Reflections on the QAD Fall Midwest User Group Conference

Posted on: October 2, 2024 | By: Guy Logan | QAD Practice News, QAD Business Process

This recap of the recent QAD Midwest User Group Conference is brought to you by David Kwo. Dive into the latest developments and discussions shaping the QAD ecosystem’s future here:

MWUG Recap

This past September 16th and 17th, the semi-annual QAD Midwest User Group Conference was held in Grand Rapids, MI. Attendance was down from the Spring Conference in Milwaukee, partly attributed to QAD users opting to attend QAD’s Transform America Conference in Chicago, IL taking place in November. In our discussions with the vast majority of attendees the major topic of conversation is when QAD’s new O3 version will be commercially available.  The tone of the conversations ranged from trepidation (“this is a significant change for QAD and Progress has been a rock solid database for us…”) to excitement (“based upon what we’ve seen if QAD can pull this off, this gives them a solid future going forward.”).

While QAD has always been considered a rock solid ERP package for manufacturing companies, it’s main vulnerabilities have been its user interface significantly lagging the industry standards and the overall lack of Progress programming skill sets. While Progress has proven to be a reliable and robust database, it has struggled to capture the mindshare of the younger generation of Programmers and Developers and thus as the Progress skilled eco-system ages into retirement, there is a lack of younger talent coming into to replace them.

QAD’s O3 version moves the software and database applications from Progress to Java and Amazon’s relational database software. It will use no-code or low-code extensions in Typescript (a variant of JavaScript)  so that users can the system to their specific needs.  These technology platform moves will dramatically increase the talent pool available to support QAD. In our discussions at the conference, there are indications that there are some early adopters successes that will be able to be made public shortly, perhaps at QAD’s Transform America Conference in November. If so, this is terrific news for the QAD Eco-System and QAD in general.

Next Step

If you are interested in learning more about MWUG or QAD upgrade, contact us here to find out how we can help you grow your business. You can also email us at info@loganconsulting.com or call (312) 345-8817.