Sapphire/Web is a visual programming tool. It contains graphical tools to design and deliver an application without writing a single line of code. It also allows you to add and customize code anywhere throughout a Web application.
It is based on a 3-tier architecture where business rules and the enterprise are resident on the server. It empowers the users and enterprise with any of the Web display technologies. Sapphire/Web delivers Web solutions which leverage the Network Computer Architecture (NCA), Java desktop, ActiveX desktop, or the Netscape/One platform.
Sapphire/Web can deliver Web applications in HTML for traditional Web programming solutions. The HTML can be delivered through template files where "data" sites are substituted with enterprise data. You can even generate all the HTML from the server application without template files. Sapphire/Web provides an API of over 300 functions that you can use.
In the category of HTML client with back end server processing, Sapphire/Web is the best tool in the industry. It delivers the most robust, efficient, and scalable applications with the greatest connectivity to the Enterprise.
What puts Sapphire/Web in a "league" of its own is that it is not limited to just HTML output.
Sapphire/Web can produce data-enabled applications in Java or ActiveX. The significance of this cannot be overstated. HTML-only output with server-side-only processing has severe performance and productivity limitations. These applications will not scale to solve complex Intranet applications. Sapphire/Web provides a data-enabled Java framework and data controls in Java, ActiveX, and JavaScript. The Java framework enables you to truly leverage the power of Java. Complex data base applications can be produced in hours. The finished application will run on any Java Virtual Machine from an HTML browser or in stand-alone mode without a browser. By the end of this decade there is likely to be 100s of millions of Java capable devices.
Chip makers are creating Java "enabled" chips. Making a new chip is a very expensive undertaking. Applications built with Sapphire/Web will run on all of them.
The applications are ultimately scalable by their very nature. These applications provide the most productive solution for end users and can be designed, delivered, and maintained at a fraction of the cost of an HTML to server-only Web application. Sapphire's Java framework is designed around thin client technology. The framework employs the most powerful features of Java to minimize the number of bytecodes. Client browsers will typically use less resources to run these applications than they would to run a comparable HTML solution. Please try the on-line javaclient and activexclient applications to see for yourself just how powerful this architecture is. A comparable HTML and server-only solution is essentially not possible.
Any of the three data controls can be scripted in JavaScript or VBScript. Sapphire provides script frameworks for these six combinations. In all cases, applications can be developed with no code, although code can be added to customize a Web solution. The data controls and script frameworks allow you to leverage the component industry. You can use ActiveX controls, scriptable Java applets, or Netscape plug-ins.
Sapphire integrates more than just database objects from the Enterprise. The FUNC object interface allows hooks to CORBA, DCE, DCOM, JAVA, RPC, and just about any other enterprise object. Once an object or object system is exposed through Sapphire's FUNC interface, the objects become "first class objects". This means that they gain all the visual power of Sapphire as well as all its client technologies. Sapphire achieves this capability through its powerful object architecture. This promotes the greatest level of object encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance of any development tool.
Sapphire/Web scales for the Enterprise, not only in application deployment usage but in the design process itself. For example, Sapphire Java client applications can be developed by a single user or by a design team composed of people with a variety of talents.
For example, in designing the javaclient demo (see the Client Objects manual) Microsoft's Visual J++ was used (on an NT platform) as the Java development system. Symantec's Visual Cafe or Sun's Java Workshop could have been used. In designing the activexclient demo, Microsoft's ActiveX control pad was used to visually generate the VBScript with their script wizard (on an NT platform). JavaScript could also have been used. ActiveX controls from NT were used--just part of the large component market available to Sapphire's client technology. This open approach is very powerful; any Sapphire/Web customer will always have the best enterprise development tool as they choose the best in each category.
This is essential with the pace of Web evolution with new software tools announced daily. You can leverage the results of all the Web development community at any time. Some tool vendors force you to use the tools that they provide. Usually few if any are in the best category and you can't take advantage of the most productive tools. Some offer a bundled approach where again few, if any, in the bundle is the best.
These tools may not work with those already installed on your system or newly acquired skills of the development team. Furthermore, such a bundle ultimately has the pieces "integrated" together, many times with proprietary methods. This has the adverse affect of tool and technology lock in.
Sapphire/Web offers an enterprise Web solution that can fit all your application needs. Some of our customers are already running Java client applications or building VRML displays tied to databases or internationalizing HTML based applications. The Java client framework is a technology leap as it eliminates the limitations in performance, productivity, and applicability of HTML and expensive server-only processing. Some tools only work in one mode, solving a small set of the Web application solutions that you need. They deliver a rigid architecture that will not scale when reality is tested.
Every business understands the need to Web enable the enterprise. The Web is probably the dawning of the information revolution whose impact will rival the Industrial revolution of 100 years ago. The Web offers greater business reach, with more productivity, at a lower cost. The future growth of your corporation is at stake. So you need to move your "legacy" systems to the Web. HTML output with server only processing turn your first application into your first Web legacy. Sapphire offers the best architecture in all cases and allows you to avoid technology lock in.