners didn't have the

00:27:50: Kai: possibility to follow this presentation, so

00:27:51: Kai: we can talk about that topic too, speaking

00:27:54: Kai: of ai, so we are the exact opposite of a

00:27:57: Kai: non-disclosure thing.

00:27:58: Kai: But let me ask you one question regarding

00:27:59: Kai: the next release of APEX.

00:28:01: Kai: Yes, is there any ai stuff in it?

00:28:03: Kai: I don't know maybe okay, there could be.

00:28:07: Kai: There could be all right, definite

00:28:09: Kai: possibility.

00:28:10: Kai: But yeah, to talk about the the part in

00:28:12: Kai: your presentation about AI.

00:28:13: Kai: So you were expecting, or the question was

00:28:15: Kai: like a fun question was is taking AI our

00:28:19: Kai: jobs from us?

00:28:21: Kai: So you said jokingly that yes, it will, but

00:28:25: Kai: in 30 to 35 years.

00:28:26: Kai: Right, that's correct.

00:28:27: Mike Hichwa: Yeah, maybe, but it doesn't take your job,

00:28:30: Mike Hichwa: it just changes your job, and I think that

00:28:32: Mike Hichwa: the first.

00:28:33: Mike Hichwa: We're at the beginning of AI, right, and so

00:28:35: Mike Hichwa: whatever feature we may or may not release,

00:28:38: Mike Hichwa: it's not going to be, you know,

00:28:39: Mike Hichwa: transformative.

00:28:40: Mike Hichwa: It's going to take time, right, and so

00:28:42: Mike Hichwa: there's a lot of things that have to come

00:28:43: Mike Hichwa: into play to make AI fully realize a lot of

00:28:47: Mike Hichwa: these possibilities.

00:28:48: Mike Hichwa: It's going to take years and decades, and,

00:28:50: Mike Hichwa: as we go on that journey, it's just going

00:28:52: Mike Hichwa: to take a whole bunch of IT people to do

00:28:55: Mike Hichwa: that, as I pointed out in my talk.

00:28:57: Mike Hichwa: And then, once you do it, it's like, oh,

00:28:59: Mike Hichwa: you did the version one.

00:29:00: Mike Hichwa: But then there's, of course, like, well,

00:29:03: Mike Hichwa: five years on, I'll bet whatever AI we have

00:29:05: Mike Hichwa: to now will be completely different, and so

00:29:08: Mike Hichwa: you'll have to do it again and have to come

00:29:09: Mike Hichwa: back and revisit a lot of that technology.

00:29:15: Mike Hichwa: There's another interesting thing which I

00:29:16: Mike Hichwa: didn't talk about in my keynote, is that a

00:29:17: Mike Hichwa: lot of people will use Copilot and other

00:29:18: Mike Hichwa: technologies to generate a lot of code, and

00:29:20: Mike Hichwa: so the world will have a lot more code than

00:29:22: Mike Hichwa: it has now in the future, and that code

00:29:26: Mike Hichwa: will have a lot more code than it has now

00:29:28: Mike Hichwa: in the future, and that code will have to

00:29:30: Mike Hichwa: be maintained, and AI might not be as adept

00:29:31: Mike Hichwa: at fixing bugs in existing code that it

00:29:33: Mike Hichwa: generated than generating that code to

00:29:35: Mike Hichwa: begin with.

00:29:36: Mike Hichwa: And so there is a lot of challenges and

00:29:38: Mike Hichwa: pitfalls.

00:29:38: Mike Hichwa: I don't think, I think the industry will

00:29:40: Mike Hichwa: take time, and I personally feel that

00:29:43: Mike Hichwa: generating metadata is better than

00:29:47: Mike Hichwa: generating the code, because the metadata

00:29:50: Mike Hichwa: is identical to what the human would have

00:29:51: Mike Hichwa: typed, but the generated code I'm not sure

00:29:54: Mike Hichwa: that everyone would code that particular

00:29:56: Mike Hichwa: style.

00:29:56: Mike Hichwa: I know that the AI generates it based on

00:29:58: Mike Hichwa: how other people code, but it's at least in

00:30:01: Mike Hichwa: my experience.

00:30:02: Mike Hichwa: Editing my own code is hard enough.

00:30:04: Mike Hichwa: Editing someone else's code and their own

00:30:05: Mike Hichwa: train of thought and their own way of

00:30:07: Mike Hichwa: programming is really hard, and so, but

00:30:09: Mike Hichwa: with declarative, and you look and say, oh,

00:30:11: Mike Hichwa: this is a checked on or checked off, or

00:30:13: Mike Hichwa: this property is set to value A or value B,

00:30:16: Mike Hichwa: everyone, the machine, every human, does

00:30:18: Mike Hichwa: identical.

00:30:19: Mike Hichwa: You can't tell, you can't do it differently.

00:30:21: Mike Hichwa: And so I think that consistency is

00:30:22: Mike Hichwa: something that the industry will have,

00:30:24: Mike Hichwa: which is this greater abstraction to the

00:30:27: Mike Hichwa: technology, not exposed to the individual

00:30:29: Mike Hichwa: program units.

00:30:30: Kai: So I was a little bit shocked.

00:30:32: Kai: So yes, they're taking away our jobs.

00:30:34: Kai: And then you said but maybe in 30 to 40

00:30:36: Kai: years, and that's fine for me at least how

00:30:39: Kai: about you.

00:30:40: Caro: Yeah, of course.

00:30:42: Kai: That would be the next generation that is

00:30:44: Kai: frightened about it.

00:30:44: Kai: There'll be something else.

00:30:45: Mike Hichwa: Right?

00:30:46: Mike Hichwa: You said we had the internet revolution,

00:30:49: Mike Hichwa: maybe 20 years ago, and maybe 10 years ago

00:30:51: Mike Hichwa: we had a mobile computing revolution where

00:30:54: Mike Hichwa: everyone in the world is glued to a cell

00:30:56: Mike Hichwa: phone Literally everyone in the world.

00:30:57: Mike Hichwa: You can basically just assume that everyone

00:31:00: Mike Hichwa: has a cell phone Literally pretty much

00:31:01: Mike Hichwa: everyone and they said well, now we have AI

00:31:04: Mike Hichwa: In 10 years.

00:31:05: Mike Hichwa: Do you think?

00:31:06: Mike Hichwa: That's it?

00:31:06: Mike Hichwa: We're not going to have any more

00:31:07: Mike Hichwa: revolutions.

00:31:07: Mike Hichwa: Of course we're going to have another

00:31:08: Mike Hichwa: revolution.

00:31:10: Caro: And I also think because AI just saying,

00:31:13: Caro: okay, I do, ai, it's not the solution.

00:31:16: Caro: You have to interpret, you have to say what

00:31:19: Caro: you want.

00:31:19: Caro: You have to be able to say what you want in

00:31:23: Caro: the right way.

00:31:24: Mike Hichwa: This whole idea of prompt engineering is

00:31:26: Mike Hichwa: very interesting, and you're saying what

00:31:28: Mike Hichwa: you want to build a program.

00:31:29: Mike Hichwa: You're saying what you want to understand

00:31:32: Mike Hichwa: the data that you might be wanting to

00:31:33: Mike Hichwa: interpret.

00:31:34: Mike Hichwa: So there's a whole depth to this prompt

00:31:37: Mike Hichwa: engineering aspect and especially if you

00:31:39: Mike Hichwa: start applying it to medical needs or other

00:31:42: Mike Hichwa: needs, then there's regulation on top of

00:31:45: Mike Hichwa: that.

00:31:46: Mike Hichwa: So maybe from a programmer's perspective

00:31:48: Mike Hichwa: it's wonderful because you get a good start

00:31:50: Mike Hichwa: and if it's not perfect you just fix it.

00:31:52: Mike Hichwa: But if it's a medical advice, you want it

00:31:55: Mike Hichwa: to be correct the first time.

00:31:56: Mike Hichwa: You don't want to say, oh sorry about that.

00:31:58: Mike Hichwa: We'll just fix that up later.

00:32:00: Mike Hichwa: And so yeah, so I think that there's anyway.

00:32:03: Mike Hichwa: There's so much potential and so much.

00:32:06: Mike Hichwa: It's complicated too, right, like when I

00:32:08: Mike Hichwa: started my career, the world was a little

00:32:10: Mike Hichwa: simpler.

00:32:10: Mike Hichwa: There was just character mode devices.

00:32:12: Mike Hichwa: There just wasn't that much software that

00:32:14: Mike Hichwa: people use on a daily basis.

00:32:15: Mike Hichwa: Most people that worked at Oracle had

00:32:17: Mike Hichwa: nothing on their desk.

00:32:18: Mike Hichwa: They didn't have anything.

00:32:19: Mike Hichwa: They had like one of those blotters so your

00:32:21: Mike Hichwa: pen wouldn't you know.

00:32:23: Mike Hichwa: And so, anyway, the world's changing, but I

00:32:28: Mike Hichwa: think AI is going to transform.

00:32:30: Mike Hichwa: But I'm just so excited, as Larry Ellison

00:32:32: Mike Hichwa: once said in one of our meetings.

00:32:34: Mike Hichwa: He's like, wow, this is a great time to be

00:32:36: Mike Hichwa: alive, to be able to experience this AI

00:32:38: Mike Hichwa: revolution from the beginning, and I

00:32:40: Mike Hichwa: believe that I think it's really a fun time

00:32:42: Mike Hichwa: to be in computer science.

00:32:43: Caro: That's true.

00:32:45: Kai: So you had this.

00:32:47: Kai: The title of your keynote was Oracle APEX

00:32:48: Kai: 20 is in.

00:32:49: Kai: Are we done yet?

00:32:50: Kai: And we saw a couple of slides inside this

00:32:52: Kai: presentation which was just saying no,

00:32:54: Kai: we're just getting started or what's next,

00:32:56: Kai: and so on.

00:32:57: Kai: So what do you expect to be APEX?

00:32:59: Kai: What APEX would be in the next 10 years?

00:33:01: Kai: Maybe.

00:33:07: Mike Hichwa: Yeah, so the biggest transformation that I

00:33:08: Mike Hichwa: see right now, ai will assist it, but I

00:33:08: Mike Hichwa: don't think AI changes it.

00:33:09: Mike Hichwa: Ai just makes it easier and allows the APEX

00:33:11: Mike Hichwa: builds out a form and a report like or

00:33:15: Mike Hichwa: sorry a report, let's say, or a chart.

00:33:17: Mike Hichwa: Why can't you just ask it to interpret the

00:33:19: Mike Hichwa: chart or to ask it details about the data

00:33:21: Mike Hichwa: underneath it?

00:33:22: Mike Hichwa: And so I think those types of things will

00:33:24: Mike Hichwa: be interesting, so you could show it some

00:33:26: Mike Hichwa: sales data.

00:33:26: Mike Hichwa: You say, well, is this sales data looking

00:33:29: Mike Hichwa: good or not?

00:33:30: Mike Hichwa: And it will just tell you, like an honest

00:33:32: Mike Hichwa: answer, it's like, well, it's looking good.

00:33:33: Mike Hichwa: You know, in Northern Europe, but in

00:33:35: Mike Hichwa: Southern Europe you're lagging here, or

00:33:36: Mike Hichwa: whatever.

00:33:37: Mike Hichwa: It'll just give you the answer.

00:33:38: Mike Hichwa: In respect to what I, during my keynote, I

00:33:46: Mike Hichwa: presented, where I think APEX needs to go

00:33:47: Mike Hichwa: in the next 10 years, which is to transform

00:33:48: Mike Hichwa: from not only being a web-based IDE where

00:33:49: Mike Hichwa: you can build out low-code applications,

00:33:52: Mike Hichwa: but also providing a language, and so the

00:33:55: Mike Hichwa: language is not a traditional language,

00:33:58: Mike Hichwa: it's a low-code, you know, human, readable

00:34:01: Mike Hichwa: format.

00:34:02: Mike Hichwa: That would be an opportunity for those

00:34:05: Mike Hichwa: people that don't necessarily want to see

00:34:08: Mike Hichwa: things through a graphical user interface.

00:34:10: Mike Hichwa: Sometimes you have to click on an

00:34:12: Mike Hichwa: application and you click on a page and you

00:34:14: Mike Hichwa: click on a region.

00:34:15: Mike Hichwa: Then you click on the column within a

00:34:17: Mike Hichwa: report for a region and you click on the

00:34:19: Mike Hichwa: attributes of the property for the report

00:34:20: Mike Hichwa: and you click on another box that shows you

00:34:22: Mike Hichwa: the template options for the column for

00:34:25: Mike Hichwa: that.

00:34:25: Mike Hichwa: And so a lot of clicking, a lot of

00:34:27: Mike Hichwa: navigating, but if everything was kind of

00:34:29: Mike Hichwa: like in a document, it might be easier for

00:34:31: Mike Hichwa: people to do code reviews, to understand

00:34:34: Mike Hichwa: someone in a DevOps pipeline wanting to

00:34:36: Mike Hichwa: promote something to production.

00:34:37: Mike Hichwa: You want to make sure that it's safe and

00:34:39: Mike Hichwa: you can say, oh yeah, yeah, that's good,

00:34:40: Mike Hichwa: that's good, oh, no, that's not good.

00:34:42: Mike Hichwa: And so I think that the ability to have AI

00:34:45: Mike Hichwa: generate code is just perfect.

00:34:48: Mike Hichwa: I don't think AIs are going to generate

00:34:50: Mike Hichwa: people moving their mouse to click on the

00:34:52: Mike Hichwa: IDE, so of course it has to have a code

00:34:55: Mike Hichwa: representation that's extremely well

00:34:57: Mike Hichwa: documented.

00:34:58: Kai: That's what I thought.

00:34:59: Kai: If you talk about a human-readable export

00:35:02: Kai: file or a human-readable definition of the

00:35:05: Kai: application, in kind of a YAML or somehow

00:35:09: Kai: like this markup, then it's also a

00:35:11: Kai: human-speakable markup, right, so you could

00:35:13: Kai: be able to just not let the AI create your

00:35:17: Kai: application, but maybe translate your voice,

00:35:20: Kai: you can have a chat or an interactive

00:35:21: Kai: interface Exactly.

00:35:22: Mike Hichwa: And so, for example, you create a report on

00:35:25: Mike Hichwa: a table and you're like oh, hide the ID

00:35:27: Mike Hichwa: column and hide the created on date.

00:35:29: Mike Hichwa: Okay, now move the name to the first column,

00:35:33: Mike Hichwa: like, of course you can drag and drop and

00:35:35: Mike Hichwa: you can do all these things, but let's say

00:35:37: Mike Hichwa: you couldn't like, why couldn't you just

00:35:38: Mike Hichwa: speak it?

00:35:39: Mike Hichwa: There's just no reason.

00:35:40: Kai: I mean for the last decade.

00:35:42: Kai: We are talking to customers and tell them

00:35:44: Kai: how to define user stories right.

00:35:46: Kai: So they always have to be like I'm, as a

00:35:48: Kai: manager, want to have an application that

00:35:51: Kai: enables me to do it, like to this job, like

00:35:54: Kai: this and like this.

00:35:55: Kai: I want to click on this button to achieve

00:35:58: Kai: this right.

00:35:58: Kai: This should be.

00:35:59: Kai: If it's always the same pattern with the

00:36:01: Kai: same language, then you should be able to

00:36:03: Kai: interpret that pass, that, create this file,

00:36:05: Kai: this APEX, file it and then you can create

00:36:07: Kai: an APEX application.

00:36:08: Kai: And the second thing is what you already

00:36:10: Kai: said, like hide this column, move this

00:36:12: Kai: column to the first row or the first column.

00:36:16: Kai: This could be like an interactive APEX

00:36:18: Kai: application, not only for the developer and

00:36:19: Kai: the application but for the user.

00:36:21: Kai: The user can interact with the APEX

00:36:23: Kai: application and talk about like skip to the

00:36:25: Kai: person or skip to the search page and then

00:36:28: Kai: now search for this value, show me the

00:36:30: Kai: first result, and so on.

00:36:31: Kai: So you don't have to use your mouse and

00:36:33: Kai: your keyboard, you can just talk to the

00:36:34: Kai: application.

00:36:34: Kai: The application is working with you.

00:36:37: Kai: I'm just trying to figure out what new

00:36:39: Kai: features.

00:36:39: Kai: Next APEX version is coming and I'm

00:36:41: Kai: visiting really, really close, how you

00:36:43: Kai: react on my expectations.

00:36:45: Mike Hichwa: No, I mean, I think that's the direction.

00:36:47: Mike Hichwa: I don't think it's going to come in a 24-1

00:36:49: Mike Hichwa: release this summer, but the concept of

00:36:51: Mike Hichwa: being able to have a richer interaction

00:36:53: Mike Hichwa: with your data, I think, is absolutely true.

00:36:56: Mike Hichwa: So, like I don't know, maybe 10 or 12 years

00:36:58: Mike Hichwa: ago, when we released interactive reports,

00:37:01: Mike Hichwa: it was wonderful because you could choose

00:37:03: Mike Hichwa: which columns you wanted to see and which

00:37:04: Mike Hichwa: order you wanted to see them.

00:37:05: Mike Hichwa: You could save reports, you could save

00:37:06: Mike Hichwa: filters, you could save sort orders, you

00:37:08: Mike Hichwa: could do group buys, you could do pivots.

00:37:10: Mike Hichwa: You could do all these things.

00:37:20: Kai: So you had this control but it required a

00:37:21: Kai: lot of you know it was great, but maybe you

00:37:22: Kai: could get the same thing easier by just

00:37:23: Kai: speaking what you want.

00:37:24: Kai: Yeah, you're putting in huge effort to make

00:37:24: Kai: it accessible in the application Not

00:37:26: Kai: accessible for handicapped people but how

00:37:28: Kai: to implement pivoting in the application?

00:37:30: Kai: So action menu, pivot, and then you do this

00:37:33: Kai: model dialogue and make it as easy as

00:37:34: Kai: possible for the user.

00:37:35: Kai: You're putting so much effort in it to do

00:37:37: Kai: it in a nice UI and UX.

00:37:39: Kai: But if you say just pivot this, this, do

00:37:42: Kai: that, do this, it would be way easier for

00:37:43: Kai: the user.

00:37:44: Kai: This, this, do that, do this.

00:37:45: Kai: It would be way easier for the user.

00:37:48: Kai: And a second idea or a second advantage for

00:37:49: Kai: the AI part, for the human interaction with

00:37:50: Kai: an application, would be the accessibility

00:37:51: Kai: regarding handicapping right.

00:37:52: Kai: So if there's a, person that can say

00:37:54: Kai: exactly the same as the person who can see,

00:37:56: Kai: for example.

00:37:58: Kai: And the application is just talking with

00:37:59: Kai: you like, okay, I moved the column to the

00:38:01: Kai: front.

00:38:01: Kai: Maybe you want to print it for the other

00:38:03: Kai: people, or should I read it from the top to

00:38:05: Kai: the bottom?

00:38:06: Kai: Or you want to see the second page or

00:38:08: Kai: something.

00:38:08: Kai: There should be a huge advantage because

00:38:10: Kai: the ai voice generation is already that

00:38:13: Kai: good that you could enable your application

00:38:15: Kai: to talk to.

00:38:16: Mike Hichwa: The people are sitting in front of it and I

00:38:18: Mike Hichwa: think that a lot of people that interact

00:38:19: Mike Hichwa: with software.

00:38:20: Mike Hichwa: It's not like you're going to go do 50

00:38:21: Mike Hichwa: clicks every day like on your planner, but

00:38:22: Mike Hichwa: maybe you have a particular if you're a

00:38:23: Mike Hichwa: software development manager 50 clicks

00:38:24: Mike Hichwa: every day like on your planner, but maybe

00:38:25: Mike Hichwa: you have a particular if you're a software

00:38:27: Mike Hichwa: development manager in the APEX team you

00:38:29: Mike Hichwa: want to know which projects are at risk for

00:38:30: Mike Hichwa: a 24 one release, and so you might just ask

00:38:33: Mike Hichwa: that question.

00:38:33: Mike Hichwa: It's like, and they always say, well, I

00:38:35: Mike Hichwa: define at risk as being, you know, a low

00:38:38: Mike Hichwa: percentage closed or a lot of you know chat

00:38:41: Mike Hichwa: going back and forth, or the time it took

00:38:43: Mike Hichwa: to change from status 30% complete to

00:38:46: Mike Hichwa: status 40% complete was longer than typical,

00:38:49: Mike Hichwa: and so there'd be a lot of data analysis

00:38:51: Mike Hichwa: that could be done by an AI engine that

00:38:53: Mike Hichwa: could really kind of help the manager.

00:38:55: Mike Hichwa: So we strategic planners also capable of

00:38:57: Mike Hichwa: tracking skills.

00:38:58: Mike Hichwa: So it's like it seems like that this

00:39:00: Mike Hichwa: project is needing some extra help.

00:39:02: Mike Hichwa: I might advise these developers because

00:39:04: Mike Hichwa: they would have the same skills as the

00:39:06: Mike Hichwa: other developers that are on the current

00:39:07: Mike Hichwa: project.

00:39:07: Mike Hichwa: It doesn't do that today, but all the data

00:39:10: Mike Hichwa: is there, so you as a human have to do it

00:39:13: Mike Hichwa: yourself.

00:39:14: Mike Hichwa: So the tool is not providing you that

00:39:15: Mike Hichwa: information, but there's no reason it

00:39:17: Mike Hichwa: couldn't.

00:39:18: Mike Hichwa: An AI engine couldn't do that.

00:39:20: Kai: This leads to a brainstorming session right

00:39:21: Kai: here.

00:39:21: Kai: But I have the next idea.

00:39:29: Kai: I mean mean if a manager enters the

00:39:30: Kai: application, like the new application for

00:39:31: Kai: the strategic planning, and the manager

00:39:32: Kai: just asked what happened during the last

00:39:32: Kai: two days, and you just see the delta of the

00:39:33: Kai: data was that was changing and said I

00:39:34: Kai: completely agree, that's all you want to

00:39:35: Kai: know.

00:39:35: Mike Hichwa: All you, all you want to know is you had

00:39:37: Mike Hichwa: control of the world.

00:39:39: Mike Hichwa: Monday yeah tuesday you were busy, and now

00:39:41: Mike Hichwa: it's wednesday.

00:39:43: Mike Hichwa: What all's happened?

00:39:44: Kai: and just just open the authenticate using

00:39:47: Kai: the new email code thing, like passwordless,

00:39:49: Kai: and then say what happened yesterday and

00:39:51: Kai: the application is just preparing

00:39:52: Kai: everything for you in the front end.

00:39:53: Mike Hichwa: You can see it, you can hear it if you want,

00:39:55: Mike Hichwa: and then you can ask questions and what

00:39:56: Mike Hichwa: we've done is we've tried to create reports

00:39:59: Mike Hichwa: that you can subscribe to so we can email

00:40:01: Mike Hichwa: your report every day or once a month, or

00:40:04: Mike Hichwa: once a week your preference but that's not

00:40:06: Mike Hichwa: the same as being able to just have that

00:40:09: Mike Hichwa: conversation interface with it and it's

00:40:11: Mike Hichwa: going to take time to work that out.

00:40:13: Mike Hichwa: And AI also runs the risk of companies

00:40:17: Mike Hichwa: overselling their technology, and so I

00:40:20: Mike Hichwa: don't want to be put in that thing.

00:40:21: Mike Hichwa: I want to accurately sell the potential,

00:40:23: Mike Hichwa: but the actual implementation is I think

00:40:26: Mike Hichwa: that the people in the APEX community are

00:40:28: Mike Hichwa: going to do that.

00:40:29: Mike Hichwa: Exactly, yeah, so like you were saying

00:40:30: Mike Hichwa: about.

00:40:31: Mike Hichwa: You know what happened yesterday, but there

00:40:33: Mike Hichwa: could be other questions you might have,

00:40:35: Mike Hichwa: but we don't know what those are, and so

00:40:37: Mike Hichwa: you're going to discover that with your

00:40:38: Mike Hichwa: customers and with your end users, and I

00:40:41: Mike Hichwa: think that you'll be able to customize and

00:40:44: Mike Hichwa: get software's just going to change right.

00:40:45: Mike Hichwa: So software, it was basically kind of like

00:40:49: Mike Hichwa: oh, I can't remember all that.

00:40:50: Mike Hichwa: Can you just write it down for me so I can

00:40:51: Mike Hichwa: pull that up?

00:40:52: Mike Hichwa: What's my account balance?

00:40:53: Mike Hichwa: Okay, it's $458.

00:40:55: Mike Hichwa: Okay, I can buy this.

00:40:56: Mike Hichwa: But people are going to have totally

00:40:58: Mike Hichwa: different expectations.

00:40:59: Kai: So we will see template components or we

00:41:06: Kai: see plugins that are just doing this from

00:41:07: Kai: the community side and if you have today,

00:41:08: Kai: you can send reports to an email with APEX.

00:41:10: Kai: Maybe in five years APEX is calling you in

00:41:12: Kai: the early morning like hello here's your

00:41:14: Kai: friendly APEX AI bot, and I want to tell

00:41:17: Kai: you what happened yesterday.

00:41:18: Mike Hichwa: Well, of course, it would just be in your

00:41:19: Mike Hichwa: glasses, right yeah?

00:41:21: Kai: It would just be kind of….

00:41:22: Kai: Maybe you shouldn't go to the office today.

00:41:26: Kai: There might be happening something, so stay

00:41:28: Kai: at home and watch your data at home today.

00:41:31: Caro: Yeah, Well, I just have one question left,

00:41:33: Caro: one question left.

00:41:34: Caro: Yes, yeah, but it's totally lame after this

00:41:37: Caro: AI stuff.

00:41:38: Kai: Try it Kao Okay.

00:41:40: Caro: I try.

00:41:41: Caro: So you said you developed with Oracle Forms

00:41:44: Caro: in the past and now you're obviously on the

00:41:47: Caro: APEX side.

00:41:48: Caro: I think and I've heard that there were many

00:41:51: Caro: rumors about Oracle Forms that it is

00:41:53: Caro: deprecated sometimes, but now I think I

00:41:56: Caro: heard that they put more developers into it

00:41:59: Caro: so they can.

00:42:01: Mike Hichwa: Yeah, I don't think Oracle has any

00:42:02: Mike Hichwa: advantage to deprecate it.

00:42:04: Mike Hichwa: So Oracle Forms was created by this guy,

00:42:06: Mike Hichwa: sohiba Basi.

00:42:07: Mike Hichwa: He ran development, then he also ran

00:42:09: Mike Hichwa: Informatica I don't know if he still does,

00:42:10: Mike Hichwa: but he might.

00:42:11: Mike Hichwa: But brilliant guy and someone I really

00:42:12: Mike Hichwa: respected and he created forms in the early

00:42:15: Mike Hichwa: 1980s 83, 84, the version one.

00:42:19: Mike Hichwa: It was kind of conversational.

00:42:20: Mike Hichwa: It was like what table would you like me to

00:42:21: Mike Hichwa: create your application on the AMP table?

00:42:23: Mike Hichwa: Which columns would you like in the AMP

00:42:25: Mike Hichwa: table?

00:42:25: Mike Hichwa: I'd like the e-name and the job column.

00:42:26: Mike Hichwa: Anyway, it was, but it evolved, of course.

00:42:31: Mike Hichwa: But I think that it was so successful and

00:42:33: Mike Hichwa: so ubiquitous that so many customers are

00:42:34: Mike Hichwa: using it and it doesn't cost us that much

00:42:36: Mike Hichwa: to maintain it.

00:42:37: Mike Hichwa: The only downside of Forms I see is that

00:42:40: Mike Hichwa: it's not native web, right, and so if you

00:42:42: Mike Hichwa: want that experience, native web right, and

00:42:46: Mike Hichwa: so if you want that experience, I recently

00:42:47: Mike Hichwa: bought a new TV and the sales rep sold it.

00:42:48: Mike Hichwa: I was watching him do it.

00:42:49: Mike Hichwa: It was an Oracle forms app and as he was,

00:42:51: Mike Hichwa: he was like struggling to kind of like you

00:42:53: Mike Hichwa: know he's.

00:42:53: Mike Hichwa: But if he had a bigger font and he could

00:42:55: Mike Hichwa: just do the you know command plus or

00:42:57: Mike Hichwa: whatever and make the web browser bigger.

00:42:59: Mike Hichwa: It just would have been so much better.

00:43:00: Mike Hichwa: But so, but there's no.

00:43:02: Mike Hichwa: If the application is not broken doesn't

00:43:03: Mike Hichwa: need to be rewritten.

00:43:04: Mike Hichwa: Why would Oracle want to pull support for

00:43:06: Mike Hichwa: it?

00:43:06: Mike Hichwa: So we've supported it since 83.

00:43:08: Mike Hichwa: It's 2024.

00:43:10: Mike Hichwa: That's a lot of years, and I don't see it

00:43:13: Mike Hichwa: stopping anytime soon.

00:43:14: Kai: Are you still seeing companies to choose

00:43:17: Kai: forms?

00:43:18: Mike Hichwa: I think some might.

00:43:19: Mike Hichwa: If they have five forms and they need to

00:43:22: Mike Hichwa: have a change, they might do it, but I

00:43:24: Mike Hichwa: think it's pretty rare.

00:43:25: Mike Hichwa: I think most people want to modernize, but

00:43:27: Mike Hichwa: always the question is, you know, is it

00:43:28: Mike Hichwa: better to spend time modernizing, money

00:43:31: Mike Hichwa: modernizing, or to spend doing something

00:43:34: Mike Hichwa: else?

00:43:34: Mike Hichwa: And so it's always a trade-off.

00:43:35: Mike Hichwa: And then I think the IT managers you know

00:43:38: Mike Hichwa: that's their job is to make these

00:43:39: Mike Hichwa: trade-offs, and I trust they do a good job

00:43:41: Mike Hichwa: at it.

00:43:46: Kai: And so there's no reason to change if you

00:43:47: Kai: don't want to so that's the message.

00:43:48: Kai: I think that's a great message.

00:43:48: Kai: Yeah, To end this podcast.

00:43:49: Kai: Thank you very much for yeah.

00:43:51: Kai: Come to our podcast and talk about the

00:43:53: Kai: interesting topics, about APEX, AI and so

00:43:55: Kai: on, and brainstorm with us and avoid

00:43:57: Kai: talking about the new release.

00:43:58: Mike Hichwa: Hopefully I succeeded.

00:44:00: Mike Hichwa: Thank you.

00:44:06: Caro: Thanks, very much.

00:44:07: Caro: Thank you, and thank you to our listeners.

00:44:09: Caro: See you in the next one.