Wildcat! 7.0 Development Starts this Week!

---

After a lengthy research effort, this week we begin the new Wildcat! 7.0 (WC7) development efforts. WC7 will be a long time coming of a re-awaken and modern Wildcat! system with all the current technology and preparing it for the future.

From my research, I found that Wildcat! is still a very strong and powerful framework with ideas and concept that many in the similar industry are just now beginning to recognize and deal with. The basic strategy is to strengthen and enhance the Wildcat! Client/Server framework. This will lay the groundwork for years to come. Our problem has been one of marketing and becoming stagnant with the current strength of the current system, ignoring or not focusing on new trends such as WEB 2.0, RSS, XML I/O, etc.

Well, all that is about to change starting this week. There will more to come with plans and announcements, but one of the first things we already done is to enhance the Developer's Corner at the Santronics Online Support Web Site.

The primarily highlights (subject to change) to look for in Wildcat! 7.0 are:

All Editions (Community, Business, Enterprise)

- XML I/O API support for Wildcat! SDK
- RSS feed support for Mail and File Areas
- BLOG support for Mail and File Areas
- SPRY, FLEX, GWT and APOLLO support
- Audio/Video Support
- New WcNavigator based on Web 2.0 methods
- Open Source WcBASIC (Maybe)

Business Edition and Enterprise Edition

- SQL support for User, Mail and File database
- Clustering Support
- I/O Control Port Support

New editions will be packaged:

- DE Developer Edition
- FE File Exchange Edition
- ME Modem-only Edition
- PE Personal Edition (Free)

and a DEMO version will be made available for download.

Hector Santos/CTO

Rebranding Wildcat! Navigator Clients as "Web 2.0 Widgets"

---

The latest development fad today are "widgets". Google has them, Yahoo has them, Adobe has them, Microsoft has them. Each is doing it in their own ways with their own set of API toolchest:

o Microsoft - ActiveX, .NET and now SilverLight
o Google - A new comer Web Toolkit
o Yahoo - A new comer, Yahoo Widget API
o Adobe - Flash, Flex and now Apollo

For Wildcat! people, Wildcat! Navigator is a perfect example of "widgets" on your desktop. The above are all basically designed under the same idea as was done for over 10 years with your desktop Wildcat! Navigator (WCN) client or your html Wildcat! Web Clients:

• FILE CLIENT
• MAIL CLIENT
• WHO ONLINE CLIENT
• PERSONAL CLIENT
• CHAT CLIENT
• TELNET CLIENT

Each of these WCN client are design with a single source API/SDK system. When using the Web, you can also display the clients in separate pages, making them appear as "widgets."

Widgets, smidgets! Maybe we will start calling Wildcat! Client as Widgets! :-)

The beauty of WCN clients is that under Wildcat! communications framework, the WCN clients can work with any connectivity device; WEB, GUI and TEXT mode!

So for those who believe "Social Networking" and "Widgets" were just recently invented with the Web, think again. This stuff existed for at least 20 years in the BBS world. You should know that the popular ONE ISPCON trade show was once called ONE BBSCON before the Internet exploded.

If you are interested, click on one of the WCN client links to see Wildcat! Client "Widgets" in action.

If you have Wildcat! Navigator (WCNAV) installed, your browser will start the desktop client. If you don't have WCNAV installed, you will see the web client. The chat client under the web, will start a JAVA desktop client. For text, you have to login under Telnet mode or Dialup. (For people who don't have an account on our system, try using the GUEST account - userid: guest pwd: guest).

Anyway, I think we will explore using Apollo/Flex to "glorify" Wildcat! Navigator clients. A technical challenge for us would be to see how we will bridge the Wildcat! RPC (WCRPC) communications framework with the various AJAX stacks and APOLLO for Java-based clients. A XML/RPC bridge might work but I haven't decided which way would be the best. Here is a drawing that illustrates the Wildcat! RPC framework showing some of the current industry considerations for Google Web TookKit, SPRY, Flash, SilverLight on the web side, and Apollo/Flex on the java side of the desktop.

Finally, to help us decide which way we should focus, I took a small quick survey to see how people are connecting to a Wildcat! system or to read mail. It was a stupid question because people who connected via their favorite method indicated as such the device they were currently using - DUH! However, what I found very interesting is that the response was spread across the board - the market is there for all the device type of connection devices.

CATSPRY - Wildcat! SPRY Framework

---

Folks, in my continue endeavors to bring you the good things in Wildcat!, I think I found a good AJAX framework called SPRY by Adobe.

Wildcat! already has a similar conceopt with its WCT (Wildcat Template System), but SPRY will help make Wildcat! XML ready.

Check this out this SPRY demonstration.

Soon I will have the CAT SPRYing! Stay Tune!

Web 2.0 - The New Simplicity: Interfacing with users

---

To borrow a current catch phrase, "At the end of the day," when it comes to writing computer software products, its success is how it best communicates with the end-user, the people, you are presenting and extracting information from.

Currently, there is a renewal of the old-age battle of what is best for the user: the offline (fat, downloaded software) client versus the online (thin) client.

The beauty of the web was in its simplicity with basic I/O with the user. Today, with video, music and the shifting of the brick and mortar business to the Internet, the explosion of information, requires a new paradigm of both mixed thin and fat clients.

There seems to be a battle between various companies competing for your mindsets in defining what that new "simplicity" is: Microsoft, Adobe, Google and Mozilla. We can include Apple, but they seem to be in a league of their own.

To explain all this, requires research and tabulation of all the various efforts currently available or current in development to define this New Simplicity. It is a mind boggling effort. One day soon, I will finish my research and try to provide a summary report of Web 2.0 efforts.

But in the mean time, here is a short synopsis of the situation:

Google and Mozilla

When it comes to thin client, you have Mozilla (FireFox, Thunderbird) who have defined their own open standard methods of creating presentations. Overall, the "Browser" is the solution to everything. Since Google does not have an operating system like Microsoft, its only method of penetrating the market place is by using its Search dominance as a platform to attract a world-wide community of users to essentially build its own network-based operating system of components called Google widgets. See iGoogle for a example of all this.

But how does Google get their technology? Well, for the most part it all seems to be coming from the open source Mozilla community. In fact, the new FireFox 3.0 currently in development is infested with Google branded.

Microsoft, Adobe (and Sun too)

When it comes to the fat clients, these two gorillas are battling it out for desktop clients. In short, you have to download or install software. Microsoft built its dominance by providing everything they think you need into the Windows Operating Systems. So when you installed Windows or purchased a new PC, it came with Outlook Express, Internet Explorer, and "Junior" or "Trail versions" of their elaborate Office products.

Adobe is an interesting company. I'm not sure when it decided to take over the world, maybe it was in self-defense, but their recent Web 2.0 story probably begins with Sun.

Adobe is most famous today for having captured at least 90% or more of the PC market place when it comes to online Video and Music playing with their Flash and Shockwave stuff. This fact has got Microsoft all stressed out, and that's putting it mildly.

Nonetheless, Flash is a small piece of software called a "plug-in" that users must install with their browser in order to play video and songs. Flash competes with the Microsoft Windows Media Player (WMP) already installed on the computer. But as FireFox became more popular, not everyone could use WMP. WMP is based on ActiveX and ActiveX is a NO-NO in FireFox (for security reasons). Flash really exploded into the market place when the immensely popular YouTube used Flash instead of WMP for its video sharing service.

But that was not enough for Adobe. This is how Sun comes in.

Sun is famous today for its Java Run Time Engine - yet another piece of software you download in order to run Java-Based Applications.

Sun and Microsoft have long battled each other over the Thin vs Fat client market. So much so, that Sun sued Microsoft when Microsoft tried to take over the Java Market with their separate "modified" version. Today, Microsoft no longer supports Java. Instead, they have .NET. Another piece of software you have to download to run .NET based products, however, since Microsoft owns Windows, all Windows versions now have .NET automatically.

So on your PC today, you have essentially three "Run Time Engines" in order to run "fat clients."

- Google/Mozilla with browsers using JavaScript
- Microsoft ActiveX and .NET
- Sun Java

Since ActiveX is part of .NET and required, we can lump it together, leaving us with .NET and Java.

But today, Adobe is using Sun's Java as a platform to write their own new "Media Player" and new development platform to define the new "simplicity" with their new Flex and Apollo framework.

Not to be out done by Adobe, Microsoft now has release "SilverLight" which will compete with Flash, Flex and Apollo. As mentioned, Microsoft is really worried about Adobe's Apollo/Flex efforts, so much so, they were forcing SilverLight into every one's desktop with all new security patches and Windows updates. This didn't go over too well with the market place, plus it has Anti-Trust ramifications. So Microsoft has backed off that "Throat Stuffing" SilverLight distribution. It is now optional (Wink Wink).

In the end, we have the following competing forces to define the New Simplicity:

- Microsoft with Internet Explorer
- Google/Mozilla with Firefox browsers
- Microsoft ActiveX and .NET
- Sun Java
- Adobe Apollo/Flex
- Microsoft SilverLight

Wasn't that simple?

And it really doesn't end there. There is so much more in the internal details of all the above. It isn't a pleasant concept to follow.

To most users, possibly none of this really matter doesn't. They will use the browser, and the widgets will use the browser, the .NET and the Flex stuff. If a vendor is forcing or offering a "desktop" component down their throat, most users will use it too. At worst, they will have a bloated machine that will require three Cray mainframes to smoothly run all these stuff.

But for developers, its a living nightmare!!

Open source code!

---

Should we make Wildcat! open source?

I often wonder if we should go in this direction. I think for new start ups it might work, not sure for established companies with branded products and a large loyal customer base. Going open source can hurt your customer base who have stuck with a company expecting high quality product support and stability.

Does this imply products based on Open Source isn't stable or of high quality?

No, not really. But if you go by many examples in the market place of open source based products, you really never know what versions or trunks or custom changes are being used when customers generally discuss the brand - such as Wildcat!, the brand.

But I do also see where there might be some open source advantages for Wildcat!, especially on the hosting components that help create all the various hosting clients, such as the web server, ftp server, telnet server, etc.

If you have any comments about this, please do chime in. And no, please don't say you would like to see us do open source because others are doing it. In fact, I believe you are seeing those companies or people who started as open source, and now established with 3-5 years in the market, are starting to go more proprietary then you think - just look at the new GPL 3.0 licensing debates.

Exposing the Wildcat! API with REST

Lately, I've been hearing more or seeing references to something called REST in relationship to WEB 2.0, a buzz word for creating Web Services using HTML and Asynchronous Javascript (AJAX).

Like most of the near daily supply of the "next best thing," I just blew off REST as just another hyped up buzz word, and worst, another way to "connect" you to someone's new web service offering, i.e, Google's new "web service" of the day! Gawd, these guys are inventing something old as new every friggin day. But I guess when you got everyone using their favorite search tool, it opens the door to all kinds of "connectivity" potential - that is what scaring Microsoft to frigging death! They (Microsoft) are slowly and surely losing the developer mindset to folks like Google and Adobe with its nearly 90% Flash coverage.

Well, just a moment ago, I finally found out what REST with a very straight forward reading for its genesis.

What's funny is that I found myself being both pissed off and yet, extremly very happy that I now know what the "buzz" is all about with REST. Don't get me wrong, being both pissed off, yet happy are very positive feelings as I will explain.

Why pissed off?

Well, let me explain why I am happy about REST!

I'm happy because we can actually use REST with Wildcat! API system just like many companies are beginning to use it, and do so almost immediately.

So why am I pissed off?

Because for the longest of time, we were stuck in this time warp of having a very powerful API client/server development system. Wildcat! is one of the original systems that put integrated services together and it has a powerful API supporting all the major languages. But we were watching an industry move on to a non RPC/DCOM method called SOAP which is just XML on steroids. SOAP was a different way of defining your "API" and using them to create Web Services.

I had planned to incorporate SOAP but I found it difficult with this XML thing. I also ran into the problem of how do expose the Wildcat! API. A converter was attempted but never finished. I had some early SOAP/XML examples of Wildcat to allowed you to dynamically display your mail and file conferences without redisplaying the web page.

But it was never done, finished probably because it was too complex, and we didn't have the resources to hire a SOAP/XML to convert our API. In some way, we just didn't need it yet.

So what I did over the last 7 years, where it applied, I used a "fake version of SOAP" without the XML baloney for input, but maybe created XML output by simply using an URL with arguments.

A good example is our Wildcat! Sender Authentication Protocol where we developed an WCX (compiled Wildcat BASIC application) to authenticate SMTP based parameters.

You can run WCSAP in terminal mode from a command line:

wcrun -run html-wcsap?
cip=ip_address&
from=return_path&
cdn=client_domain

or you can run it with a HTTP URL

http://wildcat_site_domain/public/code/html-wcsap?
cip=ip_address&
from=return_path&
cdn=client_domain

To see a example of this WCSAP web service protocol in action, click this wcsap test site.

So why am I pissed?

Because REST is exactly what we did with WCSAP!!

As it turns out, Santronics wasn't the only company with a powerful client/server API framework and suffered like other companies in not exposing our API using the very complex SOAP model. Now you are seeing all these companies, such as Yahoo, Ebay, Google, Microsoft and others beginning to expose their legacy API using the more simplistic REST model to create new Web Services.

In short, I have been using REST like ideas all along since at least 2001, and felt bad that I wasn't with the SOAP crowd by not implementiong it with Wildcat! over these many years.

So I am pissed and very happy to know that we can use this REST idea for Wildcat! because we were been doing it already - The "Web Service" applications like WCSAP is a class example of what REST is all about!

The Wildcat! API is unlike anything else in this world. I truly believe that. But I felt that we were quickly falling behind but not keeping up with the Jones.

With REST, Wildcat! will be revitalize. We will be able to once again, with confidence, market the powerful Wildcat! system and its unique API system, its unique social and intranet networking features, and do so without any quilt that its old technology.

Stay tune... There is more to come into this area with REST and how it will be used to revitalize the Wildcat! brand name.