While I was at Dreamforce this year I had the chance to do a video interview with Peter Coffee from Salesforce.com. In this interview we discussed the industry momentum behind RIAs in enterprise software and how Flex, Adobe AIR, and Force.com are being combined to deliver much better user experiences in business applications. The recorded interview is below. You can also find the original post on Peter Coffee’s blog.
A few weeks ago I was able to participate in a Chalk Talk with Salesforce.com and StakeWare. The session focused on how Rich Internet Applications, Flex, and Adobe AIR relate to the Force.com platform. With this combination of technologies companies like StakeWare can quickly build business applications that have rich user interfaces that work the same across browsers and operating systems.
PodTech recorded the session and have split it into three parts [part1, part2, part3]. I spoke in part 2. You can watch the video below or on the PodTech site.
At Oracle OpenWorld on Tuesday and then on Wednesday at Larry Ellison’s keynote the seventh Flex application announced at OpenWorld was demonstrated. Like Sales Prospector and Sales Library this application, Sales Campaign, is part of the larger Oracle CRM OnDemand suite that is scheduled to go live in the first half of 2008. The Sales Campaign application allows sales people to easily create and track the success of their campaigns. Like all the other Flex applications Oracle showed over the past few days the interface is simple, clean, and effective. Exactly what users want! Great job Oracle! Here is a photo of Sales Campaign from the Tuesday session (courtesy of Todd Ruhl - my personal photographer assistant - just kidding - Todd has been an instrumental part of educating Oracle about Flex and getting Flex adopted at Oracle):
The second Flex application which Oracle demonstrated at Ed Abbo’s keynote on Tuesday was Sales Library. The Sales Library helps sales people organize and share their sales content. The interface is very clean and elegant. The transitions are smooth and useful. Very impressive stuff! Here is a photo of the Sales Library demo from Oracle OpenWorld (courtesy of Todd Ruhl):
Still one more Oracle Flex application left to announce. Stay tuned.
In Ed Abbo’s keynote at Oracle OpenWorld on Tuesday, Oracle announced two new products that are built with Flex. The first, Sales Prospector, will go live in the first half of 2008. The Sales Prospector helps companies make better sales forecasts and in the words of Larry Ellison the software will “help the salesperson sell” instead of just forecast. The demo looked great! I can’t wait to try it out! Here is a photo from the keynote (courtesy of Todd Ruhl):
Matt Raible is one of those guys in the Java community who I’ve always respected. He has been around for a long time and contributed a ton to making the ecosystem better. He recently posted a few blogs about “Comparing JVM Web Frameworks”:
http://raibledesigns.com/rd/entry/comparing_web_frameworks_time_for
http://raibledesigns.com/rd/entry/comparing_jvm_web_frameworks_presentation
I wanted to respond to Matt’s request to provide feedback about his presentation. Due to the length of my response I decided to post it on my blog instead of in the comments on his. So here goes…
Yesterday at Oracle OpenWorld I co-presented a session with Dipock Das on Siebel CRM and Rich Internet Applications. Dipock and I talked about how Rich Internet Applications are transforming the user experience in Enterprise Software. We also presented a proof-of-concept I built with Flex in about two days. Dipock and I were able to move from his paper-based mock-up and Siebel data file to a working application with only two short conversations and two days of coding. The application, named “Contact Radar”, allows sales people to easily see how long it has been since they were in contact with their customers and potential customers. Ultimately we wanted to illustrate how my four axioms of Rich Internet Applications - Connected, Alive, Interactive, and Responsive - relate to Enterprise Software.
At Oracle OpenWorld yesterday the Oracle Enterprise Manager team introduced their new Flex based interface for doing database query reporting. I am very excited to see this new use of Flex within an Oracle product! The audience was very enthusistic about features like rich data grids with tree interfaces and custom chart item renderers. These types of interfaces make DBAs lives much easier when they need to quickly find where there are bottlenecks and problems with their Oracle database clusters. Here is a picture from the session (courtesy of Todd Ruhl):
At Oracle OpenWorld yesterday there were Flex applications EVERYWHERE! There are even more to come today but before that I need to show off a few others from yesterday that we were able to grab pictures of.
These days how can you do data visualization without Flex? With the number of BI companies now using Flex it seems you can’t. I’m glad to see Oracle’s BI team using Flex and I’m looking forward to seeing more sexy dashboard goodness from them soon. Here’s a rather blurry photo of the new Flex based BI Publisher Dashboard (courtesy of Todd Ruhl):
Today I’m at Oracle OpenWorld watching a number of keynotes and sessions and I’m seeing Flex EVERYWHERE! First up was the Monday Keynote with Charles Phillips where Oracle demonstrated a new Flex based MetaLink. Back when I was a DBA/SysAdmin/Programmer I had to use MetaLink to get support from Oracle. Working with the interface was like a trip to dentist. Not fun. Well, today Oracle demonstrated the new version of MetaLink built with Flex. It looks great and using it is like a trip to the day spa. Great job Oracle! Here’s a photo of the new interface courtesy of Todd Ruhl: