Veteran RIA (Rich Internet Application) vendor Lazslo Systems is hoping that its new focus on selling the Laszlo Webtop will finally enable the company to find the market success that has so far eluded it. Laszlo calls the Webtop offering a "Web 2.0 desktop" because the software is browser-based; it relies on Ajax (or Flash) technology for layout and interactivity; and the product's foundation allows for easy integration with other data sources and systems.


Understanding the Webtop offering

Webtop is a licensed bundle of applications, APIs (application programming interfaces), and functionality built on the company's open source-licensed OpenLaszlo RIA development platform. Laszlo calls Webtop a "framework" -- one designed to enable and drive an interactive, modular, Web-based applications environment. The core, visible offering is a Web-based email and a lightweight contact management integrated environment delivered through a browser (the vendor notes that Webtop will be supplemented in the future with instant messaging, calendaring, and video conferencing modules). It is in some ways similar to other online mail and contact management systems, such as Yahoo!'s latest version of its free Web mail.

For those who license the Webtop code, the product allows for a wide range of customization and expansion. The interface can be "skinned" (i.e., its look and feel, such as colors and logos, can be altered) for rebranding by organizations that license the code, such as Internet service providers (ISPs) and companies deploying it for their own employees. Licensees can also expand Webtop by integrating it with other applications and third-party services, using its own APIs (application programming interfaces) and leveraging industry and public standards, such as XML, Web services, and third-party APIs.

Webtop is a very different offering than the original RIA development platforms that vendors like Laszlo offered earlier in the decade. Yes, it is based off an iteration of the original Laszlo RIA platform. But by focusing on a packaged set of applications, Laszlo is presenting itself in a different manner than before.

Evolution No. 3

Laszlo has undergone several significant strategic transformations over the years. When we first talked to the vendor more than five years ago, they were easily identified as a core, if not well-known member of the RIA development tools market (overshadowed by the large software vendors, such as Adobe with its Flash technology and Sun Microsystems with its various Java- and Web-based presentation solutions). Now, it's harder to postion them given their current marketing emphasis.

How has the company's strategy changed over the years? Significant eras in Laszlo's history include:

• LPS and cool-looking widgets: Promoting an RIA development tool (2002). With a focus on both Flash -- as in Adobe's presentation technology -- and flash -- as in smooth, Apple-like desiged widgets and solutions -- the company pitched both its development platform -- called Laszlo Presentation Server, or LPS -- and its professional services. Today, the company notes that this launch was the "first rich Internet application (RIA) platform available at that time." While other vendors will debate that claim, there is no doubt that Laszlo has been in the RIA game for many years.
  
  
• OpenLaszlo: Doing the open source thing (Fall, 2004). In October of 2004, the company announced a new strategy: " ... the entire Laszlo platform is now available as open source under the Common Public License .... " (read the release here; the CPL license is explained here). As part of this announcement, the LPS was renamed OpenLaszlo.
  
  
• Laszlo Webtop: Licensing a modular application framework (Fall, 2007). As mentioned previously, this fall, the vendor announced an enhanced version of the Laszlo Webtop, calling the product "its flagship commercial offering" (press release is here). In the original Webtop introduction release from last March, the company described it as "... a commercially licensed software product built on OpenLaszlo that uniquely combines the functionality and ease-of-use of a conventional desktop user interface with the ubiquity of browser deployment" (press release is here). This was just a few days after the vendor formally released an Ajax-ready version of OpenLaszlo (the Flash runtime is still available). Two years before, the company had first hinted at this strategy when it discussed "a new Digital Life suite of licensed applications." A year before that, it had publicly previewed its mail application.
  

Why all the major strategic shifts? Laszlo's meanderings reflect the overall RIA market, and more specifically the inability of RIA vendors to prosper solely by licensing RIA development tools.


Different RIA year, still limited RIA market traction

RIA has never been a major success -- as a development paradigm, an accepted and understood term, or a hot technology. The vision is still compelling: interactive Web-based applications with minimal client-side software installation and minimal bandwidth requirments. Those promises were valid when they were proposed with the first RIA offerings and remain so today, although the issue of bandwidth is less critical in today's broadband world. But even with maturing and brand new RIA solutions, the market remains in the doldrums. Veteran and fresh RIA vendors valiantly promote an optimistic future, but users don't have the same interactive client vision as vendors.

Some startups have disappeared (Droplets), some continue to look for the right technology (Sun Microsystems), some are lingering in the RIA market netherworld (Curl), some are still struggling to gain developer traction (Adobe), some toil on trying to hit the big time (Nexaweb), and others are just getting into the game (Microsoft). All the while, hand-coding and still rough open source toolkits for adding Web page interactivity, such as the Dojo Toolkit (visit the Dojo Foundation here), are making strides and threatening to undermine the RIA tool market.

Almost once a year, we write about the RIA market, wondering if this is the year the compelling nature of the promise will attract individual developer -- and perhaps more importantly, CIO and IT executive -- interest. For example, in 2005 we published a post titled, "Next-generation Web app frameworks deliver results" (read it here). A year later, despite the continued popularity of Ajax solutions in consumer mapping services and a handful of other Web apps, not much had changed when we wrote another post, "With AJAX and SOA, RIA is even more compelling and less risky" (read it here). With this post, once again we discuss market promise but focus on vendor struggles. Will we write about RIA challenges once again in 2008, or is it time to shift the discussion?


RIA versus page augmentation: The difference does matter

Some would argue that the RIA market is, in fact, picking up steam with the industry adoption of Ajax technology. Ajax leverages industry standards, such as JavaScript, CSS (cascading style sheets), and XML (extensible markup language). Google Maps was the initial solution that put Ajax on the radar for technology enthusiasts and CIOs alike. Flash-based Web page augmentation has also been popular, with YouTube the poster child for Flash's acceptance. But Ajax and Flash success stories have so far been about partial Web page augmentation -- essentially, adding interactive elements to a static Web page -- so it is hard to argue that Ajax adoption and RIA adoption are one and the same.

While discussing Web page augmentation and RIAs may seem like splitting hairs, there is a reason to view the two as different animals. A "true" RIA is an end-to-end application, with an interactive, Web-browser application frontend tied to a server that integrates with other systems and data sources -- all of which is created in a single development environment. The development environment enables code management, easy widget creation and reuse, and has hooks into server-side applications and databases. Simply crafting a client app to backend data sources using a solution like Dojo may get the job done, but it won't satisfy IT shops that need to model, document, enhance, and maintain the solution over years.

So while the gap between page augmentation and RIAs is somewhat fuzzy, the folks who understand and will invest in an RIA platform will know exactly why they choose that path. For the rest of the industry and its observers, most will ignore the nuances and be happy to simply scroll through their maps or drag and drop their Web-based email.

By: Tom Rhinelander, NRG Analyst