Transcript ProposalPresent

Decreasing Software
Expenditures with Web Standards
Using Thin Clients, Mozilla, and
XUL
Overview
• Costs of running a small business with third
party software
• Using Web technologies to decrease costs
and open new revenue streams
• Research methods, and problems
• Recommendations on how to proceed
• Questions
Costs Of Running A Business
With Third Party Software
• With a staff of 20, using only MS Windows
and MS Office, costs are:
Approx. $1, 000
PER YEAR!
PER USER!
Reading The Fine Print
These costs do not include:
• Customer Management Software
• Shipping Software
• Accounting Software
• And a staff to administer all of this
The Web Can Save The Day
• Mozilla Web Browser, formally Netscape
Navigator
• XUL (XML User Interface Language)
• JavaScript
Mozilla Web Browser
•
•
•
•
An example of a “Thin Client”
Formally Netscape Navigator
Open Source Software
Used by ~1.5% of the ~1,000,000 Web
users
• Gecko (Mozilla’s rendering engine) is used
in over 11 different web browsers
• FREE!
What is XUL?
• Created to make Mozilla easier to develop
for multiple operating systems
• Based on XML (Extensible Mark-up
Language), a standard of the W3C
• Specifically oriented towards user interface
design
• If you can develop a web page you can
develop a user interface in XUL
With This…
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="chrome://global/skin/" type="text/css"?>
<window id="example-window" title="Example 3.4.2"
xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul">
<groupbox flex="1">
<caption>
<checkbox label="Enable Backups"/>
</caption>
<hbox>
<label control="dir" value="Directory:"/>
<textbox id="dir" flex="1"/>
</hbox>
<checkbox label="Compress archived files"/>
</groupbox>
</window>
Mozilla Gives Us This!
Mozilla Can Also Give Us This!
JavaScript
• Developed by Netscape in 1994
• Version 1.5 was standardized in 1999 by
ECMA International (ECMA-262 v3)
• Used in ~25% of the Internet’s web pages
• Allows XUL to be more than something
pretty look at!
Research Methods and Goals
• To emulate most of the functionality found
in the sales departments customer
management software
• To build this software using only Mozilla,
XUL, and JavaScript
Research Problems
• Some components of the UI were more
difficult to develop in XUL
• XUL did not offer all the same UI
components as the original software
• JavaScript failed to scale well as the
software increased in size
Recommendations
The Present
The cost of development does not justify the savings
The Future
Microsoft’s Longhorn, XAML & .NET Products
Ximian’s Mono Project
Perl 6 & Parrot