Why Would I pay good money for a Natural certification, if there is no new sites out there. I have been a Natural Adabas programmer for over 8 years and in those 8 years the job market has dwindled to a mere 8 companies in my country that is still using Natural Adabas and of those 8, I know of 3 that is busy or looking to move to SAP or MS systems.
Companies has moved over to other technologies because of the stigma of Natural Adabas being an heritage system. And SoftwareAG has done nothing that I can see to improve the image.
They have nice development tools and new natural versions, but as long as the sigma is attach to Natural Adabas, there is no future in staying with Natural Adabas.
Surly is is more wise to try and get into .NET or SAP.
:?:
There are over one hundred Adabas/Natural sites in South Africa. Is it surprising that at some point in time there are “only” eight companies looking to acquire new people? Hardly. If that were the case in the U.S., at any point in time we would have eighty shops looking for people; that does not happen. Probably half that number would be more accurate here. If you think about the percentage a bit, you will realize that eight out of a hundred is quite a large number.
You are correct in another respect. There are shops looking to go “modern”. Java, .NET, C# are receiving a lot of interest. “Why” is beyond me. I cannot believe anyone would rather use any of these languages/systems rather than Natural to create a business system.
That said, there is definitely a growing market for the new guys in the development platform area. Over the next several years, good programmers in the new platforms will probably not be wanting for jobs. It never hurts to diversify your bets by learning new technology.
If Software AG is successful in convincing their user base that they can maintain their old code and smoothly integrate it into the web and whatever comes along next, that new technology will still be within the SAG family of products. Some of us believe they will succeed. As you said, “They have nice development tools, and new Natural versions”; there is no reason to believe their new software will be any different.
I am a pre-sales consultant at Softwareag South Africa, I read your post and i am very surprised to hear this from a Natural developer, I would like to be presented with an opportunity by you to demonstrate to you just the opposite of what you have described as your experience with Natural and the Adabas products and opportunities in the market on my own time and effort by means of a presentation of the stack or on site visit where you are to discuss this with you. Please feel free to contact me and I will do this for you, we have plenty of opportunities with people of your experience, in fact we have grown significantly over the last 3 to 4 years and I would like to present this to you.
Just a side note on companies moving off the mainframe and away from Natural/Adabas. A few have tried, and found , at their own expense, that it is not sa easy as it sounds, nevr mind what the other software vendors say in their marketing Pitch. I was a developer at SAPPI, ok, they succeeded in moving to SAP, but at double the cost, and three times the scope. Mutual and Federal is another point in case. They are still running Natural after they were supposed to be off the mainframe.
Liberty Life are in the same position. The newe technologies just cant cope with volumes, and dont allow for the amount of customization that an inhouse developed system in Natural allows for. Liberty shelved their migration project for just his reason. The "packaged software"just cant cope with the complex systems. In my honest opinion, a lot of money could have been saved by looking at web based SAG products that use Natural as the backe end.
I have been using Natural/Adbabas since 1990, and have nver felt that my skills are outdated.
Natural/Adabas is certainly still in my opinion the best platform out there. However, I have to say that jobs for Natural have been literally decimated in the UK over the last 5 years. And salaries have dropped(or not kept pace), indicated a surplus of developers.
Furthermore, my employers find that potential customers often respond negatively to hearing “Natural/Adabas” - not out of prejudice but out of ignorance. They’ve all heard of SQL and Oracle but wonder what this other ‘little’ technology is!
Perhaps companies like Microsoft are maintaining a high profile in colleges and universities? Or took interest in internet-based applications earlier and so hitched a ride on the surge in web-related programming?
I think that Adabas is hard to beat but that it does not have enough of a ‘web presence’ if I can call it that. If I were Software AG I might look into an entirely new web-development platform which integrates easily with Adabas; focus on training and help; and develop relationships with schools, colleges and universities.
I think Natural Adabas is a wonderful technology. You dont find Many people working on this technology as compared to other skills like Java, .Net and here i feel there is an Advantage for people who are looking for a change. When there is an Opportunity for a common skill there are thousands of people waiting to apply for it and this is not the case in Natural Adabas.