Users have accessed this article 7412 times.

IFN Solutions specializing in Document, Content and Business Process Management solutions. Since its inception in 1993, IFN Solutions has been recognized as a leading Enterprise Content Management solutions provider, delivering value added ECM systems to its customers. The company has developed and implemented a wide range of comprehensive solutions for Business Process Management and Content Management. IFN maintains a long term partnership with FILENET Corp., a software provider, ranked as the Enterprise Content Management world leader, and leverages its solutions from FILENET technologies.

Technology wise IFN started developing client/server, ECM and BPM solutions, on Visual Basic 4, growing with the technology shifts to Visual Basic 6 and as the web hype started to emerge IFN created a web version of its client/server BPM/ECM infrastructure. On the web version IFN tried to archive the same functionality and empowering it achieved in the client/server version.

IFN's web version slowly started to penetrate as enterprises shifted to web based applications, leveraging the deployment and broad reach of the intranet and the internet. While IFN followed all the best practices of compiled business layer communicating with a data access layer, etc. developing the web version wasn't a piece of cake. In fact while IFN kept on developing and maintaining both client/server and web versions, it had focused most of its resources on the web version that was always behind the client/server version. Adding features to the client/server versions was very easy as the client/server version was based on Visual Basic that offers great designer and object oriented that helped in developing and maintaining the application, but adding features to the web version was always very hard.

In the beginning of 2005 IFN started developing the next generation of its products, this time focusing on web oriented solutions as all the market did. It started to research and look for the right technology to adopt. IFN knew what it was looking for and what it wanted to achieve but was searching the best way to get there. IFN knew that it's customers would not accept anything but a client/server functionality based on web technology. That’s when IFN came upon WebGui which is a web application framework that enabled them to develop application in client/server development concepts.

When the option came up, among other alternatives, IFN insisted upon putting the technology to test bench, comparing all the relevant aspects to alternative solutions. Those tests included among others architecture inspecting, limit tests, trial application constructing and running and future road mapped features. Eventually the decision was a clear cut one. No other solution offered the simplicity, flexibility, time saving and industrial strength that IFN was looking for. The inevitable decision to base IFN's next generation products on WebGui was taken after few months of test & trials.

Eddy Fishman IFN CTO says "IFN had chosen WebGui after a profound testing process and POC. We had decided to develop all our future products atop WebGui and we are in a process of constructing web server/client systems for leading enterprises in Israel and overseas"

IFN WebGui programmers are desktop Winforms programmers who are developing, web applications in the capacity that could easily be compared to Microsoft's "Outlook Web Access" in it's complexity and look and feel, without writing a line of JavaScript/HTML or any other web language. WebGui full object oriented support enabled IFN to adopt proven design patterns such as (Command, MVC, Factory, etc.) that was previously used by client/server solutions and was implemented poorly into web application solutions. Further more the OOP design of WebGui enabled IFN to create highly reusable components that could be applied in many scenarios, accelerating even further development process.

"It took me couple of hours to present WebGui to IFN programmers including basic training and going over best practices. After I concluded my presentation there were no questions" says Guy Peled WebGui chief architect. "There was a moment of embracing silence, but soon enough I realized that when you present Winform, and basically this what WebGui is, to Winform programmers you shouldn't be too surprised if they don't ask you any questions, other then the repeating mumbling: it is too good to be true"

"IFN has been developing on WebGui platform since late 2005. One system is already in production and up to now they needed almost no support and we are speaking of few tens of programmers developing several apps system simultaneously for few months. I believe WebGui simplicity, familiar API and methodology is the winning horse as far as alternatives are concerned and IFN proves it" concludes GUY