In 2003, even before Oracle APEX had a real name (even before HTML DB), I had the good fortune of presenting APEX at the UKOUG Tech conference in Birmingham, England. I was with my good friend Sergio Leunissen, the original Product Manager of APEX. Tom Kyte had kindly given us a few minutes on stage during his session to present Project Marvel. We were able to demonstrate marvel.oracle.com, a free, browser-based, hosted, multitenant, declarative (low code) development and runtime environment. This ultimately became today's https://apex.oracle.com, which gets just around 2,000 new signups every week!
Later that day, I also distinctly remember talking with an Oracle sales rep from the UK. I had explained that there were plans to include APEX (née Project Marvel) with Oracle Database and not charge any additional fee for it. He told me he thought it was a big mistake that Oracle wasn't planning on charging a customer for use of APEX, and unless there was a cost associated with it, there would be no perceived value and no one would use it. Here we are 15 years later. The industry has changed in extraordinary ways, and APEX and the APEX community continues to grow and expand at an accelerated rate. And in 2018, when everyone expects tools and frameworks to be "free", I remain convinced that we made the right decision to include APEX with Oracle Database and not make it a for-cost option.
I am looking forward to returning to UKOUG Tech18 this year, where a lot of the original APEX community outreach began for us. Some of my favorite customers are in the United Kingdom, and I've known and worked with a large number of them for many years. The fine folks at UKOUG have graciously given me the opportunity to present the APEX Community Keynote on Monday, December 3, 2018. It will be "Oracle APEX: State of the Union", and this will be a presentation on both what is happening for APEX inside of Oracle and also across the APEX community globally. We will be in Liverpool Sunday through Wednesday, and we look forward to meeting as many customers as possible. You have a story to tell and we'd like to hear it, and how we can help.
See you in Liverpool in December 2018!