Archive for September, 2010

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What is eXo Platform 3.0? (Part 4)

Monday, September 20th, 2010

Today, I am proud to announce the release of eXo Platform 3.0. In preparation for this big day, I have blogged over the last week about what eXo Platform 3.0 is to show the breadth of the product: portal foundation, social intranet and integrated web content management.

But to me the most exciting definition of eXo Platform 3.0 is as a powerful, modern application development platform. I like to think it is the platform that will make Java relevant again in this Web 2.0 world where dynamic languages like Ruby and PHP rule. Now Java can stand as a first-class language for Web 2.0 applications.

What really sets eXo Platform 3.0 apart is its REST architecture. Any portal can present third-party application data as portlets, but eXo offers advanced integration using web services to actually communicate and interact with applications. You can integrate third-party apps, whether they’re written in Java, .NET, PHP or any other language, with eXo Platform’s native APIs.

But more importantly, you can create custom REST APIs on the fly — and deploy them directly from the platform. This means unlimited extensibility; with the custom APIs, you can build as many extensions as you need. eXo Platform provides a standard way to develop these JAX-RS REST services, with development, testing and deployment all done online in a new web-based IDE. Besides REST services, this IDE lets you rapidly build applications, JavaScript files, Groovy scripts, gadgets and mashups.

It’s this architecture that lets eXo integrate easily with third-party apps. In fact, at Java One this week, we will be demoing how a simple plug-in can social-enable an enterprise application, in this case Jaspersoft’s Business Intelligence (BI) software. One of the immediate benefits of such an integration would be the automated syndication of BI events and user interactions in activity streams, enabling users to see relevant information for new and modified reports in real time. Salesforce.com got a lot of buzz for Chatter. eXo lets any app get the same “Chatter” features — without having to build it themselves.

We’ve also modularized eXo Platform 3.0, with a new mechanism using will make upgrading to future versions almost effortless.

What all these features amount to is a systematic way to build rich Java apps with content management, collaboration, social and knowledge. I invite you to go under the hood with me in these online video demos — a short intro (8 min) and a more in-depth tour (30 min). We’re also offering a 30-day evaluation subscription that includes support tickets, so download and give it a try.

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eXo Delivers First User Experience Platform for Java

Monday, September 20th, 2010

eXo Platform 3.0 marks the future of Java application development: enterprise content management, collaboration, social and rich UI with enterprise portal capabilities

JAVA ONE (BOOTH #5209), SAN FRANCISCO, CA (September 20, 2010) – eXo today delivered the next generation of its flagship product, eXo Platform 3.0. Architected on the new GateIn portal framework, eXo Platform 3.0 offers the first integrated environment for building modern Java applications with features such as content management, collaboration and social. The product’s features will be showcased this week at Java One (booth #5209).

Why Use eXo Platform 3.0

Enterprises have invested millions in their Java infrastructure, but now those applications are beginning to show their age, especially when compared to the user experience and collaboration driven by the consumer web. End users of Java applications are demanding more than most Java shops can deliver in terms of collaboration, personalization and dynamic content.

“Until now, Java developers have been cobbling together a wide range of ‘best of breed’ software for content management, collaboration or social into their Java systems — because their only other option has been SharePoint,” said Benjamin Mestrallet, founder and CEO of eXo. “You shouldn’t have to throw out our Java investments to get these capabilities. With eXo Platform 3.0, Java enterprises now have a user experience platform for building modern Java apps with rich, interactive and social features — all in a modular architecture that developers are used to.”

eXo Platform 3.0 runs on standard Java middleware, but leverages REST services, Groovy, JavaScript, mashups and gadget-based development to build user-centric Java applications.

What You Can Do with eXo Platform 3.0

eXo Platform 3.0 offers all the capabilities expected of an enterprise portal. It leverages GateIn, the portal framework that eXo co-develops with Red Hat, to build portal-based applications complete with features like access control and single sign-on (SSO) for security.

But eXo Platform 3.0 goes well beyond an enterprise portal to provide:

  • A social intranet: Build an intranet by turning an LDAP directory into an enterprise social network where employees can connect and interact; teams can collaborate in their own online work spaces; and real-time updates and relevant information can be published in activity streams to the right people.
  • An integrated web content management (WCM) system: Quickly build and launch dynamic web 2.0 websites with a full suite of tools, including automated workflow for content publishing, version control and templates.
  • An application development platform for modern Java applications: With a REST architecture and native APIs, eXo Platform 3.0 is an extensible framework for building composite applications quickly and easily. eXo Platform 3.0 includes a web-based IDE for building and integrating applications, gadgets and mashups.

Technical Advantages

  • Unlimited extensibility: Create custom REST APIs on the fly to integrate any third party applications — even from .NET, PHP and other programming languages.
  • GateIn extensions: This new mechanism significantly simplifies application development. Developers can augment and customize GateIn’s features using extensions — without the need to modify the underlying GateIn framework itself. Upgrades to future versions will only require artifacts with the modified files.
  • Powerful and scalable content repository: By keeping applications’ structured data in a content repository, eXo Platform 3.0 provides developers with advanced capabilities that are lacking in traditional databases, including versioning, locking and more. IT operations also benefit from a wide range of management and monitoring functions — all provided in a scalable, clusterable architecture optimized for the consumer web.
  • Extensive open standards and protocol support: These include Java Content Repository (JCR), Java Portlet specification (JSR-286), JAX-RS for REST services and Content Management Integration Specification (CMIS). eXo Platform also implements the OpenSocial specification for gadgets and social APIs for People and Activity.

Availability & Support

eXo Platform 3.0 is immediately available for purchase or with a 30-day trial subscription that includes three support tickets. Download eXo Platform 3.0 today.

Online Resources

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Posted in Company News, Industry Trends | 2 Comments »

eXo and Jaspersoft Integrate Collaboration and Business Intelligence

Monday, September 20th, 2010

Companies demonstrate the power of Jaspersoft with eXo Platform’s rich social and collaboration featuress

JAVA ONE (BOOTH #5209), SAN FRANCISCO, CA (September 20, 2010) – eXo eXo, the Java user experience platform company, and Jaspersoft, the world’s most widely deployed business intelligence software, have teamed up to highlight the power of enterprise business intelligence (BI) integrated with rich social and collaboration features. The two companies will be showcasing the combination of Jaspersoft Enterprise with eXo Platform 3.0, announced today, at Java One (booth #5209).

News Highlights

  • The eXo and Jaspersoft interoperability brings new tools for extending BI applications with collaboration workspaces and real-time activity streams — in a social intranet, or as a gadget that can be added to dashboards. Developers can further enhance this integration, while business users have more customization options for their reports and dashboards.
  • eXo Platform can be integrated with Jaspersoft in minutes with a simple, free plug-in, which will be available for download by the end of this month.
  • eXo Platform 3.0 is the first integrated environment for building modern Java applications with features such as content management, collaboration and social. It is based on open standards and open source, including the GateIn portal framework eXo co-develops with Red Hat.
  • Jaspersoft Enterprise is a high-performance business intelligence solution that can be deployed as either a stand-alone or embedded application, providing easy to use web based reports, dashboards, and data analysis capabilities.

Collaboration + BI Together Deliver:

  • BI Events in Activity Streams: Automatically syndicate JasperReports events and user interactions in activity streams, enabling users to see relevant information, such as newly available or modified reports, in real-time.
  • Single View Analysis of Multiple Activity Streams: Developers can mashup activity streams from several third-party applications with eXo, then analyze the social data captured over time in a single report from Jaspersoft. This reduces the need for multiple reports, and also provides analysis of separate but related data sources.
  • Gadgets and Dashboards: Developers can quickly build gadgets to display their BI activity streams, which can be displayed in any OpenSocial-supported dashboard, from an enterprise intranet to iGoogle.

Supporting Quotes

Benjamin Mestrallet, founder and CEO of eXo: “eXo just rolled out eXo Platform 3.0 today, and we could not have a better way to demonstrate its capabilities than in this interoperability with Jaspersoft. By social-enabling their enterprise BI application to push out real-time information, eXo Platform 3.0 can provide enhanced collaboration for BI developers — while the ability to report on historical content and activity streams shows how easy it is to extend and connect with eXo.”

Brian Gentile, CEO of Jaspersoft: “eXo recognizes Jaspersoft as the best-in-breed BI provider by choosing to demonstrate the extensibility of eXo Platform by interoperating with Jaspersoft’s enterprise BI application. This collaboration shows the power of these two open platforms to solve customer needs and deliver updates to decision makers as they happen.”

Online Resources

  • More information about the eXo-Jaspersoft interoperability effort
  • Video: demo of eXo and Jaspersoft integration
  • Video: example of multiple activity streams mashed up to create a single developer dashboard
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What is eXo Platform 3.0? (Part 3)

Friday, September 17th, 2010

In the last two posts introducing eXo Platform 3.0, I’ve focused on its portal capabilities, which is expected of any enterprise portal, and the social intranet, an area in which some portal vendors have ventured.

Now, we’re entering new territory for portal vendors. In this post and the next, I will detail what makes eXo Platform 3.0 really stand apart.

I previously noted that even though portal capabilities are still very critical, the needs of today’s business have outgrown a portal. The rise of web 2.0 brought high levels of interactivity and richer user experiences, not to mention an explosion of data driven by web apps. All this means more demand on businesses to be able to do more with their applications.

Java middleware vendors have been very focused on scalability and efficiency of controlled, self-hosted relational database applications. But in today’s world, relational database systems are no longer the keys to the castle. In fact, one could argue that the most valuable database in the world is Google’s index of the web — which is certainly not a relational database. The web’s core is built around documents and document linking. New web architectures and data stores like BigTable, Hadoop and Cassandra are replacing relational database systems.

Our Content services were built for this new world order, providing the tools, automated workflow and templates to get websites up and running fast:

  • Intuitive file explorer dashboards, drag and drop controls, multiple views for easily navigating, organizing and sharing documents
  • Integration with your existing OCR solutions, your LDAP directory, and WebDAV HTTP extensions give you flexibility and a ‘drop in’ solution
  • Templates, fast features with CSS and JavaScript support and version control means you can launch a website immediately
  • Workflow to automate content creation, approvals and publishing or design your own business process
  • A UI extension framework that can be used to create plugins and extensions for content management

And because eXo Platform 3.0 is designed for this new world order, it can work with content from many data sources: documents, existing relational database or even data stored in the cloud, such as Amazon S3 — all mapped to our Java content repository (JCR), so developers have advanced capabilities for versioning, locking and more.

But ultimately, eXo Platform 3.0 is more than the sum of its parts. Managing your content is just one aspect. But now, imagine doing this with a social intranet, where changes are published automatically to the appropriate people in their activity stream and workflows notify the editors and publishers when it’s their turn to act.

Stay tuned to my next post, when I wrap up what eXo Platform 3.0 can do. Rest assured, I’m saving the best for last.

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What is eXo Platform 3.0? (Part 2)

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

Last week, I looked at what eXo Platform is at its core: a foundation for portal-based applications.

eXo does portals well because we have deep roots and domain expertise, and I am personally extremely proud of the development work we’ve done with JBoss to make GateIn the definitive next-generation portal framework.

Starting with this second part, I will explain the many ways in which eXo Platform 3.0 goes well beyond what a portal can do.

As with many other portal vendors, the majority of eXo’s customers have used eXo Platform first and foremost to build a company intranet. Most of us who’ve used a company intranet know it to be pretty static, hard to personalize and not well integrated into our everyday work life. This is such the norm for intranets that it has prompted jokes about ‘intranet portals’ being outdated.

What eXo Platform 3.0 brings is anything but.

You can build a modern intranet that is slick, interactive and collaborative.  eXo Platform 3.0 integrates with your company’s existing LDAP directory to create an enterprise social network. Profiles for employees and teams auto-populate the new ‘social intranet’ with directory permissions and security settings intact. From here, the social intranet can go wherever you want to take it, with:

  • Rich profiles that employees can customize
  • Work spaces for teams, where members can engage and share documents and information
  • Activity streams that push out updates from individuals and teams to their followers/colleagues
  • Even applications such as CRM can be integrated, with important changes streamed in real-time to the appropriate people
  • Intuitive email user experience, with the ability to tag and organize for finer-grained control and organization
  • Easy management using the LDAP directory to set permissions and access by users, roles or groups
  • Individual and group calendar accounts that can be managed and shared across the intranet
  • Answers capability where questions can be posed and experts identified

The enterprise social network is the new intranet, and eXo Platform 3.0 gives you everything you need to have a Facebook-like experience across your company network. For a full list of features, check out our resource page.

I’m just getting started, so stay tuned for more on what you can do with eXo Platform 3.0.

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