Executive Summary

Organizations operating on prior versions of OpenEdge face a familiar set of challenges: manual, time-intensive database operations; customer-impacting maintenance downtime; and slow, fragmented release processes that can make it difficult to scale and innovate. Adopting OpenEdge 12.8 represents more than a version upgrade — it introduces a more unified platform anchored by a unified Progress Application Server (PAS) for OpenEdge-based architecture, online database operations, and deployment capabilities that support continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) to reduce operational friction. These capabilities can help organizations accelerate software delivery, streamline database maintenance, and improve customer-facing service reliability, for more efficient and predictable workflows. The result is a platform that not only addresses core operational pain points and scalability limitations but also can help teams focus on higher-value work and deliver a more consistent experience to customers — making the upgrade both a practical and strategic step forward.

Development teams today often need to balance stability with the agility to support faster release cycles and evolving customer expectations.1 At the same time, many organizations face increasing volumes of data, more distributed environments, and stricter availability requirements, making routine operations such as database maintenance more complex and, in some cases, more critical for business continuity. Legacy architectures often introduce process fragmentation, manual dependencies, and inconsistencies across environments, which can increase operational overhead and slow the pace of innovation. These challenges may be compounded by security and compliance concerns on aging products as organizations work to remain on supported platforms while integrating with emerging technologies — all within the constraints of limited technical resources.

Progress OpenEdge is an enterprise application development platform that combines a high‑performance database, application runtime, and development tools that can help organizations build, deploy, and manage business‑critical applications. Organizations use it to support domain‑specific enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain, logistics, manufacturing, and other operational systems where reliability and performance are essential. The platform is designed for long‑lived applications, with scalability and tight integration between database and application layers. With OpenEdge, organizations can evolve and modernize their applications incrementally over time, preserving investments in existing systems while supporting performance, security, and operational efficiency.

OpenEdge 12.8 builds on this foundation by delivering a more modern, integrated platform that is intended to address the operational and architectural challenges described above. It introduces enhanced database capabilities that can improve efficiency for backups, index rebuilds, and other maintenance activities, helping to reduce the day-to-day burden on database administrator (DBA) teams. At the same time, expanded online database operations enable many of these activities to be performed without taking systems offline, which can help improve service availability and reduce customer disruption. This shift to a more standardized deployment architecture supports more consistent environments and stronger CI/CD practices, allowing development teams to streamline builds, reduce variability, and accelerate release cycles. Combined with ongoing platform support, improved security, and greater flexibility in managing environments, OpenEdge 12.8 can help organizations modernize operations without abandoning existing applications — positioning them to scale more effectively and adapt to future business and technology demands.

Progress commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by upgrading to OpenEdge 12.8 from version 12.2 or 11.7 or a prior version.2 The purpose of this study is to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of OpenEdge 12.8 on their organizations relative to their prior version of OpenEdge.

247%

Return on investment (ROI)

 

$1.0M

Net present value (NPV)

 

To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed seven decision-makers from six organizations with experience using OpenEdge 12.8. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the experiences of the interviewees and combined the results into a single composite organization, which is a midsize independent software vendor (ISV) that generates approximately $50 million in annual revenue and serves 150 customers with a vertically focused ERP application. The organization employs around 250 staff members, including 150 technical resources. Its customers operate in a mix of commercial and regulated environments, making application availability, performance, and operational reliability critical to the organization’s business model.

Interviewees from organizations that operated on prior versions of OpenEdge said they faced a consistent set of operational and strategic challenges that constrained efficiency and growth. Core database activities such as backups and index rebuilds were time‑intensive, required significant manual effort, and often involved planned maintenance windows that interrupted service and required coordination with customers. At the same time, development and release processes were slow and fragmented, with limited automation and complex coordination across environments, slowing innovation and increasing risk. These issues were compounded by operational complexity and reliance on specialized expertise, making it difficult to scale without increasing staffing needs. Finally, the organizations faced growing lifecycle and support pressures as legacy versions approached end of support, creating security and compliance concerns and increasing the need for modernization.

Interviewees said OpenEdge 12.8 helped address these challenges by modernizing and streamlining the architecture and by introducing enhanced database capabilities that improved how their organizations operate. Upgrading provided simplified database maintenance through faster backups and index rebuilds, while new online database operations allow many maintenance activities to be performed without downtime, which significantly improved service availability. Interviewees said that adopting a PAS-based architecture provided a more standardized and integrated deployment model. As a result, they reported more automated, consistent release processes in a simplified environment. As a result, teams could accelerate software delivery, reduce operational complexity, and lessen reliance on specialized expertise, while also addressing lifecycle and support concerns by moving to a fully supported and more secure platform.

“Stability was so much better with [OpenEdge] 12.8, and customer happiness is much better than it used to be. It’s opened new opportunities for us, including new industries.”

Senior manager, ERP solutions ISV

“Upgrading was absolutely worth it. We needed to stay current. Now, maintenance is mostly automated, downtime is minimized, and we can assure customers we’re running fully supported software.”

VP of R&D, manufacturing software ISV

Key Findings

Quantified benefits. Three-year, risk-adjusted present value (PV) quantified benefits for the composite organization include:

  • A 15% improvement in DevOps productivity for release cycles. The composite’s 100 DevOps engineers spend approximately 18% of their time on CI/CD activities for product releases. OpenEdge 12.8 improves the organization’s CI/CD pipeline productivity by up to 15%, reducing effort by more than 5,600 hours per year. This is enabled by a PAS‑based architecture, standardized deployment model, and stronger integration with CI/CD tooling that reduces manual orchestration and variability. This is the largest source of value for the composite organization, and it leads to savings of $512,000 over three years.

  • A 55% reduction in databased backup time and a 60% reduction in database index rebuilding time. Each year, the composite performs more than 120 full equivalent backups per database and multiple database index rebuilds. OpenEdge 12.8 reduces the composite’s FTE effort for backups by up to 55% while reducing its index rebuilding effort by 60% by Year 3. These improvements are driven by database engine enhancements that increase processing efficiency and optimize resource utilization during maintenance operations. Over three years, faster and more predictable database operations are worth $431,000 to the composite organization.

  • Avoided SLA penalties for customer downtime worth nearly $400,000 in present value. In the prior state, approximately 60 of the composite’s customers experienced planned downtime events, but using OpenEdge 12.8 reduces these events by up to 50% through online database maintenance capabilities. Features such as online index rebuilds help reduce the need for offline structural changes, minimizing service interruptions and enabling continuous or near-continuous availability. This benefit includes the value of avoided SLA penalties or service credits linked to the database operations efficiencies in the previous benefit (which is only about DBA productivity). Risk-adjusted over three years, this benefit is worth $397,000 to the composite organization.

  • Cost savings from eliminating legacy infrastructure expenses worth nearly $90,000. By removing Progress Classic AppServer-specific components (e.g., additional application servers, support overhead), the composite eliminates two virtual machines and reduces 0.25 FTE of platform support time. This is enabled by the PAS architecture, which consolidates application server functionality into a unified, standards-based runtime environment that simplifies deployment and management. These efficiencies result in approximately $35,000 in annual savings and $87,000 in total, risk-adjusted present value.

Unquantified benefits. Benefits that provide value for the composite organization but are not quantified for this study include:

  • Operational simplicity. The composite organization reduces operational complexity across its databases and OpenEdge practitioners by minimizing manual intervention and streamlining routine management tasks. Interviewees said OpenEdge 12.8 delivers this with an integrated runtime environment and configuration model that enable more predictable operations and reduce the effort required to maintain and troubleshoot systems.

  • Scalability for growth. More efficient platform performance and standardized environments allow the composite organization to onboard additional customers and expand workloads while maintaining a consistent operational footprint. Interviewees said OpenEdge 12.8 enables this through improved platform efficiency and more consistent deployment models that allow teams to scale operations without increasing reliance on specialized resources.

  • Stronger security posture and compliance readiness. Operating on a supported, modern platform helps the composite organization improve its ability to maintain up-to-date security standards and meet regulatory expectations. Interviewees said OpenEdge 12.8 provides ongoing updates, improved security capabilities, and continued vendor support. This enables the composite organization to reduce its exposure to vulnerabilities and comply with customer and industry requirements.

  • Increased autonomy and division of responsibilities across teams. Using OpenEdge 12.8 helps the composite organization’s DevOps and hosting teams take greater ownership of deployment, maintenance, and environment management activities, which reduces its dependency on core engineering resources. Interviewees said this is driven by OpenEdge 12.8’s deployment workflows and operational model, which allows for responsibilities to be distributed effectively across teams.

Costs. Three-year, risk-adjusted PV costs for the composite organization include:

  • PAS deployment and incremental licensing costs. The composite deploys OpenEdge 12.8 using six FTEs at partial allocation and incurs an annual licensing increase of approximately $55,000, resulting in a three-year present value cost of $335,000. This investment is driven by the adoption of the PAS architecture, which provides a unified, standards-based runtime environment with simplified deployment and management capabilities. These capabilities support the composite’s modernization of its application infrastructure efficiently, while helping to limit disruption during the transition.

  • Initial training costs. The composite invests approximately 8 hours of training per user across 125 DevOps and DBA personnel to become familiar with updated capabilities and the PAS-based architecture. OpenEdge 12.8 helps limit this cost through backward compatibility, improved documentation, and a configuration and deployment model that reduces the need for formal retraining. These capabilities help teams adapt to new platform features with limited disruption to productivity. The composite’s initial training costs add up to $77,000 over three years.

The financial analysis that is based on the interviews found that a composite organization experiences benefits of $1.4 million over three years versus costs of $412,000, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $1.0 million and an ROI of 247%.

“Getting to [OpenEdge] 12.8 was intense. [It required] rewriting 30-year-old software, but we’re glad we did it. Everything’s more standardized [and] more efficient, and online maintenance is a huge time-saver.”

Director of IT, AgTech software ISV

“OpenEdge 12.8 brought clear operational improvements: less manual effort, better integration, and faster database maintenance. It’s a necessary step to stay current and run a reliable platform.”

VP of engineering, public sector SaaS ISV

Key Statistics

247%

Return on investment (ROI) 

$1.4M

Benefits PV 

$1.0M

Net present value (NPV) 

8 months

Payback 

Benefits (Three-Year)

[CHART DIV CONTAINER]
DevOps productivity improvement for releases Database operations efficiencies Avoided SLA penalties for customer downtime Infrastructure cost reduction

The Progress OpenEdge 12.8 Customer Journey

Drivers leading to the OpenEdge 12.8 investment

Interviews

Role Industry Region Revenue Employees Progress OpenEdge prior state and upgrade date
Senior infrastructure engineer Logistics Global (HQ: APAC) ~$3 billion 8,000+ • OpenEdge 11.7
• Classic AppServer
• ~February 2025
Senior manager ERP solutions ISV  
EMEA
  		~$250 million 1,500+ • OpenEdge 11.7
• Limited PAS
• ~May 2024
VP of engineering
 
Director of IT 		Public sector SaaS ISV North America ~$30 million 100+ • OpenEdge 11.7
• Classic AppServer
• ~Mid-2023
VP of R&D Manufacturing software ISV  
North America 		~$8 million 50+ • OpenEdge 11.7
• Classic AppServer
• ~Mid-2024
Director of IT AgTech software ISV  
North America 		~$5 million 40+ • Pre-OpenEdge 12.8
• Classic AppServer
• ~Mid-2024
Head of development Textile software ISV  
EMEA
  		~$5 million 40+ • OpenEdge 11.2
• PAS
• ~March 2024

Key Challenges

Forrester interviewed seven senior technical and operational leaders from six organizations, including ISVs and enterprises. Interviewees were responsible for application delivery, infrastructure operations, database performance, and customer service reliability. They had input on both strategic priorities (e.g., modernization,  scalability) and hands-on operational realities (e.g., deployment processes, database maintenance, customer-impacting service levels).

Before upgrading to OpenEdge 12.8, the interviewees’ organizations faced a combination of operational inefficiency, downtime risk, and modernization constraints that limited their ability to scale and serve customers effectively. At the core, database operations were time-intensive and disruptive, with long backup windows, labor-heavy index rebuilds, and frequent maintenance activities that required planned downtime and close coordination with customers. This translated directly into customer experience risks, including service interruptions and potential SLA exposure.

At the same time, many interviewees’ organizations struggled with slow and fragmented release processes in which legacy architectures made CI/CD automation difficult and increased the effort required to build, test, and deploy updates. Finally, interviewees’ organizations faced growing lifecycle, security, and compliance pressures as older platform versions of OpenEdge approached end of support. Many of these challenges were tied to the legacy application server model (Progress Classic AppServer), which amplified inefficiencies through fragmented architecture, limited automation support, and inconsistent deployments, making modernization more difficult and increasing ongoing operational costs.

Interviewees noted how their organizations struggled with common challenges, including:

  • Slow, fragmented CI/CD and build pipelines. A consistent challenge before upgrading to OpenEdge 12.8 was the presence of slow, fragmented CI/CD and build pipelines, which materially constrained release velocity and developer productivity. Build and deployment processes were often lengthy and unpredictable, sometimes taking multiple hours to complete and making developers wait for results before they could proceed. The underlying architecture also made it difficult to standardize environments, which led to inconsistencies between development, testing, and production that introduced additional validation cycles and rework.

  • Database operational inefficiencies. Interviewees noted that database operations for backups and index rebuilds were consistently time‑consuming and operationally heavy, creating a steady baseline of inefficiency rather than acute failure. Backup processes often required extended execution windows and manual monitoring, while index rebuilds were lengthy, resource-intensive, and sometimes required dedicated maintenance periods. These tasks were typically repeatable but labor‑intensive, with DBAs and operations teams investing significant time in execution, validation, and troubleshooting — particularly in environments with multiple databases. The director of IT for the AgTech software ISV said that even standard maintenance activities required a time commitment: “Our database backups were taking about an hour or more of DBA time.”

  • Customer-impacting downtime for routine database maintenance. Interviewees said a common operational challenge in their organizations’ prior environments was the need to schedule customer‑impacting downtime for routine database maintenance, particularly for index rebuilds and other structural updates. While these activities were well-understood and planned in advance, they often required taking production systems offline or constraining user access for long periods of time.

Interviewees from organizations with distributed or global customer bases said that performing routine maintenance tasks had to be carefully aligned with usage windows, increasing the effort required to manage and communicate changes. In environments with frequent database updates, this translated to recurring small but meaningful service interruptions. The head of development for the textile software ISV explained that standard maintenance activities had an inherent availability tradeoff: “For database index changes, we had about 1 hour downtime before upgrading.”

  • Release coordination complexity. Several interviewees said that their organization’s prior environment was characterized by meaningful release coordination complexity driven by underlying operational fragmentation and system fragility, increasing the effort and risk associated with delivering updates. Release processes often required careful sequencing of multiple components and environments, including application code, database changes, and supporting infrastructure, rather than flowing through a single, unified pipeline. Interviewees stated this created a need for manual coordination across development, operations, and sometimes customer‑facing teams, particularly when releases intersected with maintenance windows or required downtime.

  • Limited ability to scale for growth. Interviewees noted prior versions of OpenEdge had scalability limitations that were not purely technical, but also operational and organizational — particularly as customer bases and data volumes grew. Scaling applications often required incremental increases in manual effort, including additional monitoring, tuning, and coordination. This was compounded by a dependence on specialized expertise, especially in database administration and platform configuration. Interviewees explained that as a result, scaling their organization’s business — whether that meant onboarding new customers, supporting more databases, or increasing transaction volumes — tended to increase operational overhead disproportionately, place pressure on small teams, and limit flexibility. The VP of R&D for the manufacturing software ISV noted scaling demands were closely tied to specialized human expertise rather than system-level efficiencies: “We relied heavily on our DBA to keep everything running.” The interviewee said that while their organization’s prior environment was stable and proven, its scalability model was resource‑intensive and depended on skilled personnel.

  • Support risk associated with operating on older OpenEdge versions. Each interviewee cited growing lifecycle and support risk associated with operating on older OpenEdge versions, particularly OpenEdge 11.7. They said that as versions approached end of life, their organizations faced increasing pressure to maintain supportability, ensure security compliance, and mitigate exposure to unresolved defects or vulnerabilities. This created both technical and business risks, especially for ISVs supporting regulated or mission‑critical customer environments in which staying on a supported platform is often a prerequisite for maintaining credibility and contractual relationships. Lifecycle timelines — not just performance or feature considerations — became a primary driver of change. The VP of engineering for the public sector SaaS ISV said, “With [OpenEdge] 11.7 going out of support, we needed to move forward and upgrade our platform.”

“[Before using OpenEdge 12.8,] we needed to test everything very carefully and then deploy it step by step, almost manually.”

Director of IT, public sector SaaS ISV

“We wanted to avoid downtime for our customers wherever possible, and OpenEdge 12.8 improved database operations.”

Head of development, textile software ISV

“We needed something that fits better with our CI/CD approach. In addition, moving to PAS was something we needed to do to modernize our platform.”

Senior manager, ERP solutions ISV

Solution Requirements

While interviewees said the need to remain on a supported, secure, and compliant platform was often a catalyst for upgrading, they also said their organizations wanted a solution that could:

  • Accelerate software delivery by providing strong CI/CD and DevOps support. Interviewees emphasized the importance of enabling automated, repeatable pipelines to streamline deployments and reduce friction across development and operations teams. They wanted stronger CI/CD and DevOps pipeline support to overcome slow and manually coordinated build and release processes that constrained development velocity.

  • Improve day-to-day efficiency by enhancing database performance. Interviewees’ organizations were motivated by the need to reduce the time and effort required for routine database operations (e.g., backup creation, index maintenance). They highlighted the importance of faster execution and more efficient processing to lower the overall operational burden on database and platform teams.

  • Support continuous availability by enabling online database operations. Interviewees emphasized the importance of being able to perform index rebuilds and other database changes while systems remained online for longer. They wanted to reduce customer-impacting downtime associated with routine maintenance activities and limit the coordination required with customers.

  • Modernize application infrastructure by supporting unified PAS-based application architecture. Interviewees wanted a more integrated and standardized runtime architecture and sought to move away from fragmented application server environments requiring multiple components and manual configuration.

  • Drive scale and extensibility through platform flexibility and extensibility. Interviewees’ organizations aspired to create custom sensors, deploy scripts at scale, and automate workflows that previously required substantial manual effort or were impossible with other tools. They also wanted a platform that could adapt to changing requirements over time.

  • Maintain platform viability by providing supported, secure, and compliant software. Interviewees’ organizations recognized the growing risk of operating on unsupported platform versions approaching end of life. They emphasized the importance of remaining on a supported version to ensure access to updates and to address security, customer, and regulatory requirements.

“OpenEdge 12.8’s online maintenance options are a big benefit. Customers avoid downtime, and developer productivity is better. Staying current also ensures full support and security.”

Head of development, textile software ISV

“The upgrade brought improvements like faster backups and better stability, and we haven’t had any major incidents since going live. It sets us up to improve further as we modernize the system.”

Senior infrastructure engineer, logistics

Composite Organization

Based on the interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework, a composite company, and an ROI analysis that illustrates the areas financially affected. The composite organization is representative of the interviewees’ organizations, and it is used to present the aggregate financial analysis in the next section. The composite organization has the following characteristics:

  • Description of composite. The composite organization is a midsize ISV that develops and delivers a vertically focused enterprise application platform to approximately 1,500 customers. These customers operate in a mix of commercial and regulated environments, making application availability, performance, and operational reliability critical to the organization’s business model. The composite generates approximately $50 million in annual revenue and employs 250 total staff members, including a large and specialized technical organization responsible for application development, delivery, and ongoing operations.

Prior to upgrading to OpenEdge 12.8, the composite operates on OpenEdge 11.7 (or earlier versions) using the Classic AppServer architecture. Database maintenance activities typically require planned downtime, and development and deployment processes depend on manual coordination.

  • Deployment characteristics. The composite deploys Progress OpenEdge 12.8 in Year 0 across all internal DevOps and DBA personnel. It completes the deployment in six months using six FTEs who dedicate 50% of their time to the effort. The rollout of its applications incorporating OpenEdge 12.8 to its customers follows customer upgrade and renewal cycles and is assumed to be completed by the end of Year 1.

  • Key assumptions. To quantify the economic and productivity benefits the composite organization derives from upgrading to OpenEdge 12.8, Forrester used the following assumptions:

    • The composite has 150 developers, including 100 DevOps engineers who regularly work with the OpenEdge platform and are responsible for build, deployment, and environment management activities.
    • The composite has 25 dedicated DBAs who manage database performance, maintenance, and availability.
    • The composite manages a portfolio of approximately 70 OpenEdge databases, including 30 production databases that support customer environments and 40 nonproduction databases used for development, testing, and staging purposes. This reflects a hybrid deployment model in which the organization is responsible for operating and maintaining customer-facing systems and the internal environments required for ongoing application development and release management.
    • The composite derives 80% of the effective value of upgrading in Year 1, 90% in Year 2, and 100% in Year 3 and onward due to ramp-up and ongoing learning.

 KEY ASSUMPTIONS

  • $50 million in revenue

  • 250 employees

  • 100 DevOps FTEs

  • 25 DBA FTEs

  • 70 databases

  • 1,500 organizations as customers

Analysis Of Benefits

Quantified benefit data as applied to the composite

Total Benefits

Ref. Benefit Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total Present Value
Atr DevOps productivity improvement for releases $181,967 $212,301 $227,448 $621,716 $511,765
Btr Database operations efficiencies $154,849 $175,815 $193,551 $524,215 $431,491
Ctr Avoided SLA penalties for customer downtime $142,800 $160,650 $178,500 $481,950 $396,696
Dtr Infrastructure cost reduction $35,150 $35,150 $35,150 $105,450 $87,413
  Total benefits (risk-adjusted) $514,765 $583,916 $634,649 $1,733,330 $1,427,365

DevOps Productivity Improvement For Releases

Evidence and data. Interviewees consistently noted that the ability to efficiently manage and execute software releases in their organization’s prior environment was constrained by slow, fragmented CI/CD processes and complex release coordination requirements, often driven by a nonstandardized application architecture and limited support for automation. Build pipelines were frequently long‑running and inconsistent, while deployment workflows required manual orchestration across multiple components and environments, increasing both effort and risk.

Interviewees said OpenEdge 12.8 addressed these challenges by introducing a more modern, PAS‑based application server architecture and deployment model that supported standardized, repeatable environments and improved integration with CI/CD tooling. This enabled DevOps teams to implement more automated build and deployment pipelines, reduce variability across environments, and minimize the coordination overhead associated with each release cycle. As a result, interviewees’ organizations recaptured meaningful developer and DevOps time previously spent waiting on pipeline execution, troubleshooting environment inconsistencies, and managing release complexity. Interviewees said their organizations improved DevOps productivity for releases due to better CI/CD pipelines and a more automated architecture for product releases.

  • Discussing product release cycles, the senior manager for the ERP solutions ISV said: “Our pipeline used to run around 7 to 8 hours, and now it’s down to under 2 hours. We went from needing multiple people involved in the process to something much more streamlined.”

  • The director of IT for the AgTech software ISV explained: “We were doing a lot more hands-on work before, especially around deployments and maintenance for product releases. Now it’s more efficient and doesn’t take as much time from the team.”

  • Regarding release management process, the VP of engineering for the public sector SaaS ISV said, “We can package and move things around a lot easier now.” The organization’s director of IT stated, “The hosting team can handle more of the process without needing engineering.”

  • The senior infrastructure engineer for the logistics enterprise noted: “We were spending a lot of time managing the environment rather than focusing on delivery [of internal releases]. It’s much easier to get things out now.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

  • The composite has major releases every quarter. Accounting for the size and frequency of minor releases, there are seven major-equivalent releases per year.

  • Each DevOps FTE who uses OpenEdge spends an average of 18% of their time on CI/CD processes related to releases.

  • Prior to upgrading to OpenEdge 12.8, the total DevOps time needed each year for CI/CD processes related to product releases was 37,440 hours.

  • The effective improvement in productivity for DevOps during the CI/CD process is 12% in Year 1, 14% in Year 2, and 15% by Year 3, based on the effectiveness ramp of OpenEdge 12.8.

  • The fully burdened hourly rate for a DevOps FTE is $75.

  • The composite’s productivity adjustment factor is 60%, which reflects that not all time saved translates into productive work.

  • To put these numbers in perspective: The composite organization could potentially realize 2.2, 2.5, and 2.7 FTE equivalent savings in Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3, respectively, for DevOps professionals, who can therefore be deployed for higher value projects.

  • Prior to upgrading to OpenEdge 12.8, the composite’s DevOps staff spent 5,350 hours on CI/CD processes per release.

  • With OpenEdge 12.8, the DevOps staff spends approximately 4,550 hours on CI/CD processes per release by Year 3.

  • The DevOps productivity impact from moving from Classic AppServer to PAS is not included in this benefit.

Risks. Forrester recognizes that these results may not be representative of all experiences and will vary among organizations depending on the following factors:

  • The nature of the applications being developed.

  • The relative maturity of the development organization.

  • The extent to which productivity improvements reflect the transition from Classic AppServer to PAS rather than OpenEdge 12.8 alone.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $512,000.

15%

Improvement in CI/CD process productivity for DevOps by Year 3

“Our pipeline used to run around seven to eight hours, and now it’s down to under two hours. We went from needing multiple people involved in the process to something much more streamlined.”

Senior manager, ERP solutions ISV

DevOps Productivity Improvement For Releases

Ref. Metric Source Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
A1 Major-equivalent releases Composite 7 7 7
A2 DevOps FTEs Composite 100 100 100
A3 Percent of time each DevOps FTE spends on CI/CD processes Composite 18% 18% 18%
A4 Total DevOps time spent on CI/CD processes before OpenEdge 12.8 (hours) A2*2,080*A3 37,440 37,440 37,440
A5 Effective improvement in CI/CD productivity for DevOps Interviews 12% 14% 15%
A6 Total CI/CD process time saved for releases (hours) A4*A5 4,493 5,242 5,616
A7 Fully burdened hourly rate for a DevOps FTE (rounded) Composite $75 $75 $75
A8 Productivity adjustment factor TEI methodology 60% 60% 60%
At DevOps productivity improvement for releases A6*A7*A8 $202,185 $235,890 $252,720
  Risk adjustment ↓10%      
Atr DevOps productivity improvement for releases (risk-adjusted)   $181,967 $212,301 $227,448
Three-year total: $621,716 Three-year present value: $511,765

Database Operations Efficiencies

Evidence and data. Interviewees emphasized that performing routine database operations was time-consuming and needed manual effort in their organization’s prior environment. Specifically, database backups and index rebuilds required extended execution times, active monitoring, and dedicated maintenance windows. These activities were generally reliable, but they remained time-intensive and resource-intensive, particularly for organizations managing multiple databases, where even small inefficiencies can accumulate into significant workloads for DBAs and platform teams.

Interviewees said OpenEdge 12.8 helped address these challenges through database engine improvements that reduced execution times for backup and maintenance utilities and improved the use database resources during those operations. They reported faster and more predictable database maintenance cycles, which reduced the hands-on time required for routine tasks and lowered the workload associated with database management. Interviewees said their organizations improved DBA productivity for database backups, index rebuilds, and other maintenance efforts. Database operations efficiency was one of the most frequently cited benefits across the interviews.

  • Regarding database backups, the director of IT for the AgTech software ISV explained, “We got our backup times down to about 10 to 15 minutes when they used to be closer to an hour.” They also elaborated about cumulative database maintenance effort improvement: “What used to take about 20 hours per customer during maintenance cycles is now more like 12 hours total in a month. Index rebuilds went from an hour or two down to roughly 30 minutes.”

  • The senior infrastructure engineer for the logistics enterprise shared, “The time it takes to run the database maintenance activities has reduced quite a bit.”

  • Speaking about a reduction to their organization’s ongoing DBA workload, the VP of R&D for the manufacturing software ISV observed, “Once everything was running, it was easier to maintain and required less effort overall.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

  • For each database environment supported, the composite has four full backups each month, and 26 incremental backups per database per month. On an adjusted basis, there are 126 full-equivalent backups per database per year.

  • Before upgrading to OpenEdge 12.8, it took one FTE of labor time for a single full database backup. This is not elapsed time for a backup, but the manual FTE effort required.

  • The composite’s net reduction in backup time per database with OpenEdge 12.8 is 44% in Year 1, 50% in Year 2, and 55% by Year 3.

  • The composite has five index rebuilds per database per year.

  • In the prior state, the composite required 2 FTE hours for a single database index rebuild.

  • The composite’s net reduction in index rebuild time per database is 48% in Year 1, 54% in Year 2, and 60% by Year 3.

  • The fully burdened hourly rate for a DBA FTE is $68.

  • The composite organization’s DBA FTEs productively utilize 60% of their time savings.

  • To put these numbers in perspective for the combined impact of these database productivity improvements: The composite organization could potentially realize 2.0, 2.3, and 2.5 FTE equivalent savings in Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3, respectively, out of the total pool of 25 DBA FTEs.

Risks. Forrester recognizes that these results may not be representative of all experiences and will vary among organizations depending on the following factors:

  • The time spent on each database backup in the prior state, which depends on the complexity of the application and the size of each database.

  • The effort required for database index rebuilds before upgrading, which will vary by application and organizational expertise.

  • The frequency of database backups.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $431,000.

55%

Reduction in database backup time by Year 3

60%

Reduction in index rebuild time per database by Year 3

“We had one of our senior DBAs leave, and we didn’t replace that role.”

Director of IT, AgTech software ISV

Database Operations Efficiencies

Ref. Metric Source Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
B1 Databases Composite 70 70 70
B2 Full-equivalent backups per database Composite 126 126 126
B3 FTE labor time for a single database backup before OpenEdge 12.8 Composite 1 1 1
B4 Effective reduction in backup time per database Interviews 44% 50% 55%
B5 Subtotal: Time savings for database backups (hours) B1*B2*B3*B4 3,881 4,410 4,851
B6 Index rebuilds per database Composite 5 5 5
B7 FTE labor time for a single database index rebuild before OpenEdge 12.8 Composite 2 2 2
B8 Effective reduction in index rebuild time per database Interviews 48% 54% 60%
B9 Subtotal: Time savings for database index rebuilds (hours) B1*B6*B7*B8 336 378 420
B10 Total time savings from database operational efficiencies (hours) B5+B9 4,217 4,788 5,271
B11 Fully burdened hourly rate for a DBA FTE (rounded) Composite $68 $68 $68
B12 Productivity adjustment factor TEI methodology 60% 60% 60%
Bt Database operations efficiencies B10*B11*B12 $172,054 $195,350 $215,057
  Risk adjustment ↓10%      
Btr Database operations efficiencies (risk-adjusted)   $154,849 $175,815 $193,551
Three-year total: $524,215 Three-year present value: $431,491

Avoided SLA Penalties For Customer Downtime

Evidence and data. Interviewees said that in their organization’s prior environment, conducting planned database maintenance activities — particularly index rebuilds and certain schema or structural updates — often required taking production systems offline or limiting availability that created recurring service interruptions that impacted customers. While these events were typically scheduled and managed, they introduced coordination overhead, service risk, and potential exposure to SLA penalties or service credits, particularly for ISVs that support always-on customer environments.

Interviewees explained that upgrading to OpenEdge 12.8 introduced expanded online database capabilities — including the ability to perform index maintenance and many structural changes — by reducing system downtime. These capabilities enabled the organizations to significantly reduce the frequency and duration of customer-impacting maintenance events, which shifted from planned outages to continuous or near-continuous operations. Interviewees said their organizations improved DBA productivity resulted in reduced downtime for their customers. As a result, interviewees’ organizations were able to mitigate the operational and financial consequences of downtime, reduce the likelihood of SLA penalties, and improve service reliability for customers.

  • The VP of R&D for the manufacturing software ISV noted: “It’s important for customers — especially the larger ones — that the system is always available. Upgrading [to OpenEdge 12.8] has improved availability with more efficient database operations.”

  • The director of IT for the AgTech software ISV said: “Before we moved to OpenEdge 12.8, maintenance windows were something we had to coordinate carefully with customers. … We can do more routine database maintenance online now, so we don’t have to take customers offline in the same way.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

  • Sixty of the composite’s customers (comprising 40% of customers) are meaningfully impacted by database index and schema updates, largely due the complexity of their databases.

  • In the prior state, each impacted customer experienced two downtime events per year.

  • The effective reduction in downtime events with OpenEdge 12.8 is 40% in Year 1, 45% in Year 2, and 50% by Year 3.

  • The average SLA penalty/service credit per event for a given customer is $3,500.3

Risks. Forrester recognizes that these results may not be representative of all experiences and will vary among organizations depending on the following factors:

  • The number of customers impacted, which is based on the complexity of the applications the ISV provides and the scale of any given customer.

  • The average SLA penalty/service credit per event, which varies by industry, product, and the customer’s business model (e.g., always-on, intermittent, scheduled, etc.).

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $397,000.

50%

Reduction in downtime events for impacted customers by Year 3

“We have database changes roughly every second week, and OpenEdge 12.8 has reduced planned downtime.”

Head of development, textile software ISV

Avoided SLA Penalties For Customer Downtime

Ref. Metric Source Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
C1 Customers meaningfully impacted by index rebuild downtime Composite 60 60 60
C2 Previous downtime events per affected customer Composite 2.0 2.0 2.0
C3 Effective reduction in downtime events with OpenEdge 12.8 Interviews 40% 45% 50%
C4 Downtime events avoided per customer with OpenEdge 12.8 C2*C3 0.8 0.9 1.0
C5 Standard SLA penalty/service credit per event per customer Composite $3,500 $3,500 $3,500
Ct Avoided SLA penalties for customer downtime C1*C4*C5 $168,000 $189,000 $210,000
  Risk adjustment ↓15%      
Ctr Avoided SLA penalties for customer downtime (risk-adjusted)   $142,800 $160,650 $178,500
Three-year total: $481,950 Three-year present value: $396,696

Infrastructure Cost Reduction

Evidence and data. Interviewees indicated that in their organization’s prior environment, the Classic AppServer architecture introduced a degree of infrastructure complexity and overhead with multiple components (e.g., separate application servers, web servers, and supporting services). These additional components required ongoing configuration, monitoring, and support. While these environments were stable and well-understood, they often resulted in incremental infrastructure and operational costs, including additional server instances and administrative effort to maintain a fragmented stack.

Interviewees said that upgrading to OpenEdge 12.8 and adopting PAS for OpenEdge provided a more integrated and streamlined application server architecture and consolidated functionality into a unified, standards-based runtime environment. This enabled the organizations to reduce standalone infrastructure components and simplify their deployment footprints, lowering associated hosting and platform management costs. Although interviewees said their organizations increasingly modernized their environments over time and that not all infrastructure savings could be attributed solely to this transition, the shift to PAS nonetheless delivered incremental but meaningful cost efficiencies.

  • The head of development for the textile software ISV observed, “The upgrade itself was pretty straightforward; we didn’t need external consulting.”

  • The director of IT for the AgTech software ISV noted, “Our maintenance effort is down to about a dozen hours a month now.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

  • The composite eliminates two extra virtual machine servers that were used for Classic AppServer support across its production and nonproduction environments.

  • The composite eliminates a quarter of one FTE’s time that was specifically required for supporting the Classic AppServer platform.

  • The average fully burdened annual salary for an infrastructure FTE who works on platform support is $108,000.

Risks. Forrester recognizes that these results may not be representative of all experiences and will vary among organizations depending on the following factors:

  • The size of the organization and the implication for server support for the Classic AppServer platform.

  • The number of FTEs dedicated to supporting the legacy Classic AppServer platform.

  • The cost of the FTEs who supported the legacy Classic AppServer platform.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 5%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $87,000.

“We didn’t need to bring in additional resources after the upgrade [to OpenEdge 12.8].”

VP of R&D, manufacturing software ISV

Infrastructure Cost Reduction

Ref. Metric Source Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
D1 Classic AppServer-specific hardware footprint reduction Composite $10,000 $10,000 $10,000
D2 Infrastructure FTE time for Classic AppServer platform support Interviews 0.25 0.25 0.25
D3 Fully burdened annual salary for an infrastructure FTE Composite $108,000 $108,000 $108,000
Dt Infrastructure cost reduction D1+(D2*D3) $37,000 $37,000 $37,000
  Risk adjustment ↓5%      
Dtr Infrastructure cost reduction (risk-adjusted)   $35,150 $35,150 $35,150
Three-year total: $105,450 Three-year present value: $87,413

Unquantified Benefits

Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but were not able to quantify:

  • Operational simplicity. Interviewees consistently indicated that the platform became easier to manage and operate day-to-day with less need for manual intervention. The combination of a more integrated runtime environment and streamlined configuration reduced the effort required to maintain, troubleshoot, and support production systems. This translated into a more predictable and manageable operational model, especially for teams responsible for multiple environments.

  • Scalability for growth. Interviewees reported that OpenEdge 12.8 enabled their organizations to scale their environments and customer bases more effectively without proportional increases to effort or staffing. Improvements in platform efficiency and more standardized environments allowed teams to handle larger workloads while maintaining performance and stability. This reduced operational friction associated with onboarding new customers or expanding usage. The director of IT for the AgTech software ISV observed, “We’re able to handle more with the same team than we could before.”

  • Stronger security posture and compliance readiness. Interviewees reported increased confidence in the ability of their organizations to maintain security standards and meet regulatory expectations, particularly because newer OpenEdge versions provide more up-to-date security capabilities and ongoing support. This reduced the burden of responding to vulnerabilities and simplified compliance with customer and industry requirements. The head of development for the textile software ISV commented, “It’s important for us to stay current with security updates, and upgrading helped us with that.”

  • Improved autonomy and division of responsibilities across teams. Interviewees noted that OpenEdge 12.8 allowed operational teams (e.g., hosting, DevOps) to take greater ownership of deployment and maintenance activities, reducing reliance on core engineering teams. This improved role clarity and efficiency that enabled the organizations to better distribute workloads and streamline processes. As a result, engineering resources gained the ability to focus more on product development rather than operational support.

“Once everything was running, it was easier to maintain and required less effort overall.”

VP of R&D, manufacturing software ISV

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Progress OpenEdge 12.8 and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

  • Deployment flexibility and portability. Interviewees indicated that OpenEdge 12.8 enables greater flexibility in how applications are packaged and deployed across environments, and they said the PAS-based architecture makes it easier to move workloads between development, testing, production, and across hosting models. This reduces friction when adapting to new customer requirements or scaling deployments. The head of development for the textile software ISV explained, “We wanted to be more future-proof with what we’re doing, which is why we upgraded [to OpenEdge 12.8].”

  • Adaptable operating environments. Interviewees reported that OpenEdge 12.8 allows their organizations to operate environments with greater independence and adaptability, particularly as responsibilities shift between engineering and operations teams. The improved runtime model and tooling enables teams to adjust processes, environments, and ownership structures more easily without requiring deep reconfiguration. This makes it easier to respond to operational needs and evolving delivery models.

  • Alignment with modern platform strategies. While interviewees did not explicitly cite AI use cases, several noted that the architecture of OpenEdge 12.8 positions their organizations to more easily integrate with emerging technologies over time, which supports future innovation and adaptability. The director of IT for the public sector SaaS ISV observed, “With OpenEdge 12.8, we can evolve how we run things without rebuilding everything.”

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).

“We have customers in all kinds of setups, so we need to be able to adjust and be nimble. With OpenEdge 12.8, we have more flexibility to do this.”

Director of IT, AgTech software ISV

Analysis Of Costs

Quantified cost data as applied to the composite

Total Costs

Ref. Cost Initial Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total Present Value
Etr PAS deployment and incremental licensing costs $191,363 $57,750 $57,750 $57,750 $364,613 $334,978
Ftr Initial training costs $76,650 $0 $0 $0 $76,650 $76,650
  Total costs (risk-adjusted) $268,013 $57,750 $57,750 $57,750 $441,263 $411,628

PAS Deployment And Incremental Licensing Costs

Evidence and data. Interviewees indicated that upgrading to OpenEdge 12.8 required a one-time effort to adopt the PAS architecture — including associated configuration, testing, and deployment activities — as well as alignment with updated platform licensing. This transition reflected a shift from the legacy Classic AppServer to a unified application server model built on widely adopted technologies and intended to support deployment and management over time. While interviewees said their organizations needed to invest internal resources to adapt their environments and deployment processes, they generally described the transition as manageable and incremental, supported by improved tooling, clearer configuration models, and backward compatibility within the OpenEdge platform. As a result, although PAS adoption represented a meaningful upfront cost, the capabilities it introduced — particularly those around standardized environments and architecture changes — meant that the transition could be completed without extensive rework or disruption to core applications.

  • The head of development for the textile software ISV noted, “We handled [the upgrade] with our internal team without needing extra resources.”

  • The director of IT for the AgTech software ISV said: “It was a pretty big effort. Probably three-quarters of the team [was] involved for several months. About a quarter of the work was around documentation, training, and getting people up to speed.”

  • Pricing for Progress OpenEdge 12.8 may vary. Contact Progress for additional details.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

  • The composite incurs $55,000 in annual incremental licensing costs for PAS over Classic AppServer.

  • Six infrastructure FTEs dedicate 50% of their time over six months to the deployment of OpenEdge 12.8. This includes upgrading to the PAS platform.

  • The average fully burdened annual salary for an infrastructure FTE is $121,500.

Risks. Forrester recognizes that these results may not be representative of all experiences and will vary among organizations depending on the following factors:

  • The size of the organization and its specific configuration of OpenEdge.

  • The relative expertise of the organization’s infrastructure and IT teams.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 5%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $335,000.

PAS Deployment And Incremental Licensing Costs

Ref. Metric Source Initial Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
E1 Uplift in licensing costs for PAS over Classic AppServer Composite $0 $55,000 $55,000 $55,000
E2 Internal FTE effort for initial deployment Interviews 1.5 0.0 0.0 0.0
E3 Fully burdened annual salary for an infrastructure FTE Composite 121,500 121,500 121,500 121,500
Et PAS deployment and incremental licensing costs E1+(E2*E3) $182,250 $55,000 $55,000 $55,000
  Risk adjustment ↑5%        
Etr PAS deployment and incremental licensing costs (risk-adjusted)   $191,363 $57,750 $57,750 $57,750
Three-year total: $364,613 Three-year present value: $334,978

Initial Training Costs

Evidence and data. Interviewees indicated that upgrading to OpenEdge 12.8 required some initial training and knowledge ramp up for DevOps and database teams, primarily to familiarize themselves with updated platform capabilities and the new PAS-based architecture. However, because teams were already experienced with OpenEdge and its development language, Advanced Business Language (ABL), this effort was generally incremental rather than disruptive, with most learning occurring through hands-on implementation, testing, and day-to-day use rather than through formal training programs.

Interviewees explained that the platform’s backward compatibility, documentation, and configuration and management model helped support the transition, allowing users to adopt new features (e.g., updated deployment workflows, enhanced database operations) without significant re-skilling. As a result, while their organizations did incur modest one-time training costs, interviewees consistently described the transition as relatively smooth for day-to-day users, with limited impact on productivity.

  • The head of development for the textile software ISV explained: “You have to get used to the new setup. But once you understand it, it works fine.”

  • The director of IT for the AgTech software ISV noted, “There was some time spent getting familiar with the new way of doing things.”

  • The senior manager for the ERP solutions ISV said, “It was more about adapting how we work than learning something completely new.”

  • The VP of engineering for the public sector SaaS ISV said, “Once we had it set up, the team picked it up pretty quickly.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

  • Each of the composite’s DevOps and DBA FTEs require 8 hours of initial training during the initial period.

  • The blended fully burdened hourly rate for a developer using OpenEdge is $73.

Risks. Forrester recognizes that these results may not be representative of all experiences and that deployment costs will vary among organizations depending on the developers’ level of familiarity with OpenEdge capabilities.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 5%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $77,000.

Initial Training Costs

Ref. Metric Source Initial Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
F1 OpenEdge users Composite 125      
F2 Initial training time per OpenEdge user (hours) Interviews 8      
F3 Blended fully burdened hourly rate for a developer who uses OpenEdge (rounded) Composite $73      
Ft Initial training costs F1*F2*F3 $73,000 $0 $0 $0
  Risk adjustment ↑5%        
Ftr Initial training costs (risk-adjusted)   $76,650 $0 $0 $0
Three-year total: $76,650 Three-year present value: $76,650

Financial Summary

Consolidated Three-Year, Risk-Adjusted Metrics

Cash Flow Chart (Risk-Adjusted)

[CHART DIV CONTAINER]
Total costs Total benefits Cumulative net benefits Initial Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

Cash Flow Analysis (Risk-Adjusted)

  Initial Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total Present Value
Total costs ($268,013) ($57,750) ($57,750) ($57,750) ($441,263) ($411,628)
Total benefits $0 $514,765 $583,916 $634,649 $1,733,330 $1,427,365
Net benefits ($268,013) $457,015 $526,166 $576,899 $1,292,068 $1,015,737
ROI           247%
Payback           8 months

 Please Note

The financial results calculated in the Benefits and Costs sections can be used to determine the ROI, NPV, and payback period for the composite organization’s investment. Forrester assumes a yearly discount rate of 10% for this analysis.

These risk-adjusted ROI, NPV, and payback period values are determined by applying risk-adjustment factors to the unadjusted results in each Benefit and Cost section.

The initial investment column contains costs incurred at “time 0” or at the beginning of Year 1 that are not discounted. All other cash flows are discounted using the discount rate at the end of the year. PV calculations are calculated for each total cost and benefit estimate. NPV calculations in the summary tables are the sum of the initial investment and the discounted cash flows in each year. Sums and present value calculations of the Total Benefits, Total Costs, and Cash Flow tables may not exactly add up, as some rounding may occur.

From the information provided in the interviews, Forrester constructed a Total Economic Impact™ framework for those organizations considering an investment in Progress OpenEdge 12.8.

The objective of the framework is to identify the cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk factors that affect the investment decision. Forrester took a multistep approach to evaluate the impact that OpenEdge 12.8 can have on an organization.

Due Diligence

Interviewed Progress stakeholders and Forrester analysts to gather data relative to OpenEdge 12.8.

Interviews

Interviewed seven decision-makers at six organizations using OpenEdge 12.8 to obtain data about costs, benefits, and risks.

Composite Organization

Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of the interviewees’ organizations.

Financial Model Framework

Constructed a financial model representative of the interviews using the TEI methodology and risk-adjusted the financial model based on issues and concerns of the interviewees.

Case Study

Employed four fundamental elements of TEI in modeling the investment impact: benefits, costs, flexibility, and risks. Given the increasing sophistication of ROI analyses related to IT investments, Forrester’s TEI methodology provides a complete picture of the total economic impact of purchase decisions. Please see Appendix A for additional information on the TEI methodology.

Total Economic Impact Approach

Benefits

Benefits represent the value the solution delivers to the business. The TEI methodology places equal weight on the measure of benefits and costs, allowing for a full examination of the solution’s effect on the entire organization.

Costs

Costs comprise all expenses necessary to deliver the proposed value, or benefits, of the solution. The methodology captures implementation and ongoing costs associated with the solution.

Flexibility

Flexibility represents the strategic value that can be obtained for some future additional investment building on top of the initial investment already made. The ability to capture that benefit has a PV that can be estimated.

Risks

Risks measure the uncertainty of benefit and cost estimates given: 1) the likelihood that estimates will meet original projections and 2) the likelihood that estimates will be tracked over time. TEI risk factors are based on “triangular distribution.”

Financial Terminology

Present value (PV)

The present or current value of (discounted) cost and benefit estimates given at an interest rate (the discount rate). The PVs of costs and benefits feed into the total NPV of cash flows.

Net present value (NPV)

The present or current value of (discounted) future net cash flows given an interest rate (the discount rate). A positive project NPV normally indicates that the investment should be made unless other projects have higher NPVs.

Return on investment (ROI)

A project’s expected return in percentage terms. ROI is calculated by dividing net benefits (benefits less costs) by costs.

Discount rate

The interest rate used in cash flow analysis to take into account the time value of money. Organizations typically use discount rates between 8% and 16%.

Payback

The breakeven point for an investment. This is the point in time at which net benefits (benefits minus costs) equal initial investment or cost.

Appendix A

Total Economic Impact

Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists solution providers in communicating their value proposition to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of business and technology initiatives to both senior management and other key stakeholders.

Appendix B

Endnotes

1 Source: Everyone Is An App Creator With App Generation Platforms, Forrester Research, Inc., January 12, 2026.

2 Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists solution providers in communicating their value proposition to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of business and technology initiatives to both senior management and other key stakeholders.

3 While customer SLAs often express penalties as service credits of 5% to 15% of monthly fees, interviewees indicated the effective cost of a downtime event extends beyond penalties and formal credits, and includes remediation effort, customer concessions, and operational impact. To reflect this, Forrester conservatively modeled that the composite’s standard SLA penalty/service credit per event per customer is $3,500.

Disclosures

Readers should be aware of the following:

This study is commissioned by Progress and delivered by Forrester Consulting. It is not meant to be used as a competitive analysis.

Forrester makes no assumptions as to the potential ROI that other organizations will receive. Forrester strongly advises that readers use their own estimates within the framework provided in the study to determine the appropriateness of an investment in Progress OpenEdge 12.8. For any interactive functionality, the intent is for the questions to solicit inputs specific to a prospect's business. Forrester believes that this analysis is representative of what companies may achieve with OpenEdge 12.8 based on the inputs provided and any assumptions made. Forrester does not endorse Progress or its offerings. Although great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy and completeness of this model, Progress and Forrester Research are unable to accept any legal responsibility for any actions taken on the basis of the information contained herein. The interactive tool is provided ‘AS IS,’ and Forrester and Progress make no warranties of any kind.

Progress reviewed and provided feedback to Forrester, but Forrester maintains editorial control over the study and its findings and does not accept changes to the study that contradict Forrester’s findings or obscure the meaning of the study.

Progress provided the customer names for the interviews but did not participate in the interviews.

Consulting Team:

Erach Desai

Published

June 2025