Web app tools empower users

IBM and Google have recently upped the ante with their Web 2.0 offerings, with both companies releasing platforms designed to make it easier for non-technical users to build, merge and customise online applications.

IBM used its Impact 2008 conference in Las Vegas earlier this month to promote Mashup Center, a beta version of which was released on 15 April. Mashup Center is designed to let non-technical users create and share their own customised web applications in minutes, IBM said.

While Mashup Center comes with out-of-the-box widgets to help users to create applications tailored to their needs, the technology also features a range of management, security and governance tools to enable IT departments to exert some control over how it is used.

Impact 2008 also saw IBM announce WebSphere sMash, a development environment targeted at more advanced users. On his blog, Scott Shekerow, content editor, IBM DeveloperWorks Websphere, described sMash as giving developers the power to create composite applications with ease, adding that this would shorten development time and remove many barriers to development.

Also aimed at non-technical users is a new service currently being previewed by Google. Google App Engine is designed to let developers host, create and run applications as easily as they might create a blog, the firm said.

According to Kevin Gibbs, Google Tech Lead on the Google App Engine, the new offering provides many of the staple ingredients of web app development, which means users can spend more time on the important elements of projects, and less time performing system administration and maintenance tasks.

The SDK provides access to Python application servers, Global File System data store services and Google’s own scalable BigTable databases. As well as thi s, anything developed using the tools will work with Google Apps, such as its presentation, mail, and chat tools, and developers have full access to the firm’s growing list of APIs.

Experts argued that developers might be attracted to Google’s offering because it would remove much of the cost and complexity of hosting their own applications, even though this meant sacrificing some flexibility and control.

However, James Governor, an analyst with Redmonk.com, argued that Google may be pushing developers and the community too far in asking that they cede another element of their online activities to the firm.

“Google’s new SDK looks very interesting but it is conceivable this could be the company’s Passport moment. Nearly 10 years ago the web community freaked out when Microsoft tried to use Passport to become a gatekeeper for the web,” he said.
Jeffrey Mann, a research vice president at Gartner in the Netherlands, said IBM and Google’s announcements reflect a growing interest in this type of development among both power users and developers.

He argued that Google App Engine would be used mainly by individual developers. “The appeal of this is about taking advantage of the Google functionality, and its back-end,” he said. “However, IT managers get twitchy about exposing sensitive customer information to publicly available tools.” This issue of security is where IBM scores over its rival, he said, because its technology is designed to run behind the company firewall.

Mann, however, had some doubts about users’ readiness to adopt these tools “Linking in RSS feeds and making hookups between applications is not something that we see many heads of sales teams doing just yet,” he said.

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