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Will the iPad mean business agility?

A few weeks ago, we had a blog post that showed just how versatile the Mendix platform really is: almost any browser, any hardware, and even the Wii will run these applications flawlessly. The coming debut of the iPad in March will provide us with yet another fun piece of hardware to try. As usual, the world raises an eyebrow every time Apple comes out with a new product. Naturally, we’ll make sure Mendix applications run as easily on Apple’s new iPad as they do on the iPhone. We agree with much of the tech world in saying that the iPad will gain in popularity once developers take advantage of its new features.

Can’t wait to see what our business engineers come up with.

ipad

Companies using Mendix on their iPad may find that it lends itself to business processes more easily than its phone-enabled cousin. The screen is big enough for multiple people to use it – easily!

Just think of the possibilities: sales people presenting to clients on the road, inventory management in retail stores, order pickers in warehouses. Load a Mendix application and you’ve reached a whole new level of finger swiping efficiency. Whether you’re tracking inventory, customers, products, or pitches – this device will make your job easier.

There are a lot of uses for the iPad out there that do not exist for the iPhone or iPod Touch. As developers unleash the iPad’s true genius, we can look forward to applications that change the way people do business.

Since Mendix is all about increasing business agility, we see some serious potential in using the Mendix platform on the iPad. In effect, the iPad can increase business agility as well. With more information at your fingertips people can make decisions faster. The tablet vs. netbook argument still exists, and I’m not necessarily here to answer it.

Mendix customers that use the iPad, iTouch, iPhone, Mac, or host of other devices, have grown to expect top notch applications – especially when their business people think strategically.

Blurring the Lines between Business and IT

A “What If” question for business analysts and IT professionals…

What if it suddenly became very easy for someone to do both your job and their own, at the same time? If history provides any forecast for the future of IT, we are likely to see some interesting changes in the way human capital is managed – especially for those of us involved in the emergence of cloud computing. Clouds push complexity to the background and allow users to focus on what really matters: functionality and costs.tomorrows business analyst

Have you ever noticed how the education we receive often sets boundaries in our career aspirations? We are trained to do something, and do it well – but in doing so, we take for granted the fact that others are doing the same thing in a different field. Then, when we are faced with an inevitable change, we instinctively take a “That’s not what I’ve been trained to do, there are other people for that” mentality. Sure, there are the motivated few who push down boundaries and become renaissance men and women in their own right. But when everyone else is set in their ways, these people are often considered a risk… think: too many eggs in one basket.

Now, to regress from my pseudo-philosophical banter, this trend is becoming all the more apparent as business analysts become more involved in technical training. Most IT veterans would say that business analysts will never have the true know-how to implement their plans, requirements and recommendations. The modern business analyst usually considers themselves more of a problem solver than a programmer – hence the separation of labor in this function of any business. Having surveyed the blogosphere for opinions of business analysts and IT professionals, there seems to be a live (and even a bit emotional) discussion between those who say it is a natural, and therefore inevitable, progression and those who say it is a “pie in the sky” and that it will never happen.

Contrastingly, a growing population of believers has something to say about the segregation of business and IT. In a world of zeros and ones, the innumerable coding languages can only become more and more efficient. As coding languages are continuously created, survival of the fittest can account for the extinct languages of modern programming. An abstraction of these languages is an ongoing phenomenon with a light at the end of the tunnel. Some say that using abstract, visual and human-readable models instead of low-level code is a very important step towards commoditized coding.

I’ve come to think about this abstraction phenomenon as measure to increase efficiency. When our ancestors realized that making bricks was faster than packing sand, they were on to something similar. If someone else uses molds to make perfectly shaped bricks that can be built into any structure, the workers need different skills but can ultimately build more economically, the architect can plan more accurately, and the buyer can move in earlier. So, why deal with sand when we can get the bricks from vendors elsewhere. Why deal with code, when we can get software modules elsewhere? This, my friends, may be the future of today’s business analyst.  In the future, what if business analysts had the skill set and the molds to create bricks that satisfy their requirements without the need to deal with code – or sand?

Mendix in the Gym: Jeffs Workout Tracker

What we love most, is when a customer goes home after a long day in the office, and then continues building Mendix apps for personal use. Why? Just because they can.

Last night Jeff Erno, one of our latest community members, published a nice post about his (after-hours) Mendix modeling experience:

“As a part of my job I have been learning a new software tool for building web applications called Mendix. It is pretty fascinating since it is codeless. The building of the data model and forms for user interface are done interactively and the algorithms are just visual flowchart models. The usual learning tutorial was to create a pizza delivery web application, but I had what I thought was a better idea that I could make use of and be a bit more passionate about, a workout tracker.”

Read more about Jeff’s MX-perience and see screenshots on his blog here

Mendix Web Client runs all over the place


The Mendix client team puts a lot of time and effort into writing code that works across a wide range of browsers. Besides the obvious A-browsers on the support list we like to push the envelope by trying to run complex applications on new or interesting environments. Here are a few pictures of some recent experiments. Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean any of these environments are officially supported!

Here we have a Web Client running on the OLPC XO-1, probably one of the lowest low-end machines you’re likely to find in the wild these days. Loading the app took some time and the interface response was a bit sluggish, but it loaded cleanly and without modifications.

Mendix Web Client on OLPC

Mendix Web Client on OLPC


Next up, Nintendo’s latest console is the Wii. It has WiFi and an Internet Channel (which is basically a highly customized Opera9 build). Can we wave the WiiMote around and control a Web Client instance? Yes we can! The app loads without a hitch and we’re waving our way through sets of data, though it’s obvious that an old CRT television screen is not exactly the best display option for these apps.

Mendix Web Client on Nintendo Wii / Opera

Mendix Web Client on Nintendo Wii / Opera

Last up in today’s browser hijinks, Google ChromeOS. Or Google Chrome running on Google ChromeOS, whatever works for you. Chrome is browser that just makes me happy. The new V8 JavaScript engine and isolated processes-per-tab set a new standard for performance and reliability. Google has decided that what the world needs is an OS without local storage and that just runs everything straight from the cloud. The source has recently been open-sourced and we picked up a disk image. A few clicks later, we’re logged into the Google cloud and load in our by now familiar CRM app.

Mendix Web Client on ChromeOS/Chrome

Mendix Web Client on ChromeOS/Chrome

We’re still a long way from having an ecosystem where all browsers follow the same standard and implement them all the same way. But if nothing else this experiment is an indicator that modern browsers are mature enough to use as  runtimes for complex applications. Or that we’ve just bullet-proofed our Web Client enough to run on the crazy variety of browsers out there. Take your pick.

Atos Origin presents at Mendix Essentials

Last Friday, the 25th of September, Mendix organized a Mendix Essentials event in Rotterdam with almost 30 participants from various companies and backgrounds. The Mendix Essentials are monthly recurring events where Mendix presents interested parties with the technology and vision of the company.

The program was packed with interesting demos, presentation and an exciting guest presentation from Atos Origin by Maarten Baas .

Visitors were very enthusiastic after attending the program and just like we hoped, this Mendix Essentials triggered a significant amount of discussion and a great deal of positive reactions from the audience.

For those who missed it, consider registering for our monthly Mendix Essentials events on 30 October or 27 November .

Here are some impressions

Beginning of the Atos origin presentation

Maarten Baas from Atos Origin presenting

Maarten Baas from Atos Origin presenting

Mendix CTO, Roald Kruit explains the Mendix proposition

Mendix CTO, Roald Kruit explains the Mendix proposition



Mendix portal implementation wins Lean and Green Award

HST groep, a transport and logistics service provider based in the Netherlands developed an award winning portal together with Mendix partner CAPE Groep. The portal informs HST’s customers about the CO2 – emission resulting from their transport orders; thereby the portal gives additional information about the ways of fulfillment of their transport orders.

Although customers of HST already used an internet portal to offer transport orders to HST, the new portal and functionality offers opportunity to choose the most sustainable transportation options, directly influencing the bottom line. The portal runs on the Mendix platform and was implemented by CAPE Groep.

leanawardWith this portal HST has made a great leap forward in combining sustainable transportation and cost control. Therefore the portal was awarded with “the lean and green award”. The lean and green award is an initiative from the ministry of transport and industry organizations. The award is granted to companies that display exceptional measures that not only influence cost reductions but also enable more sustainable operations.

During the “Connekt Congress” HST Groep’s Gerard ter Brugge was presented with the award by senator, Dr. Eric Janse de Jonge.

The portal was also covered in this month’s TTM magazine.

Mendix congratulates HST and CAPE Groep with this prestigious award.

Mendix attends BPM event 2009

Yesterday Mendix joined the ‘BPM congres 2009’. Governmental organisations, Universities and companies shared their knowledge about BPM by giving presentations, master classes and workshops.

The day had an informative character and visitors shared knowledge about BPM and the role of BPM in the organisations of the future.


Mendix Head of R&D Johan den Haan, presented Mendix’ vision and the Mendix approach towards the development of service oriented business applications.

The visitors were very positive about this new way of software engineering.


Impression from the information market @ BPM 2009

Impression from the information market @ BPM 2009

Head R&D of Mendix, Johan den Haan explains  Head R&D of Mendix, Johan den Haan explains

Head R&D of Mendix, Johan den Haan explains

Mendix Partner Manager Jan-Mark Maas

Mendix Partner Manager Jan-Mark Maas





RDF Group presents Mendix at Business Analysis Conference London 2009

Mendix’ UK partner RDF Group, will be guest speaker at the Business Analysis Conference in London. The Principal Consultant Franco Civello will be talking about Model Driven Development (MDD) and the way it significantly reduces software costs and how all design decisions can be made and enforced at the Business Analysis level.

Mendix will be presented as a realistic new tool for the majority of the application development projects.
A great event for all UK companies looking for new innovative ways of software delivery. Enroll for this event now.

Quote Magazine interviews Mendix CEO

This month’s edition of Quote Magazine published an interview with Mendix CEO Derek Roos. In the interview Roos explains about his experiences during the financial crisis.

Quote Magazine

Quote Magazine



Your Next ‘Cloud’ Provider May Not be a Tech Company at All

Last week, Insurance Networking News, published an article about “Cloud Computing”. Although many think that Cloud Computing is something for the future, some leading companies within industries you wouldn’t expect are deploying Cloud Computing initiatives using Mendix software.

Your Next ‘Cloud’ Provider May Not be a Tech Company at All

By Joe McKendrick

If you don’t use Amazon Web Services, Salesforce.com modules or rent server capacity from IBM’s facilities, you’re obviously not doing “cloud” computing, right?

Not so fast. Actually, you may already be doing some form of cloud computing, but it’s just not being called that. Cloud computing is defined as the acquisition of services from online providers. As the promise of the cloud unfolds, it’s likely that a typical cloud provider will not be a technology company, but an industry partner that is capable of sharing applications and data.

Take the example of Arch Re Facultative, a supplier of facultative reinsurance in the United States and Canada and a subsidiary of New York-based Arch Capital Group. The company is by no means a “cloud provider”—it reinsures risk for insurance industry clients.

But through its intelligent portal technology, Arch Re has been able to position itself as an online resource for its customers, who have widely varying levels of technology expertise. I recently had the chance to chat with Philip Augur, chief operations officer at Arch Re’s latest portal implementation, which automates much of the “automatics,” and also helps expedite the exceptions as well.

Arch Re’s story appears in the latest edition of Insurance Networking News online.

“We sign an automatic with a company that is interested in submitting the risks in this fashion,” Augur told me. “The underwriters are given a login and password. And as they come across risks in their day-to-day business that fits the box, they come on to our Web site and they submit that risk. The portal verifies that it fits the definitions of the box and applies the pre-agreed pricing. If it doesn’t fit the parameters of the box, it tells the underwriter that, but then it says, ‘we’ll still handle that pure facultative, but they don’t have to re-enter anything—the information just comes through to our staff as a special exception to the automatic agreement.”

The portal has eased a major administrative burden for many underwriters who previously had to track down data from their own internal systems. Now, “some prefer to keep the all the information in our system, so we know what fits the ‘box,’ and it’s easy for us to define that,” Augur said. “So once a month, we’ll press a button, extract that information, and send them the information.”

Could Arch Re be considered a “private cloud” provider to its customers? No, again, it’s a facultative reinsurer, and that’s its business. But the definition fits and, ultimately, many non-technology companies will find themselves in the role of providing services via their own private clouds.

Joe McKendrick is an author, consultant, blogger and frequent INN contributor specializing in information technology. He can be reached at joe@mckendrickresearch.com.

The opinions of bloggers on www.insurancenetworking.com do not necessarily reflect those of Insurance Networking News.

Click here for the article

Insurance Networking News covers Mendix customer case: “Portals Ease Issuance of Reinsurance Contracts”

Insurance Networking News editor Joe McKendrick interviewed Arch Re Facultative COO Phil Augur about their online strategy to serve their customers better. The article describes how Arch Re Facultative uses Mendix to ease issuance of reinsurance contracts.

Philip Augur - COO Arch Re Facultative.

Philip Augur - COO Arch Re Facultative.

Portals Ease Issuance of Reinsurance Contract

By Joe McKendrick

It’s a given that placing business with reinsurers has never been a simple matter; its complexities are the bane of many an insurer.

Add the burden the underwriter faces in submitting a facultative risk, only to find that the application does not fit the terms of the targeted contract. So the notion of a reinsurer offering its insurer client a “self-service” option seems a distant idea. Until now, that is.

The reinsurance business is the risk-management backbone of the insurance industry, but has its own set of nuanced processes and lingo. These companies deal exclusively with carriers as customers, rather than directly with consumer or general business markets.

For underwriters and managers at client insurance companies, packaging up and sending business over to reinsurers has been a tedious and mainly manual process, requiring research and risk analysis. Recognizing that these programs impose a significant administrative burden on carriers, reinsurer Arch Re Facultative recently deployed a self-service intelligent portal environment designed to smooth the contractual process with its client companies.

In fact, many – if not most – of the contracts that occur between insurers and reinsurers have predictable circumstances, and can be accepted automatically and are appropriately called ‘automatics,’” relates Philip Augur, chief operations officer at Arch Re Facultative. Facultative reinsurance is the reinsurance of individual risks by offer and acceptance, wherein the reinsurer retains the “faculty” to accept or reject each risk offered. This process involves a considerable amount of interaction and processing. Reinsurance programs are contracts between an insurer and reinsurer to bundle together facultative transactions that are similar in their terms and conditions in an attempt to fill the space between pure facultative transactions and treaties. Automatic business, on the other hand, “consists of an overarching contract that ‘fits into the box,’ if you will,” Augur relates. “It’s similar to a treaty, but smaller.”

AUTOMATING THE AUTOMATIC

The challenge for Arch Re Facultative, a supplier of facultative reinsurance in the United States and Canada and a subsidiary of New York-based Arch Capital Group, was to be able to automate as much of this automatic business as possible, Augur explains. “That’s the price these days to even be at the bargaining table with companies that are considering doing this,” he explains. “We needed a Web-based facility for them to submit risks. Otherwise, it just creates a new administrative burden on them where they have to do a lot of extracts on their systems, or deal with IT issues.”

By offering a Web-based service portal, underwriters at customer insurance firms “would be able to submit the risks as they come up on their desks,” Augur says. “Then they’re more likely to discuss the opportunity with us. Before, many client companies wouldn’t even consider our proposal; we needed a more efficient mechanism for clients to report the risks subject to the contract.”

Accordingly, the reinsurer wanted a user-friendly, Web-based portal to support its program contracts and provide a way for client underwriters to access these programs to submit risks. Last fall, the company implemented Mendix Business Server, running under the Mendix Portal, to support the initiative.

The portal, which is now live and accessible to 120 clients, supports reinsurance programs and provides client underwriters with online functionality to submit risk contracts and process the information in a structured and efficient manner. “We sign an automatic with a company that is interested in submitting the risks in this fashion,” Augur says. “The underwriters will be using it, so the primary company underwriters are given a login and password. And as they come across risks in their day-to-day business that fits the box, they come on to our Web site and submit that risk. The portal then verifies that it fits the definitions of the box and applies the pre-agreed pricing.”

Once a program has been deployed, client underwriters and their managers have access to an array of functions through Arch Re Fac’s portal. The underwriter can submit a risk, and the application verifies whether that risk fits the terms of the contract. If that is the case, the price is instantly provided, and the client can bind. Risks that do not meet the terms of the contract can be submitted for special acceptance without losing any of the data already put in. As part of the process, special exceptions that don’t meet the pre-established automatic criteria are forwarded on to Arch Re Facultative specialists for manual processing. “If it doesn’t fit the parameters of the box, it tells the underwriter that,” Augur explains. “But then it says, ‘we will still handle that pure facultative,’ and they don’t have to re-enter anything. It just comes through to our staff as a special exception to the automatic agreement.”

The portal application also will communicate Arch Re’s structure and price for special acceptances to the underwriter, who can subsequently bind using an application function. In addition, the portal enables clients to endorse and cancel risks – be they under the terms of the contract or special acceptances. The portal also provides clients with a real-time overview of their bordereaux (reinsurance that shows loss history and premium history with respect to specific risks), as well as any pending tasks and activities.

The portal initiative also can be adjusted for the various technical capabilities of client insurance companies, and provides a valuable resource for them. “In the world of the primary insurance market, a lot of different companies have a lot of different levels of technical savvy,” Augur points out. Whatever their technical limitation is, those are the people that have been wanting to use a system such as this. For some clients, its almost as if they can get more information from our portal about their book than they can get from their own system.”

Joe McKendrick is an author and consultant specializing in information technology, based in Doylestown, Pa., and a regular blogger for www.insurancenetworking.com.

(c) 2009 Insurance Networking News and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Read the Full Article here

Download the Arch Re Facultative business case

Interview Mendix CEO in Business Process Magazine

This month’s edition of Business Process Magazine published an extensive interview with Mendix Mendix CEO Derek Roos. In the article Roos gives insight in Mendix’ vision on model-driven application development and process-centric business automation. He also sheds light on Mendix strategy and product roadmap.

*Please note article is in Dutch only

*Please note article is in Dutch only

Mendix Campus program at TU Twente great success. And the winner is…

Over the last few weeks, a class of bachelor students from Technical University Twente completed the course “Business Information Systems” for which they had to work in 5 small, agile teams to build a working business application using Mendix.  Each team could pick from a list of real-life cases and model a fullfledged application “from scratch” in only a few weeks. After completion the teacher graded all projects and awarded the best application with an A (or in Dutch equivalent: 10 out of 10)!

And the winning team is:

… Dennis Pallet and Allard Brand with their Mendix implementation of the “University Enrollment Case”.

Congratulations guys!! Well done! Below is an summary of the jury report:

The University enrollment case is the most complete project for several reasons. First of all, the project was correctly modeled; the project contains several validations, delete behaviour was set and they clearly used the Mendix Modeling conventions. The group was able to make use of webservices to streamline the enrollment process. Further, by calling a Java action, they made it possible to generate passwords given that it requires anonymous access. This realistic approach is supported by both admin interfaces and student interfaces. The group also worked out the idea of sending a welcome email to University’s new applicants. Most important, this University enrollment case reduces lots of manual work, processes are more efficient and the simple sign-up process is user friendly.

Proud-looking Dennis Pallet and Allard Brand

Proud-looking Dennis Pallet and Allard Brand

TechCrunch about Mendix

Leading techblog covers Mendix.

Check out the article here.


Arch Re COO will talk about Mendix at ACORD LOMA

Philip Augur, Chief Operations Officer at Arch Re will present his experiences using Mendix software at the Acord Loma Insurance Systems Forum in Florida on May 19.

The abstract from ACORD website reads:

4:15 PM – 5:00 PM
Implementing a Self-Service Portal Using Model-driven Development
Presenter(s): Philip Augur, Arch Re Facultative

Arch Re Facultative needed an agile, user-friendly and customizable, Self-Service portal to support their growing program business. The solution they implemented was developed quickly and painlessly using Model-driven development. The Program Portal positions Arch Re Facultative positively in the competitive landscape. It can accommodate the spectrum from Arch Re Fac’s simplest, most homogeneous programs to their most complex agreements. Hear how model driven development helped ARF implement a better solution quicker and learn how Model-driven development can work for you.

Mendix listed as a Cool Vendor in Gartner report

We are proud! Mendix has just been listed “Cool Vendor” by industry research firm Gartner in the category “Cool Vendors in Application Development, New Tools, 2009″ published on March 30th. We see this as Gartner´s recognition of our vision, innovations and success as a team!

Gartner defines a “Cool Vendor” as a company that offers technologies or solutions that are:

  1. Innovative: enable users to do things they couldn’t do before;
  2. Impactful: have, or will have, business impact (not just technology for the sake of technology);
  3. Intriguing: have caught Gartner’s interest or curiosity within approximately the past six months.

The report notes that, “As development projects and processes deal with complex business problems and large quantities of information, the translation of the business need into a tangible design addresses a major source of project failure and are at the root of many development project horror stories.”

According to Gartner, “Development managers and business analysts should develop new methods for successfully deploying applications built with newer, more-complex tools and processes”.

In the report, Gartner selected vendors that have “cool” approaches to application development, and, specifically, the management, specification and quality delivery of complex development projects.

Note: We can’t publish the entire report here, but go the Gartner website to find it (search for ‘mendix’). Analysis was done by research director David Norton.

Disclaimer about Gartner’s Cool Vendor Selection Process

Gartner’s listing does not constitute an exhaustive list of vendors in any given technology area, but rather is designed to highlight interesting, new and innovative vendors, products and services. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness of a particular purpose. Gartner defines a cool vendor as a company that offers technologies or solutions that are: Innovative, enable users to do things they couldn’t do before; Impactful, have, or will have, business impact (not just technology for the sake of technology); Intriguing, have caught Gartner’s interest or curiosity in approximately the past six months.

Benchmark analysis: Mendix vs Custom Development

For years now we have been claiming to “build better solutions quicker”. Nonetheless, it always sounds better if others say it!

UK-based IT services firm RDF Group performed an independent bench mark analysis, measuring performance of the Mendix Platform against the use of traditional techniques. As the stats below show, results were amazing: 670 days (traditional) versus 171 days in Mendix!

Benchmark analysis MDD vs Custom Devleopment

Benchmark analysis MDD vs Custom Devleopment

Interestingly, results also show a strong difference in the activity breakdown. While in the traditional scenario most effort was dedicated to manually “programming” the application, in Mendix the majority of time was spent on “analysis/modelling”.

About the BIN solution
BIN stands for Bank Identification Number and is the unique identifier of a bank on a payment card. Due to the high costs involved in becoming an FSA approved card distributor many organizations choose to gain access to the card market through a primary vendor, effectively a sponsorship relationship between the master approved vendor (The BIN Sponsor) and the company wishing to offer the card to their customers.

A BIN sponsor needs an invoicing application to manage revenue streams from the cards issued through BIN sponsorship. Invoice charges can be calculated in a variety of ways based on volume of transaction, total amount of transactions or as a predetermined fee. In addition data to calculate these charges is based on card activity through ATM usage, merchant’s POS or online e-commerce orders – therefore any automated invoicing application has to integrate with card processor data.

Background casestudy
The solution to BIN sponsorship invoicing was a data-rich application with some fairly complex business logic. RDF felt this assignment was a perfect test project to trial the Mendix capabilities. After these results, RDF decided to adopt Mendix in its service and solution portfolio and become exclusive distributor for Mendix products in the UK. The developed BIN Sponsorship Invoicing Tool is a commercial, high quality application available for demonstration or purchase.

Download casestudy here

WANTED: MENDIX SOFTWARE SALES EXECUTIVE

About Mendix

Mendix is an award-winning software company dedicated to streamline, automate and integrate complex business processes in the Extended Enterprise. Founded in 2006 and built on pioneering academic research on model-driven development, we are revolutionizing the way organizations build and implement enterprise class web applications. By empowering business analysts to visually capture business requirements and directly executing them as applications without the need to code, we increase flexibility, accelerate time-to-market and reduce project risk and costs.

Following strong growth in Europe we have recently expanded into the US market. To help us further grow our organization we are looking for experienced sales executives to join our team. We are an international team of highly qualified individuals who take pride in delivering the best possible solutions to our customers and making a difference.

About the job:

For our Cambridge (USA) office, we are looking for an experienced Software Sales Executive who can transform ground-breaking technology into a rapidly growing revenue stream. The Sales Executive will have full responsibility for meeting quarterly new customer acquisition targets. Working directly with the Vice-President of the US operations and the CEO, the Sales Executive will be engaged in shaping the company’s success through the execution of our commercial strategy, thus enabling Mendix to achieve its financial goals and establish clear leadership in our target market. The Sales Executive will be expected to spend the majority of his/her time to build a robust pipeline from the ground up.

About you:

Our approach is straightforward; we are looking for people who possess the following characteristics, skills and knowledge.

Characteristics:
• An enthusiastic, intelligent, high-energy and driven individual who is visibly passionate about their role and can take end to end responsibility for the sales cycle.
• You are strategic and creative – but strong execution capabilities are critical for success. Success will be judged on output, not input.
• Highly entrepreneurial, with a high level of energy, dedication, and an unrelenting drive to succeed and win; not afraid to roll up his/her sleeves
• Being able to build deep and lasting relationships with customers.
• A combination of large and small (entrepreneurial/startup) company experience and the personality traits – collaboration, honesty, integrity, intensity and passion – necessary to blend with the rest of the team
• A passion for selling, winning and being accountable to his/her targets

Skills:
• We believe good sales executive sell by listening – not talking
• Willingness and ability to work with limited resources, typical for an emerging organization
• Analytical skill to break down a problem and determine the right solution
• The ability to prioritize activities in the logical order – distinguish between data and information
• Communicate effectively with colleagues across different time zones
• Good time management skills to make an accurate assessments of time requirements and prioritize activities

Knowledge:
• A deep understanding and proven track record in enterprise software sales
• Knows what it takes to work in an entrepreneurial environment
• Have a good understanding of our customer persona’s (C-level selling)
• Insurance knowledge and experience are a big pro

Interested?

Send us an email at jobs@mendix.com. Please attach CV and motivation.

Model Driven Development Event in the City of London

Mendix’s UK partner the RDF group is hosting a conference, the 24th of March. The conference is entitled:

RDF Model Driven Development Event

The conference is held in the city of London and various companies already registered. So if your company is looking for development cost cuts? And time to market is crucial? And you’re expected to deliver more for less? Then register for this interesting event!

RDF invitaion Model Dirven Development Event


RDF invitation;

Model Driven Development Event

Agis and Mendix interview in “Automatiserings Gids”

Last week “Automatiserings Gids” published an interview with Agis, a Dutch insurance company, about their successful effort using Mendix software to automate the health procurement process. Mendix designed and implemented the portal application.

Click here to read the whole article

Automatisering Gids nr. 7, 2009

Automatisering Gids nr. 7, 2009

Mendix en BiZZdesign presenteren “van procesontwerp tot procesondersteuning”

Op vrijdag 13 februari jl. mochten wij 75 bezoekers begroeten op de gecombineerde Essentials bijeenkomst van BiZZdesign en Mendix. Het doel van de Essentials was om het publiek te informeren over de combinatie van procesontwerp en procesondersteuning, met bijbehorende toolondersteuning. Het was een informatieve en interactieve sessie, waarbij er na afloop druk werd nagepraat over de bijgewoonde presentaties en demonstraties.

De bijeenkomst begon met een overzicht door Derek Roos (Mendix) van het speelveld van procesontwerp en procesondersteuning, waarbij een aantal herkenbare probleemsituaties rond de afstemming van business en IT aan de orde kwam. Vervolgens werd er door Harmen van den Berg (BiZZdesign) dieper ingegaan op het ontwerpen van processen, en de rol van procesmodellen daarbij. Hierbij werd de tool BiZZdesigner uitvoerig gedemonstreerd, waarbij de verscheidene views op proces, rollen en systemen aan bod kwamen. Er werd daarnaast ook ingegaan op meer geavanceerde procesanalyses zoals doorlooptijden, wachttijden en bezettingsgraden voor proces en actoren. Tijdens de bijeenkomsten werden een aantal vragen gesteld over versie- en modelbeheer, iets waar goed in voorzien is in BiZZdesigner.

In het tweede deel van de bijeenkomst werd door Derek Roos verder ingegaan op het creëren van procesondersteunende applicaties op basis van procesmodellen. Het Mendix-platform maakt het mogelijk om applicaties te ontwikkelen op basis van procesmodellen, hetgeen de snelheid en flexibiliteit sterk verbeterd in vergelijking tot meer traditionele software ontwikkeling. Derckjan Kruit en Fedor Klinkenberg (Mendix) lieten dit zien in een demonstratie van het Mendix platform. Daarbij werd als eerste stap een procesmodel uit BiZZdesigner via een XPDL-export ingelezen in het Mendix-platform. Dit model werd vervolgens verrijkt met gegevens en business rules. Vervolgens werd dit model “gedeployed”, zodat een werkende applicatie ontstond.

Na afloop van de presentaties en demonstraties werd onder het genot van een hapje en een drankje nog stevig doorgepraat.

Op veler verzoek en voor iedereen die onverhoopt de Essentials heeft moeten missen hebben BiZZdesign en Mendix de presentaties zoals gegeven op de Essentials online beschikbaar gemaakt.

BiZZdesign-Mendix presentatie

Wij kijken terug op een zeer geslaagde Essentials-bijeenkomst, met een hoge opkomst en veel interesse vanuit de deelnemers. Wij hopen dat u als deelnemer een goed overzicht heeft kunnen krijgen welke mogelijkheden er zijn om van procesontwerp tot procesondersteuning te komen. Mocht u vragen hebben, of geïnteresseerd zijn in meer informatie over onze producten, neemt u dan contact op met Fabienne van Luin (essentials@bizzdesign.nl) of Korstiaan Zandvliet (korstiaan.zandvliet@mendix.com)

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JavaScript is good enough

Bashing the JavaScript language is becoming an increasingly popular activity. It’s also an easy target because it’s a language most people over the age of 20 associate with pointless CPU hogging activity.

OK, so JavaScript used to have a bad rep. You’d think that four years or so after Google came out with GMail and Google Maps, we’d be past this. Well, apparently we’re not.

To quote Jonathan Edwards (JavaScript is good enough),

The web development community consciously chose to stick with a pathetically crippled technology to avoid having to change.

Ouch.

That sounds pretty damning, doesn’t it? Luckily, we’re on the Internet, where quotes never get taken out of context and are never used as the basis for an opinion.

In that spirit, here’s another quote, this time from Bjarne Soustrup.

“There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses”.

JavaScript has been with us since the mid-90s. No real programmers complained about it because, well, it was considered a toy language. Why waste time complaining about a language that nobody would take seriously when there were Really Important languages to complain about?

With browsers only allowing JavaScript in browsers to interact with the user and not the server it remained a toy. Something associated with unwanted pop-ups and interference with the user’s browsing behaviour.

Somewhere along the line a programmer at Microsoft was tasked with giving Outlook a web interface and immediately ran into the “JavaScript can’t do server interaction” restriction. This programmer built an extension to IE and (with other programmers) allowed IE to use JavaScript to communicate with the server without changing pages.

And *boom* AJAX was born.

Well, it wasn’t yet, but this is where it started. Around this time Microsoft had killed Netscape, considered itself dominant in the browser space and simply stopped developing Internet Explorer. The state IE was then is still the baseline for all web application development today. Keep that in mind, because it’s important. And bear with me, because I’m going to dive into history for a bit.

Internet Explorer 6 became the dominant browser world-wide. Netscape was dead, its source code open-sourced, but its community hell-bent on a re-write of the whole software. Joel Spolski wrote a (now famous) article on this in 2000 Things you should never do.

It would take years before a new browser emerged from this. In the mean time, other browsers were also being developed. And although compliance with standards was important, all the teams saw the importance of being compatible with IE6. Being compatible with the Microsoft DOM implementation was a lot more work than being compatible with the Microsoft JavaScript implementation (the Netscape SpiderMonkey engine having been reverse-engineered to JScript).

New browsers started to emerge and luckily, Microsoft did not take notice of this. The new browsers could render pages just like Internet Explorer, take plugins like Flash and generally take the place of IE. But what these browsers also did was implement the special functionality that IE used to communicate with the server while staying on the same page.

This was noticed in technical circles but only as an observation. Some software firms experimented with this new cross-browser functionality but it had almost zero impact until Google launched GMail. Once Google lauched GMail, everybody started paying attention. The entire ‘Web 2.0′ buzz started with the launch of GMail.

The ‘Web 2.0′ buzz has rightfully been seen as a new dom-com bubble. But that’s not what Google started. Google showed the world that there are new ways of leveraging existing web technology. After GMail, they upped the ante by bringing out Google Maps.

Since then the development of web-based software has jumped and outside of streaming media, all the developments have been in JavaScript. Even streaming media only uses other languages and runtimes (mostly Flash) only for streaming media. Every other aspect is implemented in JavaScript.

And why not? JavaScript is a simple but powerful language. Even in its mid-90s incarnation it’s more powerful than many ‘modern’ languages. Read up on Douglas Crockford’s classic paper on JavaScript The World’s Most Misunderstood Programming Language if you missed the memo.

JavaScript has its warts and I’ll be the first to admit that. However, the warts are small and it’s easy to work around them. Every language has its ups and downs. Programming C I wish for dynamic structures, programming Ruby I wish for type checking, programming JavaScript (ECMA-262) I wish for co-routines (and ‘watch’ in IE).

JavaScript is the language of the web and as people get used to it, it is starting to grow beyond the browser. There are web frameworks that use server-side JavaScript, One prominent Google employee recently ported the Ruby on Rails framework to server-side JavaScript.

JavaScript’s popularity is also starting to push its way into other frameworks by making the JS environment accessible to developers not working against DOM implementations.

A few years ago the JavaScript engines were limited to SpiderMonkey, its unofficial twin brother JScript, and a port to Java in the form of Rhino. Now we have those, but also Google’s V8, Adobe’s Tamarin, the TraceMonkey engine and Apple’s SquirrelfishCore.

JavaScript is growing and is growing fast. It might not be an ideal language, but which language is? It is a powerful language and one that has depth that is not immediately obvious to casual observers. It is also the language of the web, so either learn it or provide an alternative if you’re going to moan about it.

Mendix & Centric @ J-Fall 2008

On J-Fall 2008 Mendix and Centric teamed by jointly exhibiting at another successful Java conference organized by the NLJUG. J-Fall proved a great event to get in touch with the Java community and to demonstrate the Mendix platform in front of a live audience.

See you again at J-Spring 2009!

The Mendix & Centric booth

The Mendix & Centric booth

Johan den Haan explains

Johan den Haan explains

Mammoet reduces costs by 50% using Mendix portal

This week TTM Magazine published an interview with the management of Mammoet Road Cargo about their (highly) successful effort using Mendix to create a real-time management portal, integrated with their on-board computers. The portal application was designed and implemented by Mendix partner Cape Groep, who specializes in transport & logistics.

Interview Mendix in Het Financieele Dagblad

Today we are covered by leading dutch business newspaper “Het Financieele Dagblad”. See below for an interview with our CEO.