From J2EE to Force.com: Changing platforms puts developer years ahead
A while back, Natan Zaidenweber transferred his server to the trunk of his car. The server had been the home of a two-year J2EE development effort, but with the project now entirely shifted to Force.com, the hardware was just taking up valuable space in the office. And with the move to on-demand, not only is Natan's company, StakeWare, on target for an early 2008 release of its application suite, but it has created one of the first Visualforce applications to run on a portable device: a tablet PC.
The idea for StakeWare first came about while Zaidenweber was doing post-graduate research at the University of California’s Energy and Resources Group, where he worked on an environmental analysis project on behalf of Royal Dutch Shell. “I realized that a lot of activities come under the umbrella of corporate responsibility, including fact finding, analysis and documentation—but all of it was all being done manually.” Zaidenweber’s research focused on natural gas reserves in the Peruvian Amazon, but as he considered applying what he had learned to other company projects, he saw an untapped market in search of a technology for what he calls “ stakeholder relationship management.” Several steps later, he founded StakeWare.
From hybrid to 100% pure on-demand
Zaidenweber began with a hybrid approach, building on-premise and on-demand apps, but the server-based component proved difficult to sell. “I had spent about two years showing our solution to large energy companies, but we kept running into the same roadblock: integration with their existing systems. I began to realize that the on-premise model required me to devote a lot of resources to support customers.”
“At the
same time, I began to understand the power of Force.com, as well as the size of some of Salesforce’s
customers,” he said. In time, the advantages of a pure on-demand model became clear. StakeWare
became one of the first startups to join the AppExchange Incubator and embarked on building a
Force.com native application. “I migrated the logic we had been working on for several years. And
what we noticed from the beginning was how many resources Force.com already contained, such as
built-in workflow capabilities, a proven API, flexible security model and strong multi-language
support. I had been building in J2EE since 2004 and had spent considerable time trying to create
some of these elements ourselves. So even though we had begun anew, we were already years
ahead."
Indeed, Zaidenweber came to view the on-demand focus as an opportunity. “Instead of working on infrastructure, we were suddenly free to focus on innovation, to apply our domain experience and expertise—the knowledge that sets us apart.” The StakeWare development team is now working on four modules, beginning with stakeholder relationship management (the program Zaidenweber conceived while a university researcher) and expanding to sustainability performance metrics, supply chain alignment, and carbon footprint assessment and accounting. Zaidenweber announced this latest module onstage in New York at a salesforce.com event.
“I don’t think development is ever easy, but developing on Force.com is so much better than on J2EE. It’s not because Java is a bad platform, but because you have to build everything yourself: whereas with Force.com, you get so much infrastructure right out of the box. And it seems like every few months, there’s a new function coming out that we can leverage: content management through Salesforce Content is a perfect fit. So is Salesforce to Salesforce, which links companies and their data, as part of supply chain alignment. ”
Go-anywhere Tablet PC implementation
StakeWare’s carbon accounting and management system became one of the first working applications to showcase the potential for Visualforce on portable devices. The application, which runs on a tablet PC, enables a facilities manager to enter data while walking around the factory. “We built the system using Visualforce, then just simplified the interface a bit to create a tablet version.” The application even meshes with Google Maps.
“The key was in adapting our user interface for a portable device so that it met the requirements of users who are not sitting at their desks, but are constantly on the factory floor,” said Jean-Raymond Naveau, who heads StakeWare’s product marketing. “And while a tablet makes sense for our initial device, we still have lots of options. If there’s user demand, we could port the application to an iPhone.”
“The tablet is an example of how Force.com gives us a competitive advantage,” said Zaidenweber. “ We can react to the marketplace much faster, with a lot more resources, than if we were working without Force.com. That would be true even with the most talented engineering team: there are only 24 hours in the day.”
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