InformationWeek

Ben Hume, CEO of Alco Ventures Inc., a Langley, British Columbia, aluminum construction materials manufacturer, says ease of remote access with online applications was the leading reason his company moved its contact relationship system to Entice from Multiactive Software Inc.

With sales representatives scattered around the country, Alco had few options for accessing key customer information from its previous client-server networked application, known as Maximizer, also from Multiactive. Entice makes it possible for any salesperson--working from home, on the road, or in a field office--to access customer data through a basic dial-in Internet connection.

And if a company wants to build custom applications, Web technology is much easier and less costly to develop than its client-server cousins, especially with internal resources already committed to developing Web sites.

For example, Presidential Bank FSB in Bethesda, Md., has six branches near Washington, D.C., and an Internet site. It has found that applications developed for Web-site customers easily convert to core applications for employee use, says CIO Curt Johnson.

Presidential Bank has shifted most of its seven-person IT staff to Web technology; eventually, it will move all applications to a Web platform. "It's easier to come out with new applications because you've already climbed the mountain," Johnson says.

Also, Johnson says, Web applications cost only a fraction of client-server development. For example, the bank created an application that stores much of its 2,500 Internet customers' transaction histories, including most of the information listed in a typical monthly bank statement. The application was initially developed for the Web site so customers could look up account information, but managers and tellers now use it to investigate account inquiries at brick-and-mortar branches.

This application, as well as most Web applications created by Presidential, relies on Microsoft SQL Server with applications written in various languages and environments, primarily C, JavaScript, and Cold Fusion. Windows NT 4.0 runs all of the database and Web servers.

Mobile computing is another application growing on the Web. Landstar System Inc., a $1.4 billion truck freight hauling company in Jacksonville, Fla., is rolling out a Web application to mobile Internet devices carried by its fleet of 7,300 truckers. The application is a real-time booking and truck locator that Landstar built in-house a couple of years ago using a Microsoft SQL Server database, a Microsoft Internet Information Server, and basic HTML programming.

Landstar's 1,000 sales agents can log on to the company's intranet to access the program, which helps them find the nearest truck to assign a shipment; and drivers can locate a shipment order for pickup. Since Landstar's drivers are independent owners, the system is a cornerstone of their business. The quicker the company can match a shipment with an available trucker, the more cargo the company can move.

The app has worked very well, especially for dispersed sales agents who work fairly autonomously, says Landstar CIO Bob Luminati. Certainly, it was a vast improvement over the phone, fax, and E-mail communications previously used to coordinate shipment assignments with truckers.

But the application was limited because most truck drivers are constantly on the road and have difficulty gaining wired connections to the Web. Luminati will soon migrate the application to a wireless platform, so drivers can get shipment assignment information directly in the cabs of their trucks. He's working with PhoneOnline.com Inc., a cellular phone data communications integrator in Knoxville, Tenn., to create a mobile application using Landstar's intranet application coupled with a Wireless Application Protocol server and mobile data-integration technologies. An initial pilot test is under way with a handful of truckers.

Unlike client-server applications, Web applications are ready-made for lightweight, wireless clients, he says. Companies can port intranet applications to the WAP architecture, though they do require some modifications to accommodate limited navigation and screen sizes, Luminati says.

Landstar is cutting development time and costs by not writing an application from the ground up. "You don't have to worry about what kind of device your Web application will run on because you just have to write to a browser," Luminati says.

Off-the-shelf Web applications are proliferating; they include offerings by Microsoft, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP. Most of these vendors provide online modules with their products, which typically can work in conjunction with the client-server version or as standalone applications.

But the direction of the market is resoundingly clear. "If you're an application vendor and you don't have a Web platform version for your products, you're cruising for an exit, stage left," says Forrester Research analyst Laurie Orlov. Similarly, companies not seriously considering the Web as the future platform for applications could be making a big a mistake, too.

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