Servoy 5 is a development and deployment platform. Servoy is inspired on 4GL in terms of how applications are developed but unlike many 4GL's does not have proprietary languages and/or databases but instead bases its language on open standards. Servoy consists of a GUI designer, is event-driven and runs scripts through JavaScript. Servoy allows applications to be deployed to both a native Smart client / Rich client and to a pure html Web client from the same codebase and user interface definitions.
Servoy 4.0 and beyond has a free community edition for non-commercial use. This version can be downloaded from Servoy's website. As of Servoy 5 it is also Open Source under the AGPL license.
Servoy applications can be deployed on all popular operating systems including Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Solaris and other UNIX systems. It has been reviewed by eWeek [1] Previous versions were reviewed by MacUser Magazine, where it received a 4 mouse rating.[2]
Applications developed with Servoy can access data from all popular SQL back-ends such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, IBM Informix, Sybase, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird; and combine data from different databases into a single user interface UI.
The Servoy suite of products consists of Servoy Developer which is used to build applications; Servoy Application Server to deploy the application; and Servoy Smart and Web Client which runs on the device—PC, mobile or other—of the end-user. Servoy also offers a runtime version that allows the creation of standalone Servoy applications.
Servoy Server includes Servoy Headless client. This client allows other applications to execute Servoy business rules including consuming them as a webservice. The headless client also allows for batch processing.
Servoy has a partnering network of over 200 companies that offer Servoy development, Servoy components (Beans and plugins), consulting or hosting services called the Servoy Alliance Network (SAN).
[edit] History of Servoy
Servoy is the brainchild of Jan Aleman and Jan Blok who met each other while studying computer science. Development began in 1997 and was used with just a few of their existing clients. In 2001 they created Servoy, B.V. (in the Netherlands) and took the product commercial. A couple of years after that they opened Servoy, Inc. (in the USA). In 2006 sales took off as Servoy grew beyond its original 4GL replacement era and was targeted towards ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) and became a tool for ISVs to quickly rewrite for the Internet with Web 2.0 functionality (RIA, AJAX, data broadcasting, etc.)
In the summer of 2008 4.0 was released, changing Servoy from its proprietary based IDE to an Eclipse plug-in. The tech analysts and tech journalists took a much greater view with the 4.0 release, resulting in a slew of articles and mentions (see below). As of Servoy 5 the developer and client code is available under both a AGPL and commercial license.
The company has an annual developers conference called ServoyWorld.