PowerBuilder Consultants Europe

Specialist PowerBuilder support, migration and modernisation for organisations across Europe — including the applications that have to work in more than one language and more than one country.

Request a free application review +44 (0)1293 562730
Any language
software we built to do it
Appeon-approved
consulting partner
PB v4 → PB2025
every release in between
CET ±1
one hour from most of Europe

The European version of the problem

A PowerBuilder application written for one country twenty years ago, which is now expected to work in five. Different languages on screen, different currencies in the ledger, different rules in each jurisdiction, and users spread from Lisbon to Helsinki who all need it at once.

That is a materially different problem from the one a single-country business has, and it is not solved by the standard advice. Most PowerBuilder consultancies will talk to you about versions and support contracts. Fewer have had to make one application speak Danish, English and something else on the same day.

This site is about that end of the work. If your situation is simpler, that is fine — our UK site works through the ordinary decisions, and everything on it applies here too.

Legacy PowerBuilder from the Powersoft, Sybase and SAP eras

Where we are most useful

More than one language

We built bespoke software that translates a PowerBuilder application dynamically into any language, because a client needed it and nothing off the shelf would do it.

How that works →

More than one country

Migrating and supporting an estate that runs across borders, in phases, without stopping the local teams who depend on it.

How we approach it →

Cloud, and where the data sits

Appeon PowerServer deploys to a cloud platform or to your own servers. For a lot of European organisations, that choice is the whole conversation.

What it changes →

Denmark — engineering and construction

COWI, and the application that would not migrate

COWI's Caretaker application was being developed and maintained on PowerBuilder 7 and had never been successfully migrated. Data retrieval errors against MS SQL Server, an ODBC-only connection where a native driver was wanted, and translation software that had stopped working were all in the way.

We proposed a phased approach with clearly defined deliverables, which reduced the time we needed to hold the Caretaker source and let COWI keep developing with minimal interruption. Phase one migrated to the latest available release. Phase two was a bespoke development that translates the application dynamically into any language. Phase three rebuilt the interface to look and behave like a modern Windows application on modern Windows platforms.

The translation work is worth reading about on its own — it is the piece we are asked about most by organisations operating across Europe.

3phases, each with its own deliverable
PB7the release it had been stuck on
Anylanguage, translated dynamically
Freeinitial application review

The releases we work with

Supported by Appeon

Appeon PowerBuilder is the only version still receiving bug fixes and new features. The releases marked LTS are the long-term support versions.

PB2017 PB2017r2 PB2017r3 (LTS) PB2019r3 (LTS) PB2022R3 (LTS) PB2025

Supported by us

Frozen by the vendor, still running businesses. We troubleshoot, work around and stabilise these; what nobody can do is issue a patch to PowerBuilder itself.

6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5 8.0 8.5 9.0 9.5 10.0 10.5 11.0 11.5 12.0 12.5 12.6 EAServer 5 & 6

Something not listed? Ask us. Between them our team has seen most of what was ever shipped.

A UK company, an hour from most of Europe

We will be straightforward about it: Powersoft is a British company and has been based in West Sussex since 1986. We do not have offices across Europe, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

What we do have is a working day that overlaps almost entirely with yours. Central European Time is one hour ahead of us; Eastern European Time is two. When something goes wrong at eleven in the morning in Copenhagen or Warsaw, we are at our desks, not asleep. That is a meaningful difference from the offshore alternative, and it is the reason several of our long-standing clients are outside the UK.

Our office is a short drive from Gatwick, which makes getting to a European client for a workshop, a cutover or a difficult conversation genuinely practical rather than theoretical.

We have done this from here before

COWI in Denmark trusted us with the source of their Caretaker application through a three-phase programme. Teachers Assurance, Western University in Ontario and a bank in Kansas were all delivered from the same office.

Distance is a solved problem when the working day lines up and the people do not change.

Sectors and reach

  • Engineering and construction
  • Banking and financial services
  • Insurance and pensions
  • Fintech and money transfer
  • Higher education
  • Legal services
  • Local and regional government
  • Distribution and online retail
  • Property management and hospitality
  • Travel and ticketing

We work across Europe and the UK, and with clients in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the Middle East. For the United States specifically, see PowerBuilder Consultants USA.

Talk to us about your application

Tell us the PowerBuilder version you are on, the database behind it, which countries it runs in and what is prompting the question. We will give you an honest read on your options, including whether the answer is to do nothing for now. The initial review of your application is free of charge.

Telephone: +44 (0)1293 562730

Email: sales@powersoft-services.co.uk

Appeon approved consulting partner