Just wondering if anyone else has heard anything about E11? We caught a sniff of something in a comment a few weeks ago, and it was mentioned as “the upcoming 11.1 release this spring” in a ticket we are currently working on.
So I guess now we need an “E11” category on Epiusers…
3 Likes
I know nothing… (literally… I have no inside information)…
That said… I can deduce like the rest of you… Epicor has historically updated version numbers every 3-6 years. We only skipped one version (that I remember). We went from Version 6 to version 8 back in 2005… since then we went to Version 9 about 10 years ago, then version 10 about 6 years ago… I would assume that the next version will be 11 unless we decide to skip to V12 like we did with V6 to V8. 
With progress made with Kinetic… who knows… maybe 11 is coming.
3 Likes
Also, .700 seems to be the traditional end of the line for a version release. The next version would be 10.3 or 11.1.
I don’t remember any .3 versions, so…
1 Like
But wait… there was a Vantage 8.03, 8.04, Epicor 9.03, 9.04, 9.05 versions before we got to E10.
1 Like
Oh, I remember going from 8.0 to 8.03! 8.03.305 was solid as a rock.
2 Likes
I had heard that E11 was to be browser based… But who really knows.
2 Likes
I, for one, would not be disappointed if true. No client updates. No .sysconfig files. Runs on phones, tablets, … Hopefully a performance bump. 
Challenges to be sure. Some of our clever .Net UI work will have to be translated to HTML and Javascript. We’ll really be forced to separate UI from business logic, which we should have been doing anyway but bad habits die hard and all…
Not sure about clearing client cache… 
Should be interesting to say the least.
4 Likes
Rumors are rumors, but I do agree, it would be interesting and device independent.
1 Like
I came from a PeopleSoft background - I implemented a system early after they moved from client-server to web architecture. Tremendous performance gains based on app server performance - true 3-tier with db, app, and web servers, and dependent on robust messaging layer. Epicor would have had to do massive work on an HTML generation toolset, plus low-level integration via messaging …Websphere and Weblogic were the front-end servers of the day, with Tuxedo as middleware. I see current apps (including new kinetic) behaving as pure client-server, but are they? Can kinetic pages be served up as pure css /html? I don’t have enough detail knowledge on this, but think it’s an interesting potential…
1 Like
I believe we had only 8.03 and 9.04 and not 8.04 and 9.03. 9.04 was the nightmare version for me due to numerous issues with posting engine.
1 Like
My understanding is that pure Kinetic is html/css/javascript (Angular) with Kendo controls. The Kinetic screens you see in version 10.2.x are indeed rendered in browser windows embedded into the .Net client. The Active Desktop can already run in a browser on its own. All of the business objects have REST endpoints already - OData and Custom Methods, which map the signatures to the BOs. So anyone who has moved away from WCF to REST is a step ahead of the game.
2 Likes
And a browser-based system would be certainly be architectural…
1 Like
Note that companies with latest version of E10 can run the Kinetic version of the menu & Kinetic programs completely from a browser without any client download. When you do this… speed is amazing. I just did a side-by-side comparison of the old client vs new kinetic:
- Classic client run from classic menu. 50 seconds to: Log in/launch menu. Click on PO Entry, and search for PO number.
- Kinetic run from Kinetic menu in browser: 4 seconds to log in. 3 seconds to run PO Entry AND return all the POs. Total of 7 seconds. it was mind blowing.
Note that both of the tests above were done using the same cloud instance of the same data. I did the tests multiple times… same results every time.
So… it is this a preview of things to come? Well… the Preview is already here!
6 Likes
Very nice to hear. What is the link to run from the Browser?
1 Like
https://SERVER.epicorsaas.com/APP/apps/erp/home/#/home
3 Likes
At the Midwest Users Group meeting, Amy Melton just confirmed 11.1.100 can be completely browser-based. She encouraged people to move to 10.2.700 where both UI are available and you can run them side-by-side. New forms will come online with the regular patches and not just .x00 releases.
4 Likes
I can’t pretend that this doesn’t terrify me from an in-house skill set perspective and a change management perspective.
Did they provide any feedback regarding tooling to transition existing client-side customizations over to browser code customizations? Or are we obligated to figure that part out ourselves?
3 Likes
They are working on the documentation for this yes. Assume that if you have heavily customized screens you are starting over, but lightly customized there will be tool of some description to migrate folks. A bit like 9 to 10 though, due to the massive shift in layout I suspect it might not be quite as reliable.
2 Likes
And I assume that by starting over, that includes starting over using a JavaScript/html framework. I am of course more than willing to learn a new skill, but it’s a definite shift from the WinForms skills we and most other customers have invested in for the lifetime of our Epicor investment.
I am tepid on this, as I am sure other customers are. Just thinking of how much $$ is invested in existing customizations, staff, and infrastructure around this, I’d be pretty disappointed if Epicor does not provide a clear path forward.
Change can be good but only when it’s managed properly. Epicor seems eager to wade deeper and deeper into their SaaS transformation, but it’s starting to feel like on-prem customers are poised to be left scrambling to adapt.
2 Likes