At its Impact 2011 conference in Las Vegas, IBM announced WebSphere Application Server 8, or WAS 8, new software designed to speed the development of applications and services. The new version of WAS increases users' security and control, and delivers automated enhancements for the installation, maintenance, testing and problem resolution of business applications. Complementing these capabilities are new features that extend the reach of WAS to support applications from the desktop to mobile devices, including popular smartphones and tablets such as Apple’s iPad and iPhone, products running Google’s Android OS, and RIM’s BlackBerry portfolio. Support for these devices is critical to businesses as mobile applications constitute one of today’s largest growth areas. One recent report from research firm MarketsandMarkets estimates that the global market for mobile applications should grow to $25 billion by 2015 (up from $6.8 billion in 2010). With 2011 representing IBM's 100th anniversary and the company planning a major centennial celebration, IBM is preparing to celebrate WebSphere as one of the top innovations in its history. WebSphere is IBM’s foundation for middleware, which enables Web applications and computer operating systems to interoperate. Initially developed in 1997, WebSphere became one of the key catalysts for IBM’s evolution beyond hardware and into software and services. As part of its centennial celebration, IBM has identified WebSphere as one of the key technology drivers that enabled the Web to become a platform for business computing. According IBM, WebSphere paved the way for virtually all commerce to become electronic and for every dimension of business operations—including customer relations, accounting, and HR—to become Web-enabled. WebSphere helped IBM become the leader of an $18 billion middleware market, and became a cornerstone for a new enterprise computing paradigm known as SOA (services-oriented architecture). WebSphere led IBM’s march to become the world’s second-largest software company. There are currently more than 100,000 WebSphere clients worldwide.
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Mobile Capability
This is a sample screenshot from IBM's WebSphere Application Server 8 on an iPad.
UI Mockups
Now switch gears for a minute and think about developing mobile applications with WebSphere. Suppose you’re a developer tasked with creating a mobile version of a new application like this one. You might be also be given some UI mockups from a designer that look something like this, and the application may have requirements for interactive graphical business charts or graphs.
Native Experiences
Users will expect a look, feel and user experience similar to the native device. But you’ve also been told that the business wants this to reach the broadest set of users, who are running iPhones, IPads, Android phones and tablets, and they’ve heard that RIM has a new PlayBook tablet that may be important soon.
New Controls
IBM has delivered new mobile capabilities via the WebSphere Web2.0 and Mobile Feature Pack for WebSphere platforms. The feature pack offers a supported UI library for building desktop and mobile Web applications. These are samples of controls in WebSphere that from an end-user point of view look and feel like the native interfaces on the device.
Touch-Enabled UIs
WAS 8 provides support for new touch-enabled, interactive UIs that are similar to what’s on their device. IBM also has included richer visualization controls like charts and gauges.
Charts
IBM has included additional end-to-end application building blocks to help developers with things like file transfers between the mobile device and application services. These use REST patterns and are built on Java EE (Enterprise Edition) standards like JAX-RS.
No Plug-Ins
WebSphere 8 supports UIs running in the browser, cross device with no special plug-ins, but based on standards like HTML5, SVG and JavaScript. Developers create the application UI just once and it can automatically select an appropriate device-specific theme. It uses the same modern Web standards and programming model across mobile as for desktop Web applications.
OSGi Support
WebSphere 8 features integrated support for the OSGi Applications programming model to rapidly develop, deploy, manage and maintain modular applications using both Java EE and OSGi technologies.
IBM Rational Support
Developer productivity is further enhanced using IBM Rational Application Developer. If developers use Rational Application Developer tools, they must obtain compatible versions of both Rational Application Developer and WebSphere Application Server Version 8.0 Beta from the following location: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/r/rad/
z/OS Support
WebSphere Application Server for z/OS is available with this release. The product offers support for distributed, IBM i and z/OS operating systems.
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At its Impact 2011 conference in Las Vegas, IBM announced WebSphere Application Server 8, or WAS 8, new software designed to speed the development of applications and services. The new version of WAS increases users' security and control, and delivers automated enhancements for the installation, maintenance, testing and problem resolution of business applications. Complementing these capabilities are new features that extend the reach of WAS to support applications from the desktop to mobile devices, including popular smartphones and tablets such as Apple’s iPad and iPhone, products running Google’s Android OS, and RIM’s BlackBerry portfolio. Support for these devices is critical to businesses as mobile applications constitute one of today’s largest growth areas. One recent report from research firm MarketsandMarkets estimates that the global market for mobile applications should grow to $25 billion by 2015 (up from $6.8 billion in 2010). With 2011 representing IBM's 100th anniversary and the company planning a major centennial celebration, IBM is preparing to celebrate WebSphere as one of the top innovations in its history. WebSphere is IBM’s foundation for middleware, which enables Web applications and computer operating systems to interoperate. Initially developed in 1997, WebSphere became one of the key catalysts for IBM’s evolution beyond hardware and into software and services. As part of its centennial celebration, IBM has identified WebSphere as one of the key technology drivers that enabled the Web to become a platform for business computing. According IBM, WebSphere paved the way for virtually all commerce to become electronic and for every dimension of business operations—including customer relations, accounting, and HR—to become Web-enabled. WebSphere helped IBM become the leader of an $18 billion middleware market, and became a cornerstone for a new enterprise computing paradigm known as SOA (services-oriented architecture). WebSphere led IBM’s march to become the world’s second-largest software company. There are currently more than 100,000 WebSphere clients worldwide.