Was your company considering other platforms? Why this platform?
I’ve been personally using GeneXus for the past 20 years, so I know the tool perfectly well, as well as its capabilities, pros, and cons. By experience, you can notice the difference in productivity, mainly at the level of the performance of the applications and with the deliverables you can make using GeneXus in comparison with other tools that are of the same kind.
What is the ideal project to use the platform with? Any projects that would avoid?
Our solutions are focused on providing integration platforms with other third-party providers. In my personal experience, GeneXus feels more comfortable for a medium-sized company, addressing the areas of business and inventory management and customer service. It empowers companies to grow in their market.
What cost factors should clients keep in mind when considering this tool?
Outside of the cost of the license, the learning curve with GeneXus is really short. For any developer that has been working with Java, C#, etc., working with GeneXus is going to be really easy. It has its own framework and certain guidelines on how to create software. The only downside that needs to be addressed is that the mindset will not be there with people that have been using C# or Java—they’ll need to get used to it.
On the pro-side of the story, there is a cost-effectiveness because you can produce a prototype very fast that will cover the needs of your business. A product can be delivered pretty quickly using GeneXus rather than using the other technologies that are available right now in the IT industry.
How many users are using the tool at your company?
Right now, we have around seven systems that have been created with GeneXus. We are touching different departments and I would say that there are around 400 end users on the different systems directly involved with the tool. There is probably another subset of 400 more users that are affected directly or indirectly by the results of using the tool. Overall, we only have 2 developers using the tool.
How much money do you spend per year?
We just bought some licenses and I think it will be around $10,000 for those. The cost will go down though because we are only going to pay the maintenance moving forward, which will probably be at around $4,000 per year.