Enterprise Widgets: The Story So Far

Desktop widgets have been around for a very long time. The first set of desktop widgets were introduced by Apple back in 1983 with their release of Apple Desktop Accessories. Obviously Apple was way ahead of the curve, but these early widgets were not Internet enabled - the popular Internet, as we know it, didn't exist - so their utility was pretty limited.

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#4	G Lamptey commented on 6 Apr 2008 Interesting article. I was involved with enterprise portals with Yahoo! with relative success in the enterprise space. With the growth of widgets will there be the same pattern where the likes of the big players like SAP, Oracle and Microsoft provide enterprise widget platforms. Of course Google and Yahoo! will also be in this mix and probably leading it. Is there any traction in this offering? I am currently involved in an initiative with a large enterprise that requires a 'widget platform' to serve 30,000 customers. What would be the starting point now to source a platform that is secure and could be bought and hosted by the enterprise? thanks
#3	Gregory Patnude commented on 31 Mar 2008 Interesting concept: Essentially -- deploy desktop applets to the point of use vis. a vis. SOA / Web Services. Harness a group of related applets into a Window / Frame or another widget container and you have an MDI-style application. In fact -- I would even argue that an application is nothing more than a collection of widgets anyway... Not to be a naysayer but I think that the Desktop has always been the front end to the enterprise and I dont see that changing anytime soon. Tomato... Tomatoe... Is Notepad an application or a Widget ? What about Calculator ? Both. I think we can find a new buzzword here: Appliwidget.
#2	Bill commented on 30 Mar 2008 Enterprise Desktop Widgets are not at all new, SAP introduced them beginning of 2007. You can access CRM functionality, Enterprise Search and more via these widgets.
#1	Sangeeta Patni commented on 24 Mar 2008 Quite right! The needs for enterprise widgets are very different from consumer widgets. Not only do enterprise widgets require centralised management and provisioning, they also need to connect to different enterprise applications, such as ERP and CRM. The way we look at it, it requires another piece, a thin server - call it the Widget server, if you will, that handles data sourcing from diverse sources, in addition to taking care of user provisioning and security. Further, enterprises would also need an on-premise-installation option for the Widget Server, for many enterprises have not moved to on-the-web installation for most enterprise apps, and indeed, may never do so, for reasons known to all to us. We, at Extensio, also have a few ideas, that are this time being baked in, to provide a platform that vendors can build widgets for. So, keep a watch out for us! In the meanwhile, thanks for the mention! -Sangeeta, Co-Founder, Extensio Software, www.extensio.com