New Rich Client Tools

There’s been a spate of articles in the press of late extolling the virtues of a “rich application user experience”. As Internet-based computing matures and distributing applications become mainstream, users are asking the question; “why does the interface have to be so primitive?” While the computing ubiquity afforded by the browser has been a tremendous advancement in application distribution, its least common denominator interface has taken a toll on user productivity. Simply stated, application interfaces are more archaic and harder to use then they were during the client-server era.

Well worry no more. At last count, there were over twenty companies who have created alternative development platforms that allow developers to create rich client applications that fuse the benefits of Internet computing with robust user interfaces. Regardless of whether these new products are server-based, client-based or a combination of the two, all of these solutions allow developers to build sophisticated user interfaces without sacrificing the distribution benefits previously enjoyed only by browser applications.

This is all well and good but now developers have a new problem on their hands. While developers want to deliver better and easier to use applications to their users, they’ve spent a lot of time and effort acquiring their current skill sets and are going try to leverage those skills across as many projects as possible. Why take the time to learn yet another development environment when the tools they use day-in and day-out will most often suffice? Sure, some of these new products may perform a little better or have a few extra features, but ultimately, the more applications a developer can roll out using the same set of tools, the better off everyone will be. Applications will get rolled out faster, will be more stable and easier supported.

So despite the recent flood of product announcements, we believe most of these new vendors will not survive because developers will continue to use the tools with which they are already comfortable. This is especially the case when you consider the fact that support of service-based computing is job one for many of the larger tool vendors and that a feature that shows up in startup vendor A’s product will most likely appear in the next version of vendor B’s product.

The bottom line is developers want to leverage their skills across as many projects as possible and we don’t believe they will embrace these new tools en mass unless these vendors create something truly unique. Based on the attention being paid to this space by the major development players, this scenario is unlikely. While there will be some attention paid to these new offerings, in the end, developers will pass on these products and seek solutions that are compatible with the languages and development environments they already use.