Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : FirstWave Technologies (FSTW) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike M who wrote (7300)	12/26/2002 11:51:59 AM
From: TEDennis	Respond to of 9677

Mike: Re: Extreme Logic alliance Here's what the 10-Q had to say regarding the specific deliverables: The Software is composed of the following software components (all third party software is the responsibility of Firstwave): Process Designer The process designer is a visio-based tool process development tool. It consists of a specific stencil which contains basic shapes: Other types of nodes can be defined. The tool will save out the process by transforming the process into an XML document, which then in turn is stored into a normalized SQL2000 database. Process Engine (.NET) The Engine is capable of lifting a workflow out of the database, load the node-corresponding code (method) and “run” the process. The engine will take special action based on the node-type it encounters: System Services • Security component (.NET) The Security Services component provides a simple interface to perform encryption and Base64 encoding of strings. Also, it provides a secured dictionary that can contain either encrypted or clear text entries, this feature is utilized by the Configuration Services component. Finally, the Security Services component provides a facility to detect information about a user including supervisor, groups and roles from either an XML file or Active Directory security provider. • Logging services component (.NET) Logging services provides the ability to write trace and error information to specified logging repositories. These repositories include the output debugging facility, the event log or an MQ Series queue. • Configuration services component (.NET) The configuration services component enhances the Microsoft.Net configuration facility to allow configuration entries to be separated on a per client basis. Default configuration entries can be overridden for a specific clients, if desired. Additionally, entries can be encrypted in the configuration files for an extra level of security. Configuration entries are simple name/value pairs that allow the value to be clear text or encrypted and Base64 encoded. • Context services component (.NET) Context Services provides a runtime access to call chain context information. It provides a wrapper for other consumers (E.g. Logging Services, Configuration Services or business methods) to have access to the context information. Consumers have the ability to create the context information and request individual context fields. A key, called the ContextMoniker, is passed from method to method enabling access to any individual or set of context fields by providing the ContextMoniker to Context Services through a simple function call. • Caching services component (.NET) Caching services simply wraps the Microsoft.Net System.Web.Caching.Cache class to ensure it is available in both the Web environment and a stand-alone application environment. .NET Profiler for applications (.NET) XML stored procedure code generator Code generation utility for use with SQL Server 2000 to create SELECT…FOR XML EXPLICIT (and AUTO) stored procedures based on a database’s table names, field names, and foreign keys. A utility will generate C# DAL code from XML metadata. Generated C# DAL code from XML Metadata OK, so what the heck does that all mean? You certainly can't tell from Extreme Logic's website. They don't mention anything like that on there. However, if you do a little research, you can find similar offerings from several companies. This one, in particular, does a good job of describing the feature/function/benefit of a workflow engine: skelta.com From the original FSTW PR: "Firstwave's incorporation of this framework has eliminated significant costs associated with proprietary development, and permits us to be one of the first to deliver a .NET based solution in the CRM workflow and call scripting functions," said Richard Brock, founder and CEO of Firstwave For those of you inclined to do some extra research into what functionality is provided "out of the box" by Visual Studio.net, read the following series of articles from way back in June of 2001. You can skip a lot of the alphabet soup and techie terms that mean nothing to you. Just try to glean some info on what it means to the R&D group. It seems to me that the EL framework provides a higher level of abstraction from the .NET technical details so that the programmers can focus on business logic instead of low level techie interface details. extremetech.com Note that I'm curious why FSTW licensed the source code to EL's framework. I doubt FSTW will be making any significant enhancements to the package because it sounds like it's specifically targeted to workflow management. I suspect that EL will be offering their .NET framework as a component to other vendors (thanks in large part to FSTW's cash infusion that allowed them to fully develop it), and will thus keep updating it to meet additional requirements as technology advances. The FSTW/EL contract does NOT include any upgrades from EL without additional fees. The whole idea of packaged software is to have a vendor responsible for the majority of the development and maintenance costs associated with it. Since EL's framework was designed specifically to interact with other components through Web Services and XML, there's not much that can't be accomplished externally. So, what will FSTW do with it? Especially since most of FSTW's staff are Visual Basic application programmers and EL's framework was written in C# by systems type programmers. Regards, TED

To: Mike M who wrote (7300)	12/26/2002 1:21:59 PM
From: TEDennis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9677

Here's another Workflow technology solution provider. It's not nearly as concisely explained as the one I documented in my prior post, but it will help those of you who care enough to want to understand what the heck is happening: teamplate.com Note that TeamPlate was awarded the "Elite .NET Connected Status" by Microsoft. Maybe this year they'll have a shot at the Willy Award for "Best new .NET based workflow management tool embedded in CRM products by other vendors". Regards, TED

To: Mike M who wrote (7300)	12/26/2002 11:46:38 PM
From: TEDennis	Respond to of 9677

Mike: Here's some text from a CEO regarding his product's new Workflow capabilities: Our new workflow capabilities offer a new way to get customers who wish to continue using our older technology to introduce our new technology into their environment. By design, our very powerful workflow capabilities were made extremely flexible to the point of being easy to seamlessly integrate with our older applications. In the fourth quarter, we will be actively contacting all of our customers to introduce this new and powerful technology to them. We know that this will have strong appeal as a powerful enhancement to their existing functionality. We hope that introducing this feature in our new technology will be the first step in getting customers to upgrade their entire application. This should also contribute positively to maintenance revenue retention. No wonder all the CRM vendors are in a rush to develop this stuff. Sounds like some pretty great software!! I imagine there are some folks who have never seen anything like it. Oh, sorry. I forgot to attribute my source: firstwave.net TED