Ray Ozzie writes:
In a pre-WinFS world, each application has managed its own “documents” and “records” and “collections” as an island unto itself – each with its own indexing and interaction mechanisms, each with its own solution-building mechanisms. Good ‘nuf. But in a WinFS world – just like in a Web Services world – we have the opportunity to explore what would happen if we dared to “deconstruct and refactor” our concepts of traditional client-side applications into a mesh of separately-built application components that “meet” at the level of common persistent objects and relationships.
Imagine what a traditional PIM might look like if it were possible to build it in a modular fashion, with each modules’ underlying object schemas, store, and methods exposed as standards so that others could build upon them? Imagine building custom domain-specific client-side CRM/SFA solutions that might leverage these common standards. Imagine the deconstruction and refactoring of traditional desktop applications so that higher-level domain-specific applications and solutions could be built from components currently embedded in larger integrated packages. Imagine what “content management” might become in an era where collections of objects can be created, retrieved, cached, replicated, published in conjunction with service-oriented systems, yet one in which a variety of content creation and manipulation applications can effectively leverage common storage and synchronization mechanisms.
Adds Ozzie: “There are two significant factors working in favor of the future of the rich client: storage and communications.”
