This year, at Grexx, we're celebrating our 25th anniversary. A large part of our team has been with us for ten, fifteen, twenty years, or even since the very beginning. Since the beginning of this century, when the Internet was still in its infancy. Back when low code had hardly any meaning. And when society had no idea what a major role online technology would play in our lives. A crazy idea to dwell on.

‍

And we don't want to stand still for too long either: we prefer to look ahead. Because if there is one common thread in our 25 years of existence, it is that we have always liked to be at the forefront. Thinking ahead, innovating and helping our customers further shape their own future.

‍

CEO Pieter Hufen talks about the development of 25 years of Grexx and what's still in store.
‍

Pioneering around dotcom

Pieter: “When we started in 2000, we had a mission that we also carry out today. We want organizations to work better together by using internet technology. This way, every organization can focus on what they are good at, and seek cooperation in what others can do better. Our services are aimed at improving that cooperation. To contribute to making an organization more competitive with its network or ecosystem. As a supplier for our clients' ecosystem, we also want to contribute to this ourselves.

‍

Of course, we have adjusted that vision a number of times over the past few years, developed new ideas, and taken other steps. When we started in 2000, the Internet world focused on consumer services, while we were mainly looking at the business market. Initially, we were active in business-to-business marketplaces and later also in e-commerce strategy and consulting. The dotcom crisis meant that we had to switch quickly.

‍

We first opted for collaborations with SAP, because of their SAP Markets product. Then Oracle, because of their BPM solution. In addition to advice, we were also able to offer solutions. That was an educational time, in which we also found out that the flexibility we so wanted to offer ourselves was not possible with the solutions within the major software vendors. That was a starting point for really choosing our own path and going for our own platform.”
‍

Innovation, Innovation, Innovation

“In 2007, we brought a customer to the cloud with our own Grexxboxx platform. That sounds logical now, but that was very special at the time: large companies installed software on their own servers, the cloud wasn't a standard at all. With our customized applications in a private cloud environment, we made it easy for companies to switch quickly, without being dependent on the often slow internal IT departments. That was an important success factor at the time. And our agile way of working, which is now very standard in the market, really gave an advantage in this regard.

‍

From the 2007 platform, we started building a new, scalable platform in 2014. With a radically different approach, we presented the new Grexx Low Code Platform in 2022, which allows our customers to build themselves and experience optimal flexibility. We have been active in this latest direction for two years now and we see how well the Low Code approach works. The Platform is user-friendly and well suited to the needs of our customers. It now takes, hold on, about 75 man-years of development time. This investment is fully financed from our own cash flow and has ensured that we still have a highly competitive service that we use in the market as we see fit.”
‍

Keep looking ahead

Sufficient review: within IT, it is important to continuously look ahead. Innovation never stops, and AI will play a leading role in that regard in the coming years. “Agentic AI, in particular, offers enormous opportunities for automation and process improvement. Agentic AI is about “agents” that act autonomously and in real time, as an intelligent assistant. Within our Platform, we've embraced that with our AI assistant Grexxie, who citizen developers supports in building applications.

‍

This is very useful, but it is still the beginning: in the coming years, AI agents will take over more and more tasks that are still being performed by humans today. To achieve that, companies will have to use data and their applications smarter. The Grexx Platform makes that very possible: it offers the flexibility to gradually experiment with AI agents without taking major risks all at once. Where we pioneered web technology and cloud computing 25 years ago, we now do that with AI agents: we make it easy for our customers to develop on this theme and get an advantage over the competition.”

‍

And that actually sums it up nicely. Because although technology is changing rapidly, our vision remains intact: at Grexx, we help companies to make smarter collaboration more successful. That has been the focus for 25 years. And we would love to spend another 25 years doing that.

‍

‍

‍