The APEX Journey Continues

Today, Oracle formally launched the Oracle APEX Application Development Service. This is a brand new service on Oracle Cloud, squarely targeted at application developers. You can read all about it in this blog post, and here is the press release.

Oracle APEX is unique among frameworks and even low code platforms.  The architecture is "radical", as an Oracle executive described it.  Using just a little SQL, you can build wonderfully rich applications against virtually any type of data, and your apps can scale to thousands and thousands of users.

This all started back in 1999, and I was fortunate to be employee #1 under Michael Hichwa. It was Mike's vision and ingenuity which launched Oracle APEX, and it began with just the two of us. After 5 years of proving it with real-world applications, both inside of Oracle and outside, it was launched as Oracle HTML DB in 2004 - as a feature of Oracle Database. It took a lot of work and a little executive nudging to make this happen. Over the past 17 years, we've added some of the smartest people in the world to the team, and they have helped evolve Oracle APEX to what it is today. Another brilliant team at Oracle delivered on a vision which is realized today in Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS), and this is what powers APEX everywhere.  ORDS is a powerful and enabling technology.  We've developed numerous internal applications at Oracle, and we've also helped thousands of others at Oracle to develop their own solutions too. We've made mistakes along the way, but we've learned from them too. We became the advocate of our customers within Oracle, and we also developed a close, personal relationship with our community - hundreds if not thousands of them.

During the pandemic of 2020, our team was called upon to quickly deliver solutions using Oracle APEX. In conjunction with hundreds of other employees, and utilizing Oracle Cloud and Oracle engineered systems, we delivered solutions in record time. I'm convinced no other organization on the planet could have achieved this. I believe it was through these efforts that Oracle fully realized what they had in APEX.  The work on these and other new systems continues, and you'll see even more Oracle Cloud solutions from Oracle developed with APEX in the future. What other low code vendor on the planet can claim that their platform is used to quickly develop SaaS solutions for literally millions of end users? 

That brings us to today. The APEX Application Development Service is a culmination of years of research, development, and real-world usage. It is a perfect confluence of technologies, of Oracle Autonomous Database, Oracle Exadata engineered systems and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, combined with the proven Oracle APEX framework. There are problems to be fixed, features to be added, and functionality to broaden, but it's still a great achievement. Everyone on the Oracle APEX team should be very proud - they have all worked so very hard to get here.

I must also give credit to you, the Oracle APEX community, for the Oracle APEX Application Development Service. Without your support, guidance, and enthusiasm, APEX would not be where it is today. So many people in the APEX community have contributed to APEX - in immeasurable ways, both big and small. There have been a great number of bug reports, feature suggestions, marketing recommendations and requested enhancements from the community.  We've also had many meetings with our customers and partners seeking their architectural advice. Everyone has always been so helpful and gracious with their time and talent.

This has been an amazing journey.  The Oracle APEX Application Development Service is a huge milestone in that journey.  We look forward to the next 20 years and what that will bring.  And we look forward to doing it hand-in-hand with our amazing Oracle APEX community.