Research

Research and benchmarks

The numbers, methodology, and research that inform our approach to Oracle Forms migration and governed AI generation. Citable, dated, and linked to the source posts.

Benchmarks

5–10x

fewer AI tokens per generated screen

Measured against free-form generators (v0, Bolt, Lovable) producing equivalent enterprise interfaces. DEX generates against reusable framework primitives and JSON descriptors instead of regenerating full codebases on every prompt.

Source: DEX Elements internal benchmarks, Q1 2026

70%

faster than manual rewrite at equivalent quality

Measured on a 184-screen Oracle Forms application. Manual rewrite estimate: 26 months. DEX migration: 8 weeks. 100% business logic preserved across both.

Source: DEX Elements migration data, 2025–2026

100%

business logic preservation

Every WHEN-VALIDATE-ITEM trigger, POST-QUERY procedure, KEY-* handler, LOV query, and PL/SQL package is parsed, catalogued, and converted before any code generation begins. Nothing is approximated.

Source: DEX Elements migration engine spec

1–3 months

typical migration delivery window

For Oracle Forms applications with 50–300 screens. Larger applications scale linearly. Compares to 2–4 years for manual rewrites and 6–12 months for code-translator approaches.

Source: DEX Elements customer engagements

$800K/year

average TCO of running Oracle Forms per enterprise

Includes Oracle licensing, infrastructure, specialized developer salaries, support contracts, and lost productivity. Sourced from a survey of 12 enterprises across finance, manufacturing, and government.

Source: DEX Elements industry survey, 2025

8,000+

enterprises running Oracle Forms in production

Includes finance, manufacturing, healthcare, government, energy, telecom, retail, and logistics sectors. Represents a serviceable market of $1.1B at $100K–$170K average deal value.

Source: Industry analyst estimates, cross-referenced with Oracle support contracts

Research claims

The migration approach is the failure point, not the technology

After analyzing migration projects across hundreds of enterprises, the failure rate correlates almost entirely with approach: manual rewrites fail on schedule, code translators fail on quality, AI builders fail on compliance. The Oracle Forms platform itself is not the obstacle.

Token efficiency is the unit economics story for AI builders

Free-form AI generation regenerates entire codebases on every prompt. Gross margins compress as customers build more. Structured generation against a reusable framework expands margins as customers expand usage. Architecture is the moat.

Compliance is a generation problem, not a review problem

Free-form AI generators produce code that compliance teams cannot reasonably audit. Structured generation against JSON descriptors produces output that is auditable by design. The compliance constraint must be encoded in the generation process, not bolted on afterward.

Parallel operation eliminates the cutover risk that derails migrations

Big-bang cutover is the single largest source of migration failure. DEX architecture connects the new web application to the same Oracle Database through a REST API layer, enabling both systems to run simultaneously. Cutover becomes incremental rather than catastrophic.