A new Forrester report by Erica Driver and Ron Rogowski suggests that rich Internet applications (RIAs) may usurp Microsoft Office and enterprise portals as the front-end UIs for "decision-makers and task-oriented workers". The phrase Forrester uses for this front end is "Information Workplaces (IWs)".
RIAs in the enterprise; source: Forrester
The report states that today, enterprise portals and Microsoft Office are the most common front ends "through which content, collaboration, enterprise applications, and other services are delivered to workers in a seamless, contextual way." However, says Forrester, RIA technology is improving that user experience and is being increasingly used by mid to large enterprises. The report states:
"Because RIAs improve the way people find and manipulate content, complete transactions, and consume multimedia content, these technologies are ideal for improving the user experience for information workers. Moving forward, RIA technologies like Adobe Flash and Flex, Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), Ajax, the Curl RIA Platform, Laszlo Systems OpenLaszlo and Webtop, Microsoft Silverlight, Nexaweb’s Enterprise Web 2.0 Suite, Oracle WebCenter, and Sun JavaFX will be used to augment or even replace traditional enterprise portals and Microsoft Office as IW front ends."
The report goes on to say that RIA-based Information Workplaces create a "seamless, individualized, and visual" environment for information workers.
A lot of the report is based on data gained from vendors with a horse in the RIA race; including Adobe, Microsoft, Curl, Laszlo Systems, among others. Plus information gleaned from RIA specialists. So we should take the findings with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, the amount of RIA activity happening on the Web today suggests that the enterprise will indeed be mined. Just as consumer web apps have made their way into the Enterprise over the past few years, so will RIA infiltrate the office. It's also worth pointing out that Google, with its army of AJAX office apps, will be among the RIA providers vying to be a front end in the enterprise.
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Is it just me, or this whole RIA movement sound like we're reverting back to the old client-server computing model? Everything old is new again, I guess.
Posted by: Brian | November 28, 2007 1:27 AM@Brian: Yeah you are right! But I won't really say that everything old is new again. The new client-server architecture has a new name - SOA.
New Web technologies now allow apps to function in client-server architecture but without the monstrous integration issues across different apps. In fact, leveraging these new tech, RIAs can now be integrated to different backends/data sources, creating more powerful apps from better and greater volume of data.
Posted by: Joshua | November 28, 2007 6:46 AMIt is so much more than Client-Server. Creation of sophisticated mashups is only the beginning. In time, the enterprise will start to see true composite applications.
Posted by: Jamie | November 28, 2007 7:16 AMThe only RIA tech I see ultimately surviving are those that become standards within the context of the standard web browser ...
AJAX + SVG + Flash + Android + Gears
Posted by: scott | November 28, 2007 8:44 AMInteresting, I remember trying to load an XLS file containing a simple table with 8000 lines into Google's AJAX spreadsheet solution, crashing my Firefox browser.
The only powerful online office solution I know is the Java based Thinkfree office. And that gives me the feeling that we are back in the 90's. So it's only Java giving tool makers the stability and performance for information workplaces? Well, that should be good news for Sun. Unless Microsoft will strike back with Silverlight. Well, at least Java is open source now...
Posted by: raju | November 28, 2007 5:03 PM@raju: Perhaps your problem is more related to Firefox's well-known memory issues than any real issue with Google's Spreadsheets. There is quite abit being written about it now...
The power of RIA apps is due to the fact that:
1) They are easily accessible by anyone with a browser.
2) They can more easily integrate data and exposed services from other apps on the WWW.
I agree that this is much more than what was understood in the "good old days" as client-server architecture. But it is more a matter of evolution - ie.: the next step, rather than some completely, rip-up-the-pavement architecture. That's why to a certain extent, I'd like to think of it as the new client-server architecture.
Posted by: Joshua | November 28, 2007 6:17 PMCool site. Thanks:-)
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