Still, although WPF provides a visually appealing, familiar and intuitive UI, it comes with some trade-offs, specifically in memory utilization (being hardware intensive), the need to be hooked to the network, and a much greater dependency on Microsoft software. For instance, IFS doesn’t use WPF today for IFS Applications’ UI simply because of hardware needs: running WPF requires quite a hefty PC in terms of memory, and preferably the (possibly still unstable) Windows Vista platform.
We are talking here about IFS’ upcoming next-generation UI, which had for some time been called Aurora, but is now called IFS Enterprise Explorer (IEE). Namely, to prevent any confusion about Aurora being a separate product from IFS Applications, IFS has recently clarified its naming conventions.
Aurora is now a development project that will yield several enhancements to IFS Applications, all with a focus on ease-of-use and user productivity. The first deliverable as part of the Aurora project is IEE, the new graphical user interface (GUI) for IFS Applications. It is important to note that after IEE is released, the Aurora project will continue, yielding future enhancements.
In any case, IEE is interesting, to say the least, for leveraging Microsoft UI technology to create a look (albeit not yet the multi-touch touch screen, handgestures, etc. feel) of Apple iPhone (on top of Oracle database and Java-based application servers on the back end: some mix of technologies from adversaries, indeed). It is becoming quite obvious that the iPod and iPhone generation is our future workforce, who require well designed tools that they “love” to interact with. At the same time, they accept no excuses for “Why can’t I…?” questions, such as, for instance, “Why can’t I search in the enterprise application in the same way that I search on Google?”
At the end of the day, the design goal is to achieve more with fewer staff members, who thus have broader responsibilities, are able to handle the unexpected, collaborate with colleagues, and be more productive. In other words, the market drivers are the new and engaging design and user productivity. Consumer information technology (IT) and the web are leading the way, and are also becoming quite important for business applications.
To that end, prior to the IEE undertaking, IFS developed a pervasive enterprise search engine that attempts to think the way people think (e.g., “I need that fault report about the fire alarm not working”), and not the way enterprise systems think (i.e., “I want go into the preventive maintenance module where, in the service request folder, I will start the fault report screen, in which I shall then make a query on the description field containing any words followed by the words ‘fire alarm’ followed by any other words again”).
We are talking here about IFS’ upcoming next-generation UI, which had for some time been called Aurora, but is now called IFS Enterprise Explorer (IEE). Namely, to prevent any confusion about Aurora being a separate product from IFS Applications, IFS has recently clarified its naming conventions.
Aurora is now a development project that will yield several enhancements to IFS Applications, all with a focus on ease-of-use and user productivity. The first deliverable as part of the Aurora project is IEE, the new graphical user interface (GUI) for IFS Applications. It is important to note that after IEE is released, the Aurora project will continue, yielding future enhancements.
In any case, IEE is interesting, to say the least, for leveraging Microsoft UI technology to create a look (albeit not yet the multi-touch touch screen, handgestures, etc. feel) of Apple iPhone (on top of Oracle database and Java-based application servers on the back end: some mix of technologies from adversaries, indeed). It is becoming quite obvious that the iPod and iPhone generation is our future workforce, who require well designed tools that they “love” to interact with. At the same time, they accept no excuses for “Why can’t I…?” questions, such as, for instance, “Why can’t I search in the enterprise application in the same way that I search on Google?”
At the end of the day, the design goal is to achieve more with fewer staff members, who thus have broader responsibilities, are able to handle the unexpected, collaborate with colleagues, and be more productive. In other words, the market drivers are the new and engaging design and user productivity. Consumer information technology (IT) and the web are leading the way, and are also becoming quite important for business applications.
To that end, prior to the IEE undertaking, IFS developed a pervasive enterprise search engine that attempts to think the way people think (e.g., “I need that fault report about the fire alarm not working”), and not the way enterprise systems think (i.e., “I want go into the preventive maintenance module where, in the service request folder, I will start the fault report screen, in which I shall then make a query on the description field containing any words followed by the words ‘fire alarm’ followed by any other words again”).
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