News

Progress Promises Free Dev Software for Education

• By David Ramel
• October 6, 2015

Progress Software Corp. announced a new suite of app development software designed to be freely downloaded by students, recent graduates and new developers wanting to get help with creating enterprise-class applications.

"To expand their knowledge of business application development and foster growth," the company said in a statement yesterday, "the toolkit gives students, new developers and future entrepreneurs free access to a package of powerful application development tools that are simple to learn and use."

Progress OpenEdge Developer Kit: Classroom Edition includes Telerik technology resulting from a company acquisition, which provides tools for creating enterprise-class apps for Web, Mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The bundled package also comes with a set of API client protocols, services and tools for developing and integrating business apps, along with companion solutions for data analytics, application layer components and a new Advanced Business Language for writing code.

Progress said the Advanced Business Language is "a modern hybrid procedural/object-oriented language, specifically designed for developing enterprise-class business applications." With it, the company said, developers can manage relational data as needed, creating APIs for .NET, JavaScript and Java clients.

While many other companies offer free or low-cost software for educational purposes, such as Microsoft's DreamSpark program and Adobe's reduced-price Creative Cloud for students and teachers, the details on the Progress offer are as yet skimpy.

The company didn't specify the criteria to qualify for the free software, or when it would be available. Interested parties can submit contact information to be notified of availability.

Courting "the next generation of business application developers," Progress said it wants to ready them to take advantage of the growing job markets for developers forecast from 2010 to 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012-2013 Occupational Outlook Handbook. "In particular, the job market for mobile application developers is expected to skyrocket by 32 percent from 2010 through 2020, creating close to 300,000 new positions, heralding one of the decade's largest increases for any occupation."