ZapThink: RIAs Based on Ajax, Flash, and Java Will Supplant Static Web Applications and Portals

ZapThink: RIAs Based on Ajax, Flash, and Java Will Supplant Static Web Applications and Portals
ZapThink – July 27, 2006

Demand for Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) and more sophisticated user interaction is increasing dramatically, and enterprise spending on RIA applications will surpass $500 million by 2011, according to ZapThink. The analysts say enhancements to six types of business applications are helping drive RIA spending: high-transaction and event-driven Internet applications, next-generation portals, enhanced business intelligence solutions, application modernization, and Service composition or “mashup” solutions.

In a new report, ZapThink describes RIAs as providing an end user experience that combines the experience that users are most familiar with in desktop and client/server applications — such as rich graphical user interface, responsive performance and highly interactive functionality — with the scalability, distribution, and manageability benefits that Internet applications provide.

“Users today increasingly demand more from their online user experiences,” said Ronald Schmelzer, founder and senior analyst with ZapThink. “The convergence of SOA and Web 2.0 are leading organizations to retire their static Web pages and inflexible portal applications. Today’s set the bar for user interactivity higher than ever before, and expect their online exper

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Enriched Experience

When used within a company, rich clients can integrate multiple applications for employees, offering a composite view from different sources. Those views can be tailored to individual users or groups. Network portals, which are somewhat restrictive, currently perform those tasks. Using a smart client, an employee would receive data and services from a network server, then work with them locally while tapping into the desktop’s processing power. “Rich clients should replace portals,” ZapThink analyst Ron Schmelzer says.

Read more at: InformationWeek

ZapThink: Client-side Web Technologies Inadequate to Meet Evolving Needs of Web Services

ZapThink: Client-side Web Technologies Inadequate to Meet Evolving Needs of Web Services
New Class of Rich and Smart Clients Evolving to Solve Next-Generation Computing Needs

WALTHAM, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–March 3, 2004–The Internet and Web have provided immense scalability and manageability benefits to computer users for a decade now, but at a price – poor support for rich interactivity. Now, companies are increasingly demanding a rich set user experience capabilities that include visual interactivity elements and instant access to information, interaction with distributed and remote applications, and integration with local desktop applications. ZapThink concludes in its report entitled “Rich and Smart Clients for Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs)” that today’s Web technologies are wholly inadequate to meet the needs of emerging standards-based, loosely coupled, distributed applications.

“Simply put, today’s corporate portals must move beyond Web-based thin client technologies,” said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst with ZapThink. “Rather, companies must leverage the power of Web Services and Service-Oriented Architectures to offer rich clients that provide deep interactivity, yet retain the scalability and manageability benefits that browsers provide.”

ZapThink’s report analyzes a new class of rich client vendor offering and several approaches to providing rich clients that in part rely upon SOAs to provide the optimal combination of rich user interaction and low cost of ownership through standards-based distributed computing. The report identifies the windows of opportunities as well as market growth predictions for new entrants and incumbent vendors.

Other key findings of the report include:

• Rich clients will supplant portals as the primary interface to Web Services and Service-oriented functionality in the enterprise by the end of 2007.
• The total opportunity for rich clients for SOAs is over $923 million by 2010.
• The window of opportunity for new entrants in the rich client market will start to wane with the release of the Microsoft Longhorn update of windows in the 2006-2007 timeframe.
• The increasing adoption of sometimes-connected devices, mobile computing, asynchronous computing, and e-Forms will mandate widespread and rapid adoption of rich clients.

The report, available on ZapThink’s website at www.zapthink.com, discusses several companies, including Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE), Altio, Apple, AT&T, Citrix, Curl, Cysive, DreamFactory, FileMaker, Focus Solutions, General Interface, Harmonia, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, JackBe, Kinitos, Laszlo Systems, Lucent, Macromedia (NASDAQ: MACR), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Motorola, Mozilla, Nexaweb, Novell (NASDAQ: NOVL), Oracle, Plumtree, RatchetSoft, SAP, SCO Group (NASDAQ: SCOX), Siebel, Softricity, TiVo, Vignette, and Vultus.

Read more at: ZapThink Press Release

Rich and Smart Clients for Service-Oriented Architectures

Companies originally moved to adopt standards-based technologies like those underlying the Web and the Internet as a way to achieve distributed computing functionality at a very low total cost of ownership. However, these companies had to forego many of the user interface and productivity advantages that other distributed computing methods, such as traditional client/server applications, used to give them. As a result, companies continue to struggle to address the issue of how to realize the benefits of rich clients in conjunction with the benefits of distributed, low-cost applications.

While companies have long delivered application functionality to Web browsers, users are now coming to expect increasingly greater interactivity from this presentation tier. They are demanding a set of rich user experience capabilities that include visual interactivity elements and instant access to information, interaction with distributed and remote applications, and integration with local desktop applications. Businesses today want to gain the operational and cost advantages of Internet and Web Services technologies, but don’t want the limitations that Web browsers impose on user interfaces.

This report discusses and analyzes approaches to providing the optimal combination of rich client interaction and low-cost interaction through standards-based distributed computing. In addition, this report will present an approach to designing SOAs that appropriately abstract presentation layer considerations and enable users to choose the user interfaces that are most appropriate to their business needs without having to change any underlying business logic.