Improving Rich Internet Applications
While rich internet applications aren’t new, recent developments have boosted potential reach and capabilities. Business Management takes an in-depth look at how and why it has taken off, and where the market is heading.
“Rich internet applications have allowed the integration of information from a wide variety of sources that is presented to users in a highly accessible, usable and appealing format,” explains Brett Cortese, President of Universal Mind, Inc. “Dramatically increasing customer satisfaction and making core critical processes far more efficient.” Indeed, companies that have successfully employed a rich internet applications (RIA) have enjoyed much success.
The archetypal example is Google Maps, which meshed geographical information with structured database information and added interactivity. Since then, thousands of companies have jumped on board embracing interactive capabilities, from email applications, such as Yahoo Mail and Gmail, to the social networking sites of MySpace and Facebook.
So what is a rich internet application, and why have they become so popular? Technically speaking, rich internet applications are a variety of applications that use tools and middleware technologies enabling the mixing of traditional structured information, with audio, video, images and high-interactivity into one mashed-up, user-facing environment. “It’s highly presentation-centric,” explains Al Hilwa, Program Director for Application Development Software, IDC. “While in fact what is ultimately delivered are applications, most of the time we’re talking about the tools and middleware that enable those applications, meaning the languages, the libraries and the authoring tools that make these things possible.”
Hilwa goes on to explain that rich internet applications have been around for some time, in fact it took the internet 10 to 15 years to catch up to computer capabilities, however the current amount of interactivity with much larger internet databases, rich content and much larger communities of people online, has brought a new dimension of richness to the applications. “In the last four or five years, we’ve sort of seen a revolution in this kind of technology and it’s everywhere now,” he says.
Hilwa believes that are two reasons why a company should invest in rich internet applications. Firstly, the area is a highly competitive space and it is an absolute must for retailers or manufacturers who are competing with other companies using the medium to do every thing they can to attract customers. Secondly, as consumers become habituated to highly interactive web-sites, it becomes harder to attract customers without RIA technology. “Advertising, of course, is another huge driver, and so you need an interactive site to attract customers, otherwise you are not going to be able to keep up and eyeballs will go elsewhere,” summarizes Hilwa.
Becoming mainstream
As rich internet applications continue to gather pace in the market, Hilwa believes that the market will continue to head in a positive direction, and Cortese agrees: “The ability to innovate business models and processes has become critical to business growth and in some cases survival. RIAs have become key enablers in driving this innovation.”
Hilwa believes that the business benefits of RIA should be thought about from two different perspectives: the external customer-facing environment and the internal business environment. While rich internet applications have been huge on the business-to-consumer side, it hasn’t been particularly prevalent inside businesses, where projects remain hard to justify, remain largely cost orientated and ROI is difficult to attain. “More often than not, a company will put something out for its customers because that can be mapped directly to selling products and enticing customers to look at the product – it will have much more impact than inside the company,” says Hilwa.
For external-facing applications, Hilwa believes that businesses have no choice but to continue investing in rich internet applications. “The bar for interactivity is rising, driven by advertising, and if you want to have a web presence there is almost no choice over time but to continue with it – the ship has sailed.”
However, on the intranet side there is a whole set of different concerns and many more things to take into consideration, which is where application modernizing and mash-up come in. “Businesses are more reluctant to spend on internal projects today” explains Hilwa. In the current climate it is unlikely that there will be an explosion of internal application using rich middleware tools, although Hilwa expects external applications and ecommerce type applications to continue growing.
Indeed, Cortese believes that rich internet applications have rapidly moved from an interesting trend to a critical part of many businesses’ strategies. “Companies must extend their reach and business processes over multiple channels and devices. More and more applications will be ripped from the confines of the desktop and given new life and capabilities. This will continue to the point where RIAs are an expected part of business interaction.”
Future
Looking forward, Cortese believes that as SaaS platforms such as salesforce.com and the Intuit Partner Platform, mature and expand, businesses will move away from hosting critical business applications in-house. “This will provide lower cost of ownership and far greater flexibility. RIA technologies are perfect for capitalizing on the rise of these platforms and the cloud in general.”
However, Hilwa sees a potential barrier slowing adoption. He believes that application developers have to negotiate a variety of technologies that are currently competing for standards. As with many new business tools, several vendors are vying for market share, Adobe, for example, has made some early strides with their flash technology. “Adobe has really grabbed a chunk of the market through some smart alliances and through their mobile platform. But there are challengers,” explains Hilwa. “Microsoft has made a play to muscle in with its Windows Presentation Foundation derivative browser plug-in called Silverlight, and Java has recently released a new platform for RIA called JavaFX.”
As the major players continue to wrestle over the technology, it makes it harder for business decision makers to figure out what standards to use. “There’s that age old question in the history of computing,” says Hilwa. “What development language do I use, what runtime do I use? Because standards are never completely standard there are always variations, and it’s no different in this case. The decision makers have to decide, and it’s completely understandable why companies might slow down their decision making as they negotiate these options or wait to see which standards become more prevalent.”
Business benefits
When RIA technology is applied properly it is possible to:
- Create a more engaging experience – building a larger and more active customer base
- Keep customers on your site rather than lose them to competitors
- Build your brand
- Use and re-use web services, gaining a higher return on your technology investment
- Add new features to your website, potentially turning your site into a larger profit centre.