Friday, March 14, 2008

ITM 6.1 FP05 - NEW - What's a widget?

If you have started looking at Fix Pack 5 for ITM 6.1, you may have noticed (on the Windows version fix pack) that there is a directory called Widget.

This directory has the Tivoli Widget Engine, these "widgets" are very similar to the widgets you would use with the Google Desktop or Mac OS X. The widgets are little graphical JAD programs that execute a SOAP call to your hub tems via the Tivoli Widget Engine. You can set transparency and opacity so you can see thru the widgets. Each one of these widgets must be configured and you need to understand the formatting of the SOAP requests to get them properly configured. Each widget engine must be installed locally on each workstation, configuration must be performed locally too.

So, my final comment is this - I would have rather have seen improvements in security and a lightweight web interface to the my agents than this workstation based solution. Maybe this is the direction of the"web mash" - but until the basics solid (INCLUDING SCALE) - I think more effort should be put into the core product.

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