The quiet San Francisco company keeping decades of enterprise software alive - and moving it to the cloud.
Cloud App Development, Simplified
In 2016, SAP made a decision most of the technology press overlooked. It handed PowerBuilder - a rapid application development platform behind hundreds of thousands of business applications - to a small, independent company in San Francisco called Appeon. Nine years later, that decision looks deliberate rather than dismissive.
Appeon develops, sells, and supports PowerBuilder, the integrated development environment that lets programmers build data-driven business applications quickly. If you have ever used an insurance quoting system, a government records terminal, or an internal banking tool that has run reliably for two decades, there is a reasonable chance the code beneath it was written in PowerScript and bound to a DataWindow - PowerBuilder's signature data control.
The company was founded in 1999 by a group of Silicon Valley professionals, including chief executive Armeen Mazda. Its early business was building web-deployment tools that extended PowerBuilder to the browser. Over time it moved from partner to steward: in July 2016 it signed an agreement with SAP - which had inherited PowerBuilder through its 2010 acquisition of Sybase - to take full responsibility for developing, selling, and supporting the platform.
The mission Appeon states is narrow and, for its customers, valuable: help developers build faster, better business applications with a stack that respects the developer, the end user, and the budget. The corollary belief - that "innovations in tech should not come at the expense of the developer, user, or bottom line" - explains why the company modernizes in place rather than forcing customers to start over.
That is the whole shape of the business. Appeon is not chasing the newest framework of the quarter. It is keeping software that runs the everyday economy from falling over, and adding cloud, mobile, web APIs, and C#/.NET to it without breaking the code its customers wrote years ago.
Appeon's users are the enterprises, independent software vendors, and government agencies that run long-lived, line-of-business systems. These are organizations with 10-, 15-, or 25-year-old applications that still process claims, payroll, permits, and orders every day.
For a business running mission-critical software written decades ago, "modernize" usually means one of two bad options: freeze the app and hope it keeps running, or fund a multi-year rewrite that risks the very logic the company depends on.
Appeon's answer is a third path - give the old code new deployment targets. Move a Windows client/server app to the web and the cloud, or port its business logic to C#/.NET, while keeping the DataWindow, the SQL, and the business rules intact. A migration becomes a port in terms of risk and effort, not a rewrite.
The integrated development environment for rapidly building data-driven business apps with the DataWindow and PowerScript. Now targets cloud-native, web API, and C#/.NET development.
Relaunched 2017Automatically converts PowerBuilder client/server apps into cloud-ready n-tier applications accessible over the internet from Windows devices.
2020Reporting and lightweight data-maintenance tool for building queries, reports, and data-driven forms with minimal code.
2017Bundle and toolset that migrates 80-95% of PowerBuilder business logic - DataWindows, PowerScript, embedded SQL, NVOs - to C#/.NET and generates REST APIs.
2021Brings DataWindow data-access technology natively to .NET, enabling JSON handling and RESTful Web API generation from DataWindow objects.
2021A .NET Core framework and SDK for building high-performance, data-driven applications and services.
2020Business model: commercial B2B licensing - annual subscriptions and perpetual licenses across Standard, Professional and CloudPro editions, plus premium support, training, and migration services.
A ground-up editor with better readability, enhanced syntax highlighting, and a context-aware code assistant.
Compile from plain-text source files instead of binary PBLs for 2-10X faster full builds and quicker incremental compilations.
Generate RESTful Web APIs directly from DataWindows via the new .NET DataStore project type.
Turn a traditional menu-based app into a themed ribbon interface in a single click - no code changes.
Moving from proprietary PBLs to real plain-text source files streamlines Git and modern DevOps workflows.
Adds Windows Authentication, encrypted connection strings, and loading DataWindows from external libraries.
Appeon reports 12,500+ combined years of engineering experience behind the platform.
Most low-code and modernization vendors sell you a new place to rebuild. Appeon sells continuity. CloudPro is described as the only migration solution that natively supports, in .NET, all DataWindow presentation styles and most non-visual DataWindow features - which is why Appeon can frame a PowerBuilder-to-C# move as a port rather than a rewrite.
There is also the matter of continuity in people: the founders from 1999 are reportedly still with the company. For customers betting decades of code on a vendor, stability is itself a feature.
Appeon sits at the intersection of the IDE, low-code, and application-modernization markets. Its alternatives depend on the job:
PowerSoft releases PowerBuilder, later carried by Sybase - the platform Appeon would one day steward.
Silicon Valley professionals, including CEO Armeen Mazda, launch Appeon, initially building web solutions for PowerBuilder.
Appeon raises a $20M Series A round to expand its PowerBuilder web-deployment technology.
PowerBuilder passes to SAP, setting the stage for Appeon's later role.
On July 5, 2016 Appeon signs an agreement with SAP to develop, sell, and support PowerBuilder as an independent company.
Appeon ships its first PowerBuilder release, adding Windows 10, iOS, and Android support.
Automated PowerBuilder-to-C# migration and native DataWindow data access in .NET arrive.
A revamped code editor, 2-10X faster compiler, plain-text source files, auto REST APIs, and one-click ribbon UIs.
PowerBuilder debuted in 1991 - eight years before Appeon existed. The platform is older than the company that now runs it.
The DataWindow, PowerBuilder's decades-old data-binding control, has been re-engineered to run natively in C#/.NET.
Software used by 18,000+ organizations is maintained by a company of roughly 67 people.
Appeon's founders from 1999 are reportedly still with the company - rare in enterprise software.
Appeon started building web tools for PowerBuilder, then acquired the platform's future outright.
Appeon describes a "cult-like following" and hosts the annual Elevate developer conference to keep the community close.
Appeon develops, sells, and supports PowerBuilder and related tools (PowerServer, InfoMaker, CloudPro) that let developers rapidly build data-driven business apps and modernize legacy client/server systems into cloud-native and C#/.NET applications.
PowerBuilder came from Sybase, which SAP acquired in 2010. In July 2016 SAP signed an agreement making Appeon, an independent company, responsible for developing, selling, and supporting PowerBuilder.
Appeon was founded in 1999 in San Francisco by a group of Silicon Valley professionals, including co-founder and CEO Armeen Mazda; original founding team members reportedly remain with the company.
Yes. PowerServer deploys apps to the cloud automatically, and CloudPro migrates 80-95% of PowerBuilder business logic - including DataWindows and embedded SQL - to C#/.NET while generating REST APIs.
Appeon reports 18,000+ customers who have collectively built more than 150,000 applications with PowerBuilder.