Graphically richer apps

Kevin, Thanks for showing up

Kevin,

Thanks for showing up here!  (Kevin is one of the original techies on the TIBCO product -- right? -- and now is the marketing/spokesman guy.)

Yes, your experience is indeed pretty much what I would have expected.   My goal in so aggressively soliciting comment in this thread is to find out whether other products are being used in ways I was NOT thinking of.  :)

Best regards,

CAM

Brett, Thanks!  Is there

Brett,

Thanks! 

Is there any way you can be more specific about the kind of functionality?   Are we talking specialized calculators and stuff like that? 

My guess is that you're not talking about hardcore OLTP, but I could be wrong.

This is interesting stuff!

CAM

It's not really so much

It's not really so much about fancier graphics and pizzaz. The reality is that many rather utilitarian applicaions at businesses never made the transition to the web becuaes the funcationality was not achievable or not achievable at a cost of ownership that made sense. Or the applications that did get transitionsed to the lower cost web inftastructure then suffered from productivity losses as what could have been done in one screen before all of a sudden took 6 to 12 web pages to do. TIBCO customers are essentially doing two things with the General Interface product: 1) they are supplanting the thick-client applications they've had so as to sustain the rich, high productivity functionality they had before, and at the same time, reduce the cost of ownership by eliminating desktop installs, updates, and conflicts while not needing to retrain users on those applications; 2) they are enchanging existing web applications and portal deployments with rich richer functionality embedding rich GUI functionality into those pages. Because TIBCO is based on the AJAX set of technologes, you can do things like drag and drop between portlets, have foreground dialogs and windows float above portlets and all the elements of the page (including the non-TIBCO ones) be able to easily access each other.

AJAX providng real value in

AJAX providng real value in Financial Services
I've been working a lot with large financial institutions lately looking at AJAX apps. Why? Because their desktops are locked down. Users are not only prohibited from installing traditional apps, but are also restricted from installing plug-ins.

The business problem this presents is the inability to roll out new business tools to users in a timely fashion. While IT could develop the new tool in short order, the fact that users cannot install the new app or updated plug-in required could delay its use and have significant negative impact on the organization's business.

Therefore, any rich client solution that requires any type of plug-in OR application is not a viable solution.

For these highly secured, locked-down environments AJAX-based UIs are allowing organizations to rapidly roll out new tools thereby positively impacting the bottom-line.

I think transational apps

I think transational apps only need to be graphical enough to meet users' expectations in the eBay/Amazon era e.g. not much. I think the promise of things like Ajax, especially combined with business rules, is to allow complex conversations to be had online to gather complex data sets right the first time.

On the RIA side of things,

On the RIA side of things, don't forget about Macromedia Flex and/or the open source Laszlo. Promising stuff.