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For the last 2-3 decades, organizations have been investing trillions of dollars in applications that run their businesses. Most of these applications have been written for the desktop Client-Server and cannot practically be transformed or reused as is for Web, Cloud or Mobile based deployments. These applications are aging quickly and require modernization, but they also raise serious challenges regarding the newly emerging SaaS Web, Cloud and Mobile deployments. These challenges can be summarized as follows:

1. Most legacy applications are not compatible with the newly emerging deployment economics and business models: SaaS, Cloud, Web and Mobile. When one of the players in a certain market starts offering their software product based on a SaaS model it is most likely that other players would have to do the same in order to stay in business. The same goes for the Cloud, Web and Mobile, which offer substantially reduced TCO (total cost of ownership), real time response and mobility and the ability to keep constantly updated and respond to changes in real time.  These are game changers in the way organizations do business so here also once a certain player in the market converts to one of these deployment models, competitors will have to follow in order to stay in business. And according to recent surveys they are right about there (see the following).
    
2. Legacy applications are becoming obsolete because they are increasingly too costly to support, and it is also hard to find developers to maintain them. Moreover, vendors are gradually ending their support for them.

Thus, it is no wonder to see some research indicating that application modernization is becoming a top priority for CIOs. 

Forester: Modernizing legacy systems is the top priority for most IT organizations, according to a recent survey conducted by Forrester Research.  From the Forrester press release: "Updating key legacy applications was cited as the top initiative for both enterprises and SMBs at 64 percent and 55 percent, respectively. More than one-quarter of enterprises and more than one-fifth of SMBs said that updating and modernizing key legacy applications is very important." 

Gartner: in the July 2010 report by Gartner, Inc., entitled “Signs Indicate a Train Wreck is Coming unless You Modernize IT,” CIOs are advised not to continue hiring more programmers to keep old systems running, but rather, “fund an IT modernization/application overhaul program.”  The consequences of not modernizing are increasing support costs and ultimately, the loss of IT and business agility.

Once a decision to modernize applications in order to meet the emerging trends is made, CIOs must then face and contend with at least 4 options:

1. Rewriting application code with one of the updated desktop frameworks (to get rid of obsolete and unsupported code) and using one of the application virtualization solutions to run it with distributed accessibility. Organizations that follow this option would have to make some compromises because of the drawbacks of current application virtualization solutions, such as high costs, lack of scalability and lack of distributed random accessibility. This could entail some costs and distribution issues that could jeopardize the move to SaaS Cloud, Web or Mobile.
    
2. Publishing the rewritten smart client application with solutions such as "ClickOnce" means sacrificing central management, end user convenience and real time updates, as well as IP and data security. Moreover, the CIO would obviously need to concede off-Cloud accessibility, Mobile deployment and overall Web economy.
    
3. Rewriting and redesigning code and applications using one of the RIA (rich internet applications) frameworks would carry the risks of high costs and unpredictable time to market as well as, in most cases, sacrificing richness, data security and application IP security.
    
4. Modernizing the application using one of the innovative solutions that can take the application or application's upgraded code straight into one or more of the new deployment models without re–architecting or rewriting to applications like Web, Cloud or Mobile.

It appears that research discourages some of these options, as follows:

1. Rewrites are costly and risky: In its latest research report, the Standish Group has found that application modernization projects have the highest likelihood of being completed on time, on budget and with all critical features included when compared to alternative approaches. The new report, "Modernization: Clearing a Pathway to Success", delivers an objective comparison of the cost, risks and ROI associated with rewriting, buying a package and modernizing a particular order processing application. The study found that, in this situation, application modernization had the highest likelihood (53%) of being completed on time, on budget and with critical features included. This compares to a 30% success rate for replacing the order processing application with a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) package and just 4% success when rewriting the application from scratch using the latest tools and techniques.
    
2. Application virtualization has its critical downsides: although it appears to be a viable solution, it also has many problematic dependencies, which make this solution impractical or too costly. 

Visual WebGui is among those innovative solutions.

So, what is Visual WebGui?

Visual WebGui (VWG) is a patent-pending Web, Cloud and Mobile application delivery platform with plain, cross browser-based accessibility that makes it unique in its field. Unlike existing SBC / Client-side virtualization solutions, VWG virtualizes desktop application code (as opposed to applications) atop standard Web servers or VWG- dedicated application servers and provides a plain (plug-in-free) and rich browser-based accessibility to the UI (user interface), which is the native-rich Ajax Web 2.0.
 
While existing virtualization solutions are restricted to the application level, VWG enables application code intervention. Developers can modernize the application in the process of transforming it to VWG, as well as develop new custom applications from scratch.

For automatic desktop application code transformation, VWG provides a simple and intuitive set of Instant CloudMove tools. For application modernization, new application development, maintenance and extension of transformed applications, VWG provides simple, Form based, VB6-Like DevTools.

About VWG technology

VWG is an exclusive solution that virtualizes desktop application code atop standard Web servers or dedicated application servers. It offers the best client-server balance with a UI (user interface) that is plain rich HTML / HTML5. Client-Server communication is made through the VWG HTTP/XML based protocol (patent pending), which is the thinnest available internet protocol.

Benchmarks prove that VWG protocol consumes as low as 50% server-side CPU resources when compared with other RIA solutions, and as low as 10% bandwidth. The result is highly responsive UI and the ability to serve at least twice the number of users with the same CPU / Bandwidth resources. VWG scales up over server farms, and benchmarks indicate that it is more scalable than standard Web solutions such as ASP.NET.

VWG architecture provides an unhackable front-end that was confirmed in the first ever real-world-hacking challenge. Read here.

VWG architecture diagram:

The result is an end-to-end Web/Cloud/Mobile infrastructure that provides native Ajax, secured-by-design, plug-in free and browser-based accessibility to virtualized desktop code.

VWG exclusive value proposition – best of 4 worlds

VWG is an ambitious solution that targets enterprise / SMBs issues by placing their applications on Web, Cloud or Mobile and by addressing them without compromises and resulting in an end-to-end solution to these issues. One of the major marketing challenges confronting VWG is that prospects look upon VWG solution as "too good to be true". In fact, during the past 6 years the company has invested greatly in research and development and devised the VWG solution on known problems and difficulties in addition to those that the VWG founders encountered themselves. VWG was also developed as an open source platform seeing major ongoing help from the VWG developers' community from day one.
 
It seems that the VWG R&D team, comprised of experts from 4 different disciplines, has been able to combine the best of 4 worlds. VWG offers the desktop Client-Server's intuitive and visual way of application development, deriving its inspiration from VB6 and .NET development paradigms. VWG reproduces Client-Server richness on Web, Cloud and Mobile with desktop code virtualization, and takes Web and Ajax concepts to extremes by offering desktop-rich Web, Mobile and browser-based user interface, but without its security drawbacks.
 
VWG captures the advantages of the virtualization concept by virtualizing desktop code on the Web server but without previous virtualization user interface limitations. It is the first solution to offer RIA, plain uninstalled scalable browser-based accessibility to virtualized desktop code. The value proposition derived from VWG's exclusive approach is summarized and illustrated in the following diagram
 

Visual WebGui combines the best of 4 worlds:

Market impact

VWG's first implementation is for Microsoft platforms. The VWG model is transferable to Java as well.  VWG lends its unique virtualization infrastructure to ASP.NET, Silverlight and Mobile platforms, which it extends atop a standard web server into an enterprise-dedicated and rich UI solution.

Since VWG's inception less than 4 years ago, it has seen its open source development tools downloaded over 700,000 times. It has reached approximately 5% of Microsoft .NET developers, and it has tallied some 35,000 deployed VWG applications, including in top-level government, military, financial, insurance and global healthcare organizations, as well as numerous inter-organizational applications.

VWG is here to serve the trend of modernizing and integrating "Legacy" and newly developed data-intensive enterprise applications into SaaS / Cloud, Web and Mobile.

Comparison Matrix

Conclusions

While the market offers several different options to taking desktop business applications to the Web, Cloud or Mobile it should be clearer now that the disadvantages of the more conventional approaches outweigh the advantages. This White Paper, while attempting to present the options as objectively as possible, advocates a unique and unconventional option.

Ultimately, better and more innovative approaches are those that will solve problems that current and more conventional approaches have been unable to solve. VWG is attempting to blaze new trails with its innovative and unconventional solutions together with options such as Nexaweb and other innovators following similar paths.

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