Celebrating 20 years of AMIS Technology Blog

On June 16, 2004, the AMIS Technology blog published its inaugural article. This marked the birth of the first technology blog in the Netherlands, a brainchild of Zeger Hendrikse, Lucas Jellema, Wouter van Reeven, and Leon van Tegelen. Their vision was to create a platform for sharing knowledge and practical tips, within the AMIS community and the wider world.

A vast repository of valuable information

Initially, we aimed to disseminate research findings and knowledge among all AMIS employees. However, we soon decided to make the blog public, spreading information to the entire Internet community. As search engines like Google began to index our site, we saw a steady increase in visitors, commenters, and contributors.

The feedback and engagement we received fueled our motivation to write more articles and share our opinions, discoveries, and ideas. We found that explaining new technologies to a broad audience was enlightening for the readers and a valuable learning experience for the authors. This dual purpose – sharing knowledge and learning to articulate it effectively to a large audience – has always been at the heart of our blog.

Our channel for knowledge-sharing

Since its inception in 2004, the AMIS Technology blog has been a vital channel for promoting a culture of knowledge sharing within AMIS. At the time, the idea of a company-wide dedication to knowledge sharing was a fresh concept in the industry. In its first year alone, the blog published 450 articles and attracted over 70,000 unique visitors, with a single-day peak of 2,500 article reads. Now, as we commemorate a decade of blogging, we welcome an average of 5,000 unique visitors daily, with peaks exceeding 10,000. Our blog boasts a repository of nearly 3,600 articles, contributed by almost 100 different authors. The most prolific month in our blog’s history was June 2014, during which we added 54 new articles.

This journey reflects our commitment to fostering a vibrant community of knowledge seekers and sharers. As we look forward to the future, we remain dedicated to providing valuable insights and fostering intellectual growth.

From local to worldwide coverage

Two decades on, we continue to operate the AMIS Technology blog, now boasting close to 4,000 articles. These span a broad spectrum, from in-depth explorations of specific Java JVM features to practical advice on managing agile teams and implementing augmented reality.

What began as a simple way to share knowledge within the AMIS community has grown into an international technology repository. It covers a wide array of topics, including Java, Oracle, Cloud, Azure, Angular, Linux, and continuous delivery.

We welcome visitors from all corners of the globe. Our top ten visitor countries include India, the USA, The Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, France, Canada, Russia, and Spain. We also have readers from less familiar locales such as Mongolia, the Faroe Islands, and New Caledonia. Some of these connections have led to intriguing project opportunities, such as assisting the government of New Caledonia with its Oracle administrative systems and aiding a Mongolian consulting company with its Java software development factory.

Adding our knowledge to LLM’s

Our extensive knowledge repository has been incorporated into recent Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini. Through these channels, we see new applications for the articles in our blog.

Throughout the blog’s 20-year existence, our core focus has remained the same: sharing knowledge about modern IT technology. We frequently publish articles that combine (compare, integrate) technologies, providing extra value and reflecting AMIS’s strength in blending techniques to build valuable solutions for our customers.

Collaboration and contributions

Our content has been shared by numerous AMIS partners, including Oracle, Microsoft, and Atlassian. In total, 70 authors have contributed their articles to this blog. Some of the most noteworthy contributors include:

• Lucas Jellema with almost 1800 articles!
• Maarten Smeets with a sequence of 10 elaborate articles about Apache NIFI.
• Robbrecht van Amerongen with one of the first elaborate blog sequences about agile technologies in 2007.
• Frederique Retsema about test automation and cloud infrastructure.
• Jeroen Gouma with an update of new Oracle database features
• Marc Lameriks about all new developments in Ubuntu, Linux, and Apache Kafka.
• Aino Andriessen with an elaborate sequence regarding build automation and software engineering in 2007.
• Leon van Tegelen with some of the first posts on Ant as build automation form 2004
• Anton Scheffer with the most brilliant PL/SQL articles. Often very short and with lots of comments. His PL/SQL to Excel article got more than 130 comments.
• An introduction to blockchain technologies by Robert van Molken
• And many more authors.

Over the past 20 years, we have maintained a unique approach to publishing content on our blog. We have had no editor or approval process. The only requirement is that the articles provide ‘how-to’ content. We avoid product comparisons and refrain from sharing any customer-specific information.

In these two decades, the blog’s content has evolved alongside AMIS. It began with a focus on Oracle PL/SQL and Oracle Application Development Framework, then expanded to include Java and open-source tools. In recent years, our focus has shifted towards cloud applications, Microsoft Azure, IoT, and AI applications like OpenAI and Copilot.

Below is a screenshot from 2004 to give you an idea of the design from that age :-).

Thanks to all the authors

We extend our heartfelt thanks to all the authors for their invaluable contributions. We eagerly anticipate more insightful articles in the future. As we look forward to the next exciting 20 years of the technology blog, we remain committed to sharing knowledge and fostering a community of lifelong learners.