ZapThink: Rich Internet Application Environment Market Consolidating

Gap Widens between the Vision and Execution of Rich Internet Applications in the Enterprise. Adobe and Microsoft Dominate; Open Source Vendors Round Out Market

Baltimore, MD (PRunderground) May 06, 2009 — ZapThink released a report today showing that as the Rich Internet Application (RIA) market grows, it increasingly overlaps other, more mature markets, including portals, business intelligence, application modernization, and a range of nascent Service consumer markets, including Enterprise Mashups. As a result, while the RIA market should continue to grow for the next few years, it will most likely merge with other markets long term. This convergence has a significant impact in how the enterprise consumes RIA technologies.

“There is increasing demand for RIA capabilities in the enterprise, although people don’t identify the applications that leverage such capabilities as RIAs,” said Jason Bloomberg, Managing Partner and Senior Analyst with ZapThink. “Rather, RIA capabilities are features of many of those applications.”

ZapThink further showed that Rich Internet Application market has largely consolidated, with Adobe Systems’ AIR and Flex offerings, and Microsoft’s Silverlight technology and associated Expression Suite tools. Even though these two vendors dominate market share and aggressively compete for license revenue, there are an increasing range of free and open source tools offered by a number of smaller vendors that give developers a range of options.

Key findings of the report include:

• ZapThink estimates that the total market for RIA environments and components will grow to over $700M by 2011.
• Adobe is currently the biggest and most experienced RIA player, but it faces serious challenges on multiple fronts, most notably open source solutions and Microsoft, with its relatively new Silverlight technology.
• Since 2006, ZapThink has seen substantial contraction in the RIA component submarket, elimination of the extensions submarket, and consolidation and expansion of the RIA environments submarket.
• As the line between browser-based and desktop-based applications blurs, and as approaches for abstracting functionality and information from user interfaces develop, other markets will eventually merge with the RIA market.

The report, available on ZapThink’s Web site at http://bit.ly/ttxz4, features several firms offering RIA products, including Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE), Backbase, Borland, Curl, Dojo, e-Business Applications, Eclipse Foundation, Ext, Facebook, FriendFeed, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), IBM (NYSE: IBM), ICEsoft, Ideo Technologies, IDV Solutions, Integra SP, JackBe, jQuery, Kapow Technologies, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), MooTools, Mozilla, MySpace, Nexaweb, Nitobi, Novell (NASDAQ: NOVL), OpenLaszlo, Prototype, Rico, SAP (NYSE: SAP), Scriptalicious, Social Thing, Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA), TIBCO (NASDAQ: TIBX), TweetDeck, twhirl, Twitter, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), Zapatec, and ZK.

Read more at: ZapThink press release

Evolution of the Rich Internet Application Market

As the Internet continues to penetrate every aspect of our lives, both business and personal, the distinction between “Internet application” and “application” increasingly fades from view. Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) operate in the sweet spot among richness of Internet capability, richness of user interactivity, and richness of client-side computing capability. RIAs act as Service consumers as part of Service-Oriented Architecture implementations and enable Enterprise Mashups.

Since ZapThink first covered the space in 2002, the RIA market has matured considerably, establishing two core submarkets: RIA environments and RIA components. Adobe Systems emerging as a leader in the RIA environments submarket with their Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and Flex products. Microsoft is a strong contender with their newer Silverlight technology. Open source vendors have emerged as significant players, and form a large portion of the RIA components submarket.

While the RIA market should continue to grow for the next few years, it will most likely merge with other markets long term and be indifferentiable from a market sizing perspective as the RIA category increasingly overlaps with other existing desktop and Internet application categories.

Sun technologist: SOAP stack a ‘failure’

Analysts at ZapThink, who have specialized in technologies such as Web services and SOA, sharply disagreed with Bray.

“Tim Bray is a REST proponent and he’ll say what he needs to, to bash SOAP and promote REST. SOAP is alive and well. There’s no widespread movement away from SOAP. If you can find evidence of that [apart from Tim Bray], let me know,” said Ronald Schmelzer, ZapThink senior analyst.

“It’s ironic as well that he’s incorrect about the lack of REST tooling. JackBe, Corizon, and others support REST,” said Jason Bloomberg, a managing partner at ZapThink.

Read more at: IDG News

JackBe Sponsors ‘Learn Mashups from the Experts’

Today JackBe ( www.jackbe.com), a leading provider of enterprise mashup solutions to Fortune 5000 companies, announced that it has teamed with experts from across the Web 2.0 industry to publish a series of educational whitepapers and webcasts, as well as a hands on mashup class taught by John Crupi, CTO of JackBe. The educational offerings provide technical and non-technical business leaders with a fundamental introduction to enterprise mashups, including benefits to organizations and the basic working principles of the technology.

The educational webcasts start with guest analyst Jason Bloomberg from ZapThink on the topic of ‘A Killer SOA Use Case: Using Mashups to Publish Performance Metrics to Customers and Partners,’ that will take place Wednesday, July 23 at 12:00 p.m. EDT. The interactive session will discuss how enterprises demand SOAs that achieve two elements: measurable business benefits and provide a solid approach to building enterprise mashup applications in combination with SOA and enterprise widgets. Registration for the webcast is at www.jackbe.com.

Read more at: MarketWatch

JackBe: Enterprise Mashups that both Leverage and Justify SOA

Enterprise mashups–governed compositions of loosely-coupled Services within a rich, Web-based environment–are attracting increasing levels of attention today, because of their visible business value as well as the user empowerment they promise. Providing the infrastructure necessary to support the governance and loose coupling such mashups need, however, requires Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).

As a result, enterprise mashups are increasingly driving demand for SOA across numerous enterprises, as they provide a visual representation of the value of SOA that business people and others can readily understand. It’s helpful, therefore, for enterprises looking to leverage the benefits of mashups as well as the benefits of SOA to invest in an enterprise mashup platform that brings the value of SOA to the user-driven interface that mashups enable.

JackBe’s Presto enterprise mashup platform addresses these issues. ZapThink has written on Presto before, but now we are finding that the platform is maturing in its ability to deliver rapid value to a wide range of users, both within business and IT. Furthermore, JackBe’s “Mashlets,” or mashup widgets, are helping to connect the dots for users who are seeking value from their SOA initiatives through the creation of enterprise mashups.

New mashup tools look to penetrate IT

Jason Bloomberg, an analyst at ZapThink LLC, a Baltimore-based consulting firm, said that although “mashups are becoming killer use cases for SOA,” IT managers need to be careful when using the technology.

For example, they must make sure that data collected by the mashup tools meets corporate governance guidelines. “You can’t just let anybody mash up anything. All [of] that has to fit into the governance framework an organization has,” said Bloomberg.

Read more at: The Industry Standard

IBM News May Signal Enterprise Mashup Maturity

While the DIA found a place for mashups within its IT strategy, enterprises shouldn’t buy first and develop later, said Jason Bloomberg, an analyst with Zapthink, a consultancy focused on SOA (service-oriented architecture).

“[Mashups are] really a solution looking for a problem,” he said. “It’s great to be able to put your pizza places on a Google map, but what good is it?”

One clear-cut role for mashups has emerged, he said. “Mashups are becoming killer-use cases for SOA,” Bloomberg said. “You can show a mashup-based solution to an executive and they’ll get it.”

Yet, any serious conversation about SOA inevitably turns to governance. “You can’t just let anybody mash up anything … all that has to fit into the governance framework an organization has,” Bloomberg said.

Read more at: PC World

Enterprise mashups, SOA’s killer app?

Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst with ZapThink LLC., said he agrees with Crupi’s assessment of why mashups are such a compelling concept, but with the caveat that mashups won’t be instead of SOA, but rather on top of SOA.

“We’ve long predicted that SOA will fade from view, as SOA best practices become broadly accepted IT and business best practices, a trend which we’re seeing today,” Bloomberg said. “Furthermore, enterprise mashups are becoming the killer use-case for SOA, that is, the ostensible reason for doing SOA from the perspective of the business. So, SOA is stronger than ever, it’s just becoming part of the woodwork. Enterprise mashups are the part that shows.”

Read more at: SearchSOA

HP integrates design and runtime SOA governance

Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst, ZapThink LLC., said the SOA Manager/Systinet combination “brings together design time and runtime SOA governance in a single integrated lifecycle, essentially providing closed-loop SOA governance.”

The public availability of the GIF specification is the other important part of the HP governance announcement today, Bloomberg said. “The GIF news is important because it will help drive long-needed interoperability in the industry among a wide variety of SOA-related offerings.”

Read more at: SearchSOA

Implementing SOA Without Enterprise Mashups? You Might As Well Kiss Your Job Goodbye!

Ok, ok, it’s an overstatement. But the ROI of SOA is difficult, at best, to define and measure. Have you noticed that the press and blogosphere is filled with SOA implementers/analysts discussing the ROI of SOA and the idea that stand-alone SOA efforts are DOA? For a small snapshot of this teacup tempest, look no further than the recent commentary from SOA expert David Linthicum, the Nucleus Report on SOA ROI, and the subsequent commentary from ZDNet’s Joe McKendrick and IT advisors Neil Macehiter and Neil Ward-Dutton.

Read more at: SYS-Con