From: Gregory Alan Bolcer (gbolcer@endtech.com)
Date: Mon Jun 19 2000 - 20:49:27 PDT
That's so funny...it's such a small world.
We met with the Engenia CTO last month in Chicago for a comparison
of approaches. They've built an XML object model on top of a
personal portal engine. Jeff is extremely knowledgable about
XML and has created an XML object model that supports the hooks
and views. One of the problem with Engenia is that it's so
flexible that in order to put a policy in place you need to
fix a policy first. They are just now entering into their very
first sales cycle, it'll be interesting to see how well received
they are.
One of the differences of philosophy I had with Jeff was how
they go about doing their metadata. For their collaboration
we use WebDAV, they use their own XML object model; for objects
we use standard Web resources and different language CGI
scripts/servlets, they use an object engine with
methods, state, and inheritance implemented in the XML
model. For GUI, we use XML/XSL, they use java and javascript
formatters. They've gone the extra mile to put in their
personal portal views project managers and security certificates,
we've gone the extra mile to make sure we are always open
source and latest protocol compliant.
Anyways, maybe he'll pipe in and talk about their disconnected
and synchronization features.
Greg
"Meltsner, Kenneth" wrote:
>
> I've been playing the new Engenia Unity portal product. So far, I've only
> used the personal server version (brings up a webserver on your local
> machine and serves up pages just like its big brother, but without file
> sharing and other collaboration tools).
>
> The feature set looks like most portals: a front page with lots of boxes
> with info from various sources. There's support for defining multiple views
> of your life (e.g. work, family, personal) and a simple to-do/project task
> manager.
>
> The one interesting aspect is that it supports collaborative file sharing
> through a server with *disconnected operation/synchronization^ capability.
> It feels a lot like the Magi approach, I think, since you define who you're
> working with and files propagate appropriately. It does require a central
> server (and has the RSA license/certification brand placed prominently), so
> it's not entirely equivalent.
>
> Any thoughts on this one? Mostly disconnected operation may be the next big
> feature for portals, I think.
>
> Ken Meltsner
-- Gregory Alan Bolcer | gbolcer@endtech.com | work: 949.833.2800 Chief Technology Officer | http://www.endtech.com | cell: 714.928.5476 Endeavors Technology, Inc. | efax: 603.994.0516 | wap: 949.278.2805
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