Citrix aims high with Vertigo softwareBy JOHN COX
Network World, 08/07/00
Citrix Systems is beta-testing software that makes it easy to display component-based server applications on a variety of devices - PCs, PDAs, Web phones and the like - regardless of the operating system in use.
The stakes are high in this development initiative, both for a marketplace in dire need of such capabilities and for Citrix, a key industry player that has suffered recent financial woes.
Citrix sells software that lets a so-called thin client, such as a remote Windows-based terminal, display applications typically running on Windows or Unix servers. The new software, called Project Vertigo, is a radical departure because it treats Windows as only one of several possible user interfaces. Vertigo lets programmers attach whatever kind of user interface they want to a server-based Internet application built from software components such as Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) objects, or in the future, Enterprise JavaBeans.
Vertigo has three basic parts. The designer is a graphical layout tool with collections of small visual components or controls for creating user interface elements such as dialog boxes and drop-down menus. The collections are based on different operating systems, so users see a user interface built with ActiveX components if the client is a Windows CE handheld or with Palm OS components if the client is a Palm device.
The user interface design is a description of the desired display, generated as an XML file and stored on a Web server. The file and the second part of Vertigo, called a player, are downloaded to the client. The Vertigo player runs the XML file and, based on its description, creates the appropriate displays using the client's graphical capabilities. The player communicates with the third part of Vertigo, a program on the Web server, which manages interactions with the application and the player.
In each case, what the user sees will look as if it were designed for that particular device and operating system, without any changes to back-end components that contain the application's business logic. What that means is that Web applications will finally begin to have the interactivity that users find in Windows and Unix applications.
Vertigo will be a separate but complementary product to Citrix's existing MetaFrame and NFuse products. MetaFrame uses the Citrix Independent Computing Architecture protocol to display Windows 2000 and NT server applications on a mix of remote clients. NFuse lets users activate these applications through a Web browser.
Vertigo is based on technology from ViewSoft, a start-up Citrix acquired about a year ago. Vertigo is aimed at developers who are building Internet and e-commerce applications - programs built as sets of components to access via browsers.
Citrix previewed Vertigo at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in June and passed out hundreds of CDs with a beta version of the software. Citrix officials refuse to say when Vertigo will be released as a product, but the beta testing suggests it could be this year.
Minimizing bandwidth
Vertigo makes it possible to create interactive Web applications, while minimizing bandwidth needs.
"I can deliver over the Internet an application that looks 100% like an internal Windows application, with no loss of functionality," says Charles Goodspeed, CEO of Rubico, an Irvine, Calif., developer of enterprise resource planning applications based on COM objects and Enterprise JavaBeans. Goodspeed, a programmer for 20 years, has been working with the original ViewSoft product for more than two years and is now testing Vertigo.
Just as important, Vertigo has a technique to track what the client and server sides of the application are doing and transmit only the changes to data and display. "In a normal HTML application, when I press 'update' [or 'return'], I send the entire page and all the data back over the net," Goodspeed says. "Then I get back the entire screen and all the data, even if only one element is changed."
Using Vertigo, manipulating an application's scroll bar, for example, will generate one one-thousandth the number of I/Os of an HTML application, he says.
Goodspeed's engineers are building Vertigo into Rubico's applications. Customers will look at Rubico's notion of a purchase order and then delete or add fields, or change "sales tax" to "value-added tax."
"People will be amazed at the types of strides they can make with a product like Vertigo," Goodspeed says.
Vertigo and MetaFrame will coexist, serving different customer needs, according to David Weiss, Citrix vice president for marketing.
MetaFrame serves the Windows user interface of existing applications over wide-area, low-bandwidth links. Vertigo serves whatever user interface is needed by a given client, so a server-based Web application can be displayed on different clients.
Tough times
The change will be vital for Citrix, which staggered last month with lower-than-expected revenue after many quarters of strong growth and the subsequent resignation of founder and Chairman Ed Iaccobucci. The company's board of directors is hunting for someone to take over CEO duties from Mark Templeton, who will remain company president.
"Citrix has lost nearly 45% of its market value since its June 12 warning that it would fall short of expectations," says Andrew Frost, an analyst with Butler Group, a British IT research company.
Citrix executives contend the reasons for the shortfall are manageable: longer sales cycles, customers switching from buying CDs to using electronic licensing and slower-than-expected growth in Asia. Demand for products remains strong, Weiss says
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