On 11/4/05, Robert Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Not sure on that last remark, i think it will be anyones guess which becomes the new "hype" of the year. Not many large enterprise organisations have team members who are even aware of FLEX existance... number of people i've spoken about it in the last couple of years has shocked me into that fact.
Now, Microsoft do one thing extremly well, that is marketing. If you are in a situation where you're looking to switch of a legacy backend solution, or better yet, upgrade it to meet new direction in ones business the last thing you want in that equation is UI democracy or complexity. Products like FLEX and AVALON will get a jersey in the pickings but it will most likely come down to what type of business one is in, and who knows more about either product. A lot of companies bank on .NET soley for the fact its got a big Microsoft logo attached to it, and well it could also because their is a strong Human Resource allocation in their local sector for .NET Developers... point is, FLEX may be the XML based hot favourite, but until we get a wider acceptance in both business and human resource, it still has a fair amount of hard yards to fight through. Technology isn't always the answer as sometimes businesses can't cope with the new culture shock.
Actually, no, RIA development really has only taken off in the past what, 3-4 years at best. Even still a lot of the "public on display" apps are more "Kiosk" and not really scaled as deep as some would prefer or like.
The biggest eye opener for the online generation world wide was the fact that web applications existed. Thinware deployment has been a dream for majority large corporations as it becomes a "eat as you need" equation. The likes of Microsoft and I guess all of the other big players (Sun with Java Webstart, Macromedia wtih Flash, Oracle with UAX etc) want in on that dream and are willing to slot in a complex backend system to back the UI up.
No, the days where it would be thickware client development that has to overcome tonnes of problems with compatability issues has reached a point where most case studies in a piece of software, really shouldn't be that hard (inventory management system, invoice trackings, workflow etc).
Business Process Modeling / Workflow is probably the biggest driving force behind the creation of the above products as when you start to break things down into portions what are we all really doing? Trying to provide a end to end solution based on a problem thus workflow is in the picture.
Now, i've ranted about this before but essentially what we have in our hands with FLEX today (not tommorow) is the ability to create a Unified View over the top of disparate backend systems.
The company co-founded, omniEffect (shameless plug) specialises in basically putting a unified front end to systems that are so complex, they have signs on the machines saying "Don't touch, we have no idea what this software does". The ability via UI to string together disparate complex backend technologies in a seamless matter is like showing folks Color TV for the first time ! (You mean big bird is yellow???? who would of thought!). An example is security, if you are talking to say 3 backend systems each with their own domain of security, and you want to drag fileX from BESystem1 to fileY to BESystem2, magic happens in the backend but at the same time their needs to be a way to authenticate and allocate security models on the fly... this is the easiest part in FLEX, as you can ping/pong XXX number of security models for handshake all via things like RemoteObject/SOAP and within a seamless manner. Trying to do that with other technologies is well harder?
I seriously doubt Microsoft sat down in a board room and said "right, we need to kill Macromedia quick, so lets re-do our entire product line and re-engineer our operating system soley to take on Macromedia"...
My thoughts are that Microsoft listened to the gripes their developer base had with .NET (balmer would rant Developers..Developers..Developers all the time) and improved on the concept, by hiring guys who hated the company and asking them "Do it better, but do it big" (Keeping in mind, Microsoft have developers like you and me, guys who hated the company and were all pro-Linux all the way, yet they work for them? why? well can't say...maybe they got past the religious debates and decided they could show them a better way?)
This is what i don't get, sorry to stray off topic.. why the hell do people expect business to be morally rightious and fairplay? nearly all large corporations would knife someone in the back to get a point of difference and wouldn't think twice about it. Microsoft have share holders to uphold and they have to also maintain the leading edge. They've built an operating system, and an addon product (which could be probably considered more of a plugin these days) Office, whereby they want to keep it lock stock and barrel their own. Personally, i can't see a problem with doing that? as if i created an application suite i'd not want my competitors using that product against me to generate further income?
I'm not pro Microsoft, i just don't care enough about brand wars to invest that much effort - i'm must merely shocked that people constantly place Microsoft on this pedastal that they should be more transparent and help the little guy make his/her millions aswell... its survival for the fittest, and any who don't look healthy won't make it.
Firstly, Microsoft have been working on a concept like AJAX, which they've coined "Atlas". An example of its use is the upcoming new version of Hotmail. Secondly, AJAX at the moment is probably more used widely because its not really new, just ajusted mode of thinking in using DOM in a manner that doesn't require that much additional learning.
AJAX for me has always been this bain, i hate DHTML not because i love flash so much, more so i hated it because it was limiting in its ability to do things, and once you've accomplished certain UI concepts for one, its not exactly easy to make that x-platform, x-browser compatible... point is, its like building a cathedral out of a tornado (quoting halo guys hehe).
AJAX has only a handful of UI Frameworks that are compatible with the XmlHttpRequest approach and until that gets some stronger roots in the wider development market, it will continue to slowly but surely fade out again.
The classic example of how this is well illustrated is Yahoo Maps vs Google Maps? Which do you prefer and why? which feels more seamless and which seems clunky... Yahoo Maps is fluid on a number of things, namely "Preloading".. "ok this is going to take xyz cool"... they could do more things with FP8 filters mind you to make it feel "Richer".. but my point is that if you walk in with a AJAX solution in one arm, and your competitor follows behind you with the same solution but in say Flash or XAML.... umm... pray you have more features that bypasses UI emotions, is all i am saying.
AJAX is a name, not really a technology. Flash is a
true technology with an incredible reach and user
penetration...and now with Flex and Video in FP8,
great things are on the horizon _for_everybody_ on an
equal palying field.
But you can trust with the awesome video of Flash8,
that the threat to people like MS is now bigger than
ever with their Smart Client efforts and Avalon.
Not sure on that last remark, i think it will be anyones guess which becomes the new "hype" of the year. Not many large enterprise organisations have team members who are even aware of FLEX existance... number of people i've spoken about it in the last couple of years has shocked me into that fact.
Now, Microsoft do one thing extremly well, that is marketing. If you are in a situation where you're looking to switch of a legacy backend solution, or better yet, upgrade it to meet new direction in ones business the last thing you want in that equation is UI democracy or complexity. Products like FLEX and AVALON will get a jersey in the pickings but it will most likely come down to what type of business one is in, and who knows more about either product. A lot of companies bank on .NET soley for the fact its got a big Microsoft logo attached to it, and well it could also because their is a strong Human Resource allocation in their local sector for .NET Developers... point is, FLEX may be the XML based hot favourite, but until we get a wider acceptance in both business and human resource, it still has a fair amount of hard yards to fight through. Technology isn't always the answer as sometimes businesses can't cope with the new culture shock.
Many of you may not remember a small effort in the
late 90's by Microsoft to come out with a Vector
product that was ActiveX based and it was just
terrible (I mean a great example of what they are
truly capable of when they don't have leverage)...I'm
sure Avalon came from that failure and the "hope" has
always been there of overcoming Flash, but I believe
Actually, no, RIA development really has only taken off in the past what, 3-4 years at best. Even still a lot of the "public on display" apps are more "Kiosk" and not really scaled as deep as some would prefer or like.
The biggest eye opener for the online generation world wide was the fact that web applications existed. Thinware deployment has been a dream for majority large corporations as it becomes a "eat as you need" equation. The likes of Microsoft and I guess all of the other big players (Sun with Java Webstart, Macromedia wtih Flash, Oracle with UAX etc) want in on that dream and are willing to slot in a complex backend system to back the UI up.
No, the days where it would be thickware client development that has to overcome tonnes of problems with compatability issues has reached a point where most case studies in a piece of software, really shouldn't be that hard (inventory management system, invoice trackings, workflow etc).
Business Process Modeling / Workflow is probably the biggest driving force behind the creation of the above products as when you start to break things down into portions what are we all really doing? Trying to provide a end to end solution based on a problem thus workflow is in the picture.
Now, i've ranted about this before but essentially what we have in our hands with FLEX today (not tommorow) is the ability to create a Unified View over the top of disparate backend systems.
The company co-founded, omniEffect (shameless plug) specialises in basically putting a unified front end to systems that are so complex, they have signs on the machines saying "Don't touch, we have no idea what this software does". The ability via UI to string together disparate complex backend technologies in a seamless matter is like showing folks Color TV for the first time ! (You mean big bird is yellow???? who would of thought!). An example is security, if you are talking to say 3 backend systems each with their own domain of security, and you want to drag fileX from BESystem1 to fileY to BESystem2, magic happens in the backend but at the same time their needs to be a way to authenticate and allocate security models on the fly... this is the easiest part in FLEX, as you can ping/pong XXX number of security models for handshake all via things like RemoteObject/SOAP and within a seamless manner. Trying to do that with other technologies is well harder?
I seriously doubt Microsoft sat down in a board room and said "right, we need to kill Macromedia quick, so lets re-do our entire product line and re-engineer our operating system soley to take on Macromedia"...
My thoughts are that Microsoft listened to the gripes their developer base had with .NET (balmer would rant Developers..Developers..Developers all the time) and improved on the concept, by hiring guys who hated the company and asking them "Do it better, but do it big" (Keeping in mind, Microsoft have developers like you and me, guys who hated the company and were all pro-Linux all the way, yet they work for them? why? well can't say...maybe they got past the religious debates and decided they could show them a better way?)
is fading now with the video done so well in FP8...and
as for WinFS...well, I could go into many pages of
where, at least parts of those concepts came from, but
I can't :) for now that is.
Suffice it to say that every technology from
QuickTime, to Suns Java JVM in IE, to Blue Mountain
eCards not working in Outlook (search Rick Segal on
Blue Mountain v Microsoft), to Real Player, and even
way back to DR-DOS has been challenged, not by
innovation and quality creativity, but by long-horning
an original sling-shot screw-over of a nice little guy
at Seattle computer and there's been dominance every
since, but with the above technologies; desperation.
This is what i don't get, sorry to stray off topic.. why the hell do people expect business to be morally rightious and fairplay? nearly all large corporations would knife someone in the back to get a point of difference and wouldn't think twice about it. Microsoft have share holders to uphold and they have to also maintain the leading edge. They've built an operating system, and an addon product (which could be probably considered more of a plugin these days) Office, whereby they want to keep it lock stock and barrel their own. Personally, i can't see a problem with doing that? as if i created an application suite i'd not want my competitors using that product against me to generate further income?
I'm not pro Microsoft, i just don't care enough about brand wars to invest that much effort - i'm must merely shocked that people constantly place Microsoft on this pedastal that they should be more transparent and help the little guy make his/her millions aswell... its survival for the fittest, and any who don't look healthy won't make it.
AJAX _will_ become popular if only for one reason,
it's one of the last hopes to help ms battle against
Flash usage (I know ms didn't invent Ajax but they do
have things going on with Avalon and will use the Ajax
opp...can anybody say let's send money to SCO because
it's convenient?); because in the long-run Avalon is
not just about a new UI, it's about "How do we compete
against this quality product?". I'm not saying they
won't act diplomatic on the outside, but I'm telling
you I know what I've seen both in my research and in
other docs, and they will not let Flash continue doing
well w/o a fight and will use their old tricks in the
next year or so...mark my word on it...
Firstly, Microsoft have been working on a concept like AJAX, which they've coined "Atlas". An example of its use is the upcoming new version of Hotmail. Secondly, AJAX at the moment is probably more used widely because its not really new, just ajusted mode of thinking in using DOM in a manner that doesn't require that much additional learning.
AJAX for me has always been this bain, i hate DHTML not because i love flash so much, more so i hated it because it was limiting in its ability to do things, and once you've accomplished certain UI concepts for one, its not exactly easy to make that x-platform, x-browser compatible... point is, its like building a cathedral out of a tornado (quoting halo guys hehe).
AJAX has only a handful of UI Frameworks that are compatible with the XmlHttpRequest approach and until that gets some stronger roots in the wider development market, it will continue to slowly but surely fade out again.
The classic example of how this is well illustrated is Yahoo Maps vs Google Maps? Which do you prefer and why? which feels more seamless and which seems clunky... Yahoo Maps is fluid on a number of things, namely "Preloading".. "ok this is going to take xyz cool"... they could do more things with FP8 filters mind you to make it feel "Richer".. but my point is that if you walk in with a AJAX solution in one arm, and your competitor follows behind you with the same solution but in say Flash or XAML.... umm... pray you have more features that bypasses UI emotions, is all i am saying.
--
Regards,
Scott Barnes
http://www.mossyblog.com
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