Entering the pressroom of IBM`s partner world for a luncheon hosted by one of the many "fathers of the Internet" last week, I was shown what I believe to be the future of the Internet by a South African IBMer who defected to the US.
The second amazing thing about the Sash development environment is its ability to use Web info in more than just a Web browser.
Jason Norwood-Young, technology editor, ITWeb
The IBM product that was unveiled is slugged Sash, and is still in development. Using new Web technologies like XML and Soap (simple object application protocol), combined with Java and JavaScript, the expatriate whipped up a simple dynamic Web object displaying the weather, and then popped it into what the Sashers call an "action" - which could be a Web browser, a window on your desktop, or an embedded part of another application.
The first amazing thing about the demonstration is that the weather information was not generated locally - the system whisked the temperature from another site that makes its Soap objects publicly available. Soap objects are bits of code, which, thanks to the recent alliance between Oasis and Microsoft, are compatible with one another. They speak the language of XML, meaning that they can send formatted data between one another with descriptions of what that data is.
A system called UDDI - basically a directory for Soap objects - allows Web designers to browse through libraries of Soap objects and select the ones they need. It is a bit like publishing objects through LDAP (light-weight directory application protocol), or registering them in a DCOM (dynamic component object model) system.
For example, if I want to get a stock ticker of my share price on my front page, I no longer have to employ teams of developers to link to the stock exchange, or do a barter deal with one of the many share price institutes online. I merely search for a stock ticker Soap object out on the Web, send it the name of the share I wish to have displayed, and it will send back a little piece of data, wrapped in XML, with the stock information I need.
Doing it all
The second amazing thing about the Sash development environment is its ability to use Web info in more than just a Web browser. If I want to have that info displayed in the task bar, I can do that. If I want it in a little self-contained application, I can do that too. WAP? No problem. I can have the same information formatted in multiple ways, depending on my need for that information.
Sash tied in nicely with what our luncheon host, John Patrick, IBM VP of Internet technology, had to say. He spoke of the limitations of the Web browser, and our need to move beyond a technology that is getting a little long in the tooth.
The problem with a Web browser is that, while it is great to use for accessing information, it is unsuited to user interaction - a factor that is becoming more important as the Internet becomes a mission-critical business tool. It also ties people to the desktop - a ball and chain that many are trying to break away from.
He also spoke of the next wave of the Internet - that of Web objects, such as Soap, enabled by XML and UDDI. I agree with him. The next great successes of the Internet will not be pretty front-end Web sites without much real-world use - they will be business objects that use the Internet to spread their reach to the world, grabbing data and turning it into information, or passing it along to those who need it.
It is not only IBM that subscribes to this model in one way or another - the industry is for once in agreement on which direction the Internet should - and will - take next. Microsoft, Sun and Novell are releasing software to tackle this new frontier, all based around the XML, Soap and UDDI combination.
The next stage of the Internet will not be a free lunch - it will be a business buffet.
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