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Decreasing Software Expenditures with Web
Standards
Using Thin Clients, Mozilla, and XUL
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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
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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!
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Reading The Fine Print
These costs do not include:
• Customer Management Software
• Shipping Software
• Accounting Software
• And a staff to administer all of this
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The Web Can Save The Day
• Mozilla Web Browser, formally Netscape Navigator
• XUL (XML User Interface Language)
• JavaScript
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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!
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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
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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>
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Mozilla Gives Us This!
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Mozilla Can Also Give Us This!
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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!
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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
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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
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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