The oft-failed concept of delivering desktop Windows applications over the Web just keeps on coming back and taking another try, as I wrote in this column three weeks ago (see Old ASP Ideas Are New Again). Since that article appeared, I've not only received numerous e-mails from readers commenting on the phenomenon, I've also discovered further evidence that the idea really does seem to be on the verge of a resurgence, albeit in a different guise from the original Citrix-based proposition.
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The most striking discovery came while I was researching Web applications that can be inserted into weblogs, a form of document creation that is about as far removed as you can get from Word on the PC. Against all the odds, I suddenly found myself sitting in front of an online demonstration of hosted Microsoft Office XP, which had been embedded in a weblog page using simply a link to a URL.
Online demonstrations like this were all the rage a year or two ago when ASPs were eager to show that Office could be delivered over the Web. But while the demonstrations were plentiful, convincing explanations as to why on earth anyone would want to access a desktop application across an Internet link were decidedly thin on the ground.
Sharing Documents Across the Net
Marix Technology, the company behind the demo I saw last week, has avoided this pitfall — although its previous name of FreeDesk suggests that it once sought — like so many other hosted Office hopefuls — to liberate users from their trusted desktop PCs.
Today, Marix takes a different tack, promoting its offering as a way of giving external Web-based users controlled access to selected documents. Its AppLink service allows a subscriber to provide a URL that visitors can use to open the document in a remote Windows session. All the necessary client software is downloaded automatically to the visitor's browser, but the document remains on the server. The AppLink subscriber is free to set an access password if they wish, and to determine whether visitors are allowed to edit, download or print the document.
So instead of attempting to replace Office on the desktop, the Marix solution extends Office into online collaboration environments where it has rarely been able to go before. Another service from Marix uses AppLink to intercept and store both incoming and outgoing e-mail attachments on a central server, neatly eliminating many of the bandwidth and security threats often associated with attachments.
Intelligently wrapping Windows terminal technology into services like these greatly increases the chance of success for a company like Marix. But it's not the only company that is venturing anew into the field of remote access to Windows applications.
Softricity Turns Apps into Web Services
Last week, Microsoft announced that it will be promoting technology from startup company Softricity that allows Windows applications to be offered as Web services. Softricity's Softgrid platform streams applications to user machines from a central server. Although the applications execute on the user's PC, they do so within a protected environment that doesn't interfere with the machine's settings. All the user rights and settings are managed from the central server. The approach therefore combines the benefits of central management with the advantages of local execution.
The joint development, sales and marketing deal with Microsoft is a real coup for Softricity, one of a number of emerging companies that offer technologies for streaming applications from central management servers to remote PCs. Last week, applications-on-demand platform vendor Exent Technologies announced its entry into the corporate market, while Paris-based Esual Software which announced winning $8 million in a fourth funding round.
What all of these solutions have in common is a recognition that there are some things that are best done in the network, while others work best on the desktop. The trick is to architect the applications and the delivery platforms in a way that divides these roles in the optimum way. Speaking of which, a Microsoft contact pointed out to me that my comments on synchronization in Exchange and Outlook two weeks ago were behind the times (see The ASP (Silent) Killer App). I had written that it should be possible to keep a master copy of your inbox data on the server, but it turns out that my wish has already been granted. It looks like it's time I upgraded.
Striking an Online-Desktop Balance
The interaction of online functionality with desktop functionality is one that will continue to be a focus of development and innovation for some time still to come. At the moment, we don't fully understand the optimum balance, and many of the technologies and standards are still to be fully defined. But what's absolutely clear already is that making the interaction slick and reliable will be a critical element in the success of Web services architectures.
A good illustration of why this matters so much came with last week's announcement by online CRM vendor Upshot of its integration with MS Office (see UpShot Mixes CRM With Microsoft Office Apps). Upshot's CEO Keith Raffel made clear in his interview with ASPnews that the ASP's Office Express service "leverages Excel 2000 as the client," while the Office Connect application programming interfaces (APIs) announced last week are designed so that developers using Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET tools can easily link UpShot's online functionality with desktop applications.
Raffel is clearly under no illusions that UpShot needs to interact with client functionality if it is to succeed as a network-based application. Indeed, the irony of Upshot's linking into Office in this way when Microsoft's own Great Plains subsidiary still hasn't ventured beyond Windows terminal deployment of its suite is not lost on Raffel: "We fit more with the vision for Web services [than Great Plains]," he told ASPnews.
Network Means Clients and Servers
One of the keys to understanding Web services is to recognize that they enable the distribution of functionality throughout the network. Unlike the first generation of ASPs, today's leading-edge practitioners realize that the client is as much a part of the network as the server, and that the purpose of Web services is to enhance the role played by the client rather than eliminating it. In a Web services environment, Office will still be a network application even when it's running on the desktop; and sometimes users will also need the option of running it from a server.
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