It turned out that one of Progress’s first products included a language that made it easier for developers to create applications.
This language, cleverly named Progress 4GL, was known as a fourth generation language, which meant that the computer commands were easier for programmers to understand than earlier, third generation languages such as COBOL.
The company’s early growth and success was predicated on its strategy of being in a better position to help software companies that wrote applications for specific industries.