Tuesday March 15, 2005

Ajax is good for Sun

In Monday's Wall Street Journal Lee Gomes had an column about AJAX. AJAX is the name for an overall approach for developing fast and powerful web based programs. Tim Bray also referred to Ajax in his perspective on Sun written on his first anniversary at Sun. I have to say that Mr. Gomes did an amazing job of explaining something complicated and making it simple. I am always in awe of people who make writing look easy. It is just too bad it costs significant dollars to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal online to read the article.

I disagree with Mr. Gomes on his analysis of how Ajax impacts Sun. Towards the end of the article he says "Who loses? For one, Sun Microsystems, which has for years talked up its Java programming language for precisely these sorts of jobs. Instead of Java Ajax-style programming uses JavaScript – no relation – which is easier to work with and built free into every browser."

Sun builds and sells computers, especially servers. As Tim says in his essay Sun does it very well. The more that what people want from their computers moves off people's desktops and on to the internet, the better off Sun is. To serve up content and programs from the internet requires servers. It requires lots of fast, powerful servers. That is exactly what Sun builds and sells. The more this web centric model becomes reality and the more people come to the conclusion that they don't need to own or administer a computer to do everything they need to do, the better the Sun Ray stateless client will sell and the better Sun will do.

When I started reading Gomes' article I thought to myself how great AJAX is for Sun and I still think so.

How Sun uses JES to enable mobility

Bill Vass, Sun's CIO has a Sun internal blog. He recently did an entry about how to use a internet enabled mobile device like a cell phone or PDA to read your Sun email or access the Sun Portal. It is a great demonstration of how well Sun's Java Enterprise System (JES) works. I asked him if it would be OK for me to edit his entry a bit and republish it here. He said yes. I have taken out the references to Sun internal web sites. If you are a Sun employee you will find more specifics in Bill's original blog.

One other point I should make, I haven't done this myself yet. Bill's blog has inspired me so that I am thinking about making the investment. It seems like a lot of money though. A Treo would probably cost me around $450 and I suspect I'd have to pay around $50 more per month on my Verizon cell phone service to get reasonable internet access. It is hard to justify spending that kind of money but on the other hand it sure would be fun to do.

From Bill's blog

"When I'm on the road meeting with customers I always try to show them the ability I have to access my Sun email and and Portal using my mobile device. Here's how...

First, you need to have the ability to log in to Sun's wide area network via either via Sun's full portal or our original edgemail pilot.

Second, you need a compatible device. I'm currently using the Sony Ericsson P910. The Palm Treo Smartphones, the Sony Ericsson P900, and the Nokia 6800 also will work well. It will really work on ANY device, including Microsoft based handsets and wireless PDAs, as long as it supports SSL, will run Java, and has an http/https browser such as the Opera Mobile Browser. It works with just the phone's browser too, but it does not have as many features and can be a little slower depending on the speed of your data connection. For Palm Treo users, the built in browser works fine.

Although you can use a Microsoft based device, we don't recommend it since they are not our standard and selecting one may limit the functionality you have in the future, and they are prone to viruses. On that note, always make sure your device's blue tooth and IR communication capability is turned OFF since viruses and hacking have been known to occur using those technologies. Also, always protect your PDA's or phones with a password/PIN whenever possible.

I strongly recommend devices that have a keyboard of some type to really be useful. The keyboard can be on the touch screen, on the face, or in some fold out configuration. Also, you want to select a Phone that has a Java SIM GSM chip, because we will be loading the service providers certificate into our system for seamless authentication. Take the time to look at the features of what ever device you are selecting. If it has a good keyboard, browser, and screen, you may find yourself using it more as a data connection for mail and portal interaction than as a voice connection for talking, as I do.

Third, you will want an IMAP client for direct connection to Edgemail, such as EmailViewer (Installconfig). For Palm Treo users, you can try Aileron, PaPi-Mail, or SnapperMail. Also, Palm's Versamail 2.7 and above will work on devices that support PalmOS 5.4 and above. PalmOS 5.2 has a bug in the SSL library implementation that fails with our SunPKI signed certs. For Symbian devices and MS SMartphone platforms you can use ProfiMail from Lonely Cat Software.

The IMAP client gives you a Rich interface to your mail server. However, without the IMAP client, you can access your mail through the portal's simple interface. Once the IMAP client is installed and configured properly, you will be able to access the Edge and login, as usual, through the browser using your user ID and password.

Wireless Portal
Through the wireless portal you will be able to access all sorts of SMI applications directly from the phone or wireless PDA. Mobile users should watch each new release of SunWeb to see what new applications and features will be enabled through your wireless device. Here is how you can set up your phone to access the wireless portal:

The user has to login to the portal via a regular web browser to configure the access to their calendar and mail account before they can access these applications via the wireless portal with their mobile device. Instructions to set up the mail/calendar account are as follows:
1. Login to the portal via a regular browser
2. Once logged in, a personalized desktop will be displayed with Calendar channel, Mail channel, Address Book channel ..etc
3. To configure your calendar account for the calendar channel,
- Click on the "edit" button on the right hand side of the title bar of the Calendar channel
- An edit page is displayed with the calendar server name and server port pre populated
- Enter your User Name and Password accordingly
- Click on the "Finished" button to save the configuration
- When done, your personalized desktop will be displayed with your calendar appoint shown on the channel
4. To configure your mail account for the Mail channel,
- Click on the "edit" button on the right hand side of the title bar of the Mail channel
- An edit page is displayed with the mail server name, Mail Client URL and Mail ClientPort Number....etc pre populated
- Enter your User Name and Password accordingly
- Click on the "Finished" button to save the configuration
- When done, your personalized desktop will be displayed with a list of mails shown on the channel
After the configuration is done, you can access your mail and calendar via the wireless portal with your mobile device.

Lots of great features are available today... and many more coming, watch the SunWeb portal news and my blog for new features as they become available. Get productive with your mobile device!

I encourage you to share this information with any other employee so they can start using JES (portal, Java, and edge mail/cal) the way the product teams intended.

Next I will show you how to sync your mobile phones off line features like calendar / contacts with the JES server directly through a wireless connection, and how we will be able to use your cell phone to authenticate to the network.

Try it out, and HAVE FUN!"