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Convergence of Web, Mobile and Desktop Apps is the Next Phase

Exclusive Q&A with Jeremy Chone, CTO of Nexaweb
By Jeremy Geelan
Article Rating:
October 15, 2008 11:00 AM EDT
Reads:
 14,702

'While the last decade was focused on the Web, the next phase in the evolution of our industry will be on the convergence of Web, mobile and desktop applications and the ability to extend existing applications with these new technologies for a consistent user experience regardless of how and where the information is viewed,' says Nexaweb CTO Jeremy Chone in this Exclusive Q&A with with SYS-CON's Web 2.0 Journal in the run-up to his session on October 20 at AJAX World RIA Conference & Expo in San Jose, California (October 20-22, 2008)

Web 2.0 Journal: Starting at 35,000 ft…where does Nexaweb’s software offerings fit in the ever-changing Enterprise IT universe?

Jeremy Chone: Nexaweb actually fits in very nicely in the ever changing enterprise IT universe. When you consider the convergence of Web 2.0, mobile and desktop applications, you quickly realize that the IT manager is faced with the challenge of bringing these technologies together in a consistent user experience. Nexaweb provides this much needed consistent and rich interface and takes care of the ‘heavy lifting’ to save companies time and money on their application development efforts while securing past architecture investment.

Web 2.0 Journal: How exactly can software/applications be “modernized” applications using Web 2.0 technologies? What happens tan organization’s existing business applications?

Chone: For SOA applications, the best way to modernize is to componentize and extend the user experience aspect of the application that will in turn enable the applications composition and mashup. One critical architectural decision is to choose technologies that augment current SOA platforms without requiring changing the application model (for example, technologies that support distributed MVC).

For legacy applications, the best approach to modernize is to transform the legacy application by transferring the core application and business logic of the application into a modern application architecture (e.g., SOA, Java, and RIA).

Web 2.0 Journal: You blogged not too long ago about there being a definite “Web Developer Spectrum” and how an individual developer might wear several hats. Could you expand on that?

Chone: In my “Web Developer Spectrum” blog article, I talk about four categories of developers from enterprise developers to hobbyists and hackers. While this segmentation makes sense at a high-level and from a project-type point of view, with the popularization of open source, many developers work on multiple projects.

For example, a Google developer (Web 2.0) might work on a Mozilla Firefox extension in his or her spare time that might not be directly related to its Google engineering work (and therefore do not obey to the same domain-rules). This is actually a great new trend in the software industry allowing new paradigms and technologies to travel much faster through the developer spectrum. In many ways, we are beginning to see an inverse-innovation flow from the community to the technology providers.

Web 2.0 Journal: Assuming, within this spectrum, that Enterprise Technology Developers are key for Nexaweb, what characteristics of the Nexaweb platform do you think resonate most favorably with that segment of the industry?

Chone: Nexaweb Universal Client Framework provides a unique and modern XML approach for building rich application allowing enterprise developers to progressively add richness and interactivity to their application without breaking their current enterprise web architecture. With Nexaweb technologies, enterprise developers have access to a consistent and coherent framework to build enterprise application that span across HTML, AJAX, Java, and Desktop runtimes.

Web 2.0 Journal: What practical metrics are there to enable the “productivity-driven enterprise” to measure increased productivity?

Chone: While there are many ways that companies measure productivity, Nexaweb has found that the three key criteria for enabling the productivity driven enterprise are based on 1) cost savings resulting from reduced development time and application maintainability; 2) extending the value of existing applications with a future-proof architecture (adding RIA without breaking existing enterprise architecture); and 3) faster time to market by providing a consistent user experience across the various interfaces available throughout the organization.

Next Page: Chone on Service Orientation - Architecture of Partition - Innovation

Published October 15, 2008 – Reads 14,702
Copyright © 2008 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
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More Stories By Jeremy Geelan

Jeremy Geelan is Sr. Vice-President of SYS-CON Media & Events. He is Conference Chair of the all-new International Cloud Computing Expo series, of the International Virtualization Expo series, of AJAXWorld RIA Conference & Expo series, and of the long-running SOAWorld Conference & Expo series. He's founder of Cloud Computing Journal, Web 2.0 Journal, AJAX & RIA Journal and other leading SYS-CON titles. From 2000-6, as first editorial director and then group publisher of SYS-CON Media, he was responsible for the development of all new titles and i-Technology portals for the firm, and regularly represents SYS-CON at conferences and trade shows, speaking to technology audiences both in North America and overseas. He is executive producer and presenter of "Power Panels with Jeremy Geelan" on SYS-CON.TV.

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