RIA Rich Clients mainstream in 2-5 years? Progress customers have them since the year 2000!

In the recent research note “Hype Cycle for Web and User Interaction Technologies, 2008”¹, published 7 July 2008 (Gartner document ID Number: G00159447),  Gartner provides a comprehensive analysis of user interface technologies for the Web throughout the Hype Cycle² stages: from Technology Trigger to Plateau of Productivity through Peak of Inflated Expectations.   In addition, for each technology Gartner assigns a projection of Years to Mainstream Adoption.

The section of the document that caught my attention and inspired me to write this blog is ‘RIA Rich Client’ by Ray Valdes.   Gartner defines ‘RIA Rich Client’ to refer to ‘…a subset of Rich Internet Application (RIA) platforms that consist of outside-the-browser client-side technology, such as Adobe Air, Sun Microsystems’ Java FX, Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Foundation, Eclipse Rich Client Platform and IBM Lotus Expeditor…’   Gartner places ‘RIA Rich Client’ in the Peak of Inflated Expectations stage with 2-5 years to Mainstream Adoption.

This is good news for Progress® customers because they have been using RIA Rich Client ‘world-class business applications³ since the year 2000, when we first introduced Progress® WebClient™ with IntelliStream™!

Progress WebClient – a product of the Progress OpenEdge® platform to deploy, provision and run Windows-desktop GUI business applications outside-the-browser over the Internet, Intranet or LAN – provides the same support for Windows-desktop graphical user interfaces as the traditional Client/Server OpenEdge client product. Once users install WebClient on their PC (one time download), they can quickly download the user interface components they need and run the application. 

You can launch Progress WebClient either from a shortcut or from a Web browser, but it does not actually run in the browser. WebClient runs in its own window as a separate application, not as a traditional plug-in to a Web browser, and not using emulation (e.g. Citrix or Terminal Services).

IntelliStream™ is a Progress technology to automate deployment and provisioning.  IntelliStream features a flexible, server-based provisioning model where ISVs can choose whether they want to provision the application from Web servers, file servers or even on OpenEdge AppServers.  IntelliStream enables WebClient to determine whether the application components have changed and need to be updated. Then WebClient downloads only those user interface resources to the users’ PC. It delivers exactly the parts of an application that end users need, when they need them. 

But we’ve not been standing still since the year 2000.  Because business power users need state-of-the-art user interfaces, WebClient has evolved to support .NET Winforms as well.

In summary, Progress WebClient retains all the richness of the traditional GUI clients but with the reach of the Internet, and automates deployment and provisioning for flexibility, ease of use and to keep the costs down, that is: Rich Client RIAs. 

--
References:
¹ Hype Cycle for Web and User Interaction Technologies, 2008
Publication Date: 7 July 2008 ID Number: G00159447
David Gootzit, Gene Phifer, Ray Valdes, Nikos Drakos, Anthony Bradley, Kathy Harris, Daniel Sholler, Massimo Pezzini, Yefim V. Natis, Bill Gassman, David Mitchell Smith, David W. Cearley, Roy W. Schulte, Stephen Prentice, Nicholas Gall, William Clark, Anne Lapkin
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=159447

² Understanding Hype Cycles
http://www.gartner.com/it/products/research/methodologies/research_hype.jsp

³ Progress WebClient-based business applications in production include hundreds of enterprise applications across most verticals, for example: Financial and Stock Broker Mgmt (5500 users), Growers Mgmt  (7000 users), Hospitals Mgmt, Libraries Mgmt,  Managed Healthcare, and many more.

Comments

[Alon Blich]

I strongly disagree.

UI's have traditionally been a choice between the "Rich" of desktop apps and the "Reach" of traditional Web apps.

WebClient is SERIOUSLY lacking in the Reach department. It's definitely very far from a zero install type arrangement or atleast a light one with a high rate of penetration like for example Flash.

The fact that it even installs sources, r-codes and all the UI side of the application on the client side, oh, besides, I'm guessing, more then a hundred megabytes just for the client puts it miles away from the "Reach" of UI's like Web Apps, Flex etc. both from a user ease of use and developer maintenance, deployment etc. point of view.

Not to mention the Win95 look and feel isn't all that "rich", well, at least more responsive then a traditional web app.

In my opinion it's more of a difference between an obese and a fat client but definitely not RIA's.

[Phillip Molly Malone]

Alon I think you will find that the technologies you mentioned aren't the same ones that are being refered to as RIA ones. Flash and AIR although related are different models. If you want the reach with OpenEdge, you go with Webspeed. If you want something in between, you go with Webclient.

On the "more then a hundred megabytes just for the client" try like about 18-20mb. Yep not small but comparable to AIR that is 12mb!

On the UI. Your right, needs an update and in 10.2A (due out later this year) you will be able to have a pretty .Net style UI on your business application.

HTH
Molly

[Alon Blich]

Hello Philip,

And thank you for taking the time to write back.

I beg to differ. If anything Flex and AIR are the poster childs for RIA. I doubt there are many people who think differently.

Putting aside the argument that they're not RIA.

You could go to almost any computer almost anywhere on almost any os and hardware type a link and you've got a rich desktop like application in seconds.

With WebClient you'll need a full scale installation (because not every computer has WebClient pre-installed) of not only the client/platform but all the sources for a substantial part of the application.

In my point of view, the WebClient scenario is pretty much the traditional distributed application.

A substantial installation and foot print for the client/application that uses an appserver and no direct connection to the database. Pretty standard and it was similar to other scenarios/tech at that time.

But 10.2 looks great :)

[Chris Swingler]

What about Ajax clients ? There are some companies in the Progress world that are moving towards this style of interface. How do you guys rate Ajax with Progress ? Also Progress UK has an enhanced WebSpeed environment called ps:eScript which produces good UI too. Back to Salvadors initial comment on WebClient, the tool of choice in my opinion for building applications to deploy with the WebClient has been DWP the Dynamic WebClient Platform. Designed by Peter van Dam it combines all screen and application data into one single stateless appserver call thus giving amazing performance for thousands of users. Another Progress partner technology to look into is the Skin Client from IAP in Germany. With this tool you can create Java UIs while still programming in Progress ABL. I'd be interested in any comments anyone has on these technologies.

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