rhs blog: IBM Workplace Client Technologies Rich Edition (10/05/2004 07:13:46 AM)

I couldn't blog live from Andrew's session. The wireless here at UK Admin & Developer 2004 was up, but it wasn't getting out to the Internet. So, I took some notes in Notepad. I have Microsoft's OneNote, and I'm pretty impressed with it, but without a tablet it seems like it's not going to be any better than Notepad for taking quick notes that are going to be transcribed anyhow. Maybe I'll try it out for one of the sessions this afternoon.

Andrew spoke about the new rich client. He's drunk the Kool-Aid, and he liked it, and it showed in the presentation. When Andrew is enthusiastic about something, when he integrates a new technology into his vision of the future, there can be little question that it's worth looking into. So I will. Andrew is sitting ten feet to my left as I type this, but that has nothing at all to do with my saying nice things about him :-)

Bill Hume of IBM was in the audience for Andrew's presentation, and it was very clear from his reaction that Andrew really pegged the value proposition and the technical foundations of the rich client very well. A couple of people left Andrew's presentation and went right over to Ed Brill and told him that IBM marketing should steal Andrew's presentation, because the clarity of the message was so good.

So, here are the major points Andrew made:

The real name of the product, as of now, is "IBM Workplace Client Technologies Rich Edition". Andrew thinks the name "Universal Rich Client" would be much more apt, because one of the key reasons for adopting this technology is that one client framework can be used for more than one purpose, for applications built on more than one server.

The goal of the rich client is to create an environment with cost of ownership on a par with a browser, but with the power a purpose-built dedicated client for any type of application. Automated provisioning of plug-ins within the Eclipse framework is the key component that makes this possible. IBM provides "rich client extensions" for Eclipse, which include syncML, local DB2 data store support, and an EJB container.

Notes will run as a plug-in within the rich client. This is not a ground-up Java re-write of Notes (no matter what you may read anywhere else.) It is the existing cross-platform Notes GUI code "re-targeted" to run within the Eclipse/rich client environment. This means that it's every bit as good as (and every bit as bad as -- let's be totally honest here) the current Notes client. This means that application compatability is not a crapshoot. This means that Lotus still has to develop compiled code for each client hardware platform that they want to support. This also means that it's a fatter client than Notes is already, so the key question is going to be what benefits are you really going to get from this?

The provisioning is a big benefit, obviously, at least for those with fat pipes running. The other benefit will be the ability to integrate custom UI components directly into Workplace client applications. The extent to which this will benefit Notes/Domino-based applications running within the rich client is something that I'll be very interested in understanding.