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October 5, 2006
Spotfire DXP – a great product built on a great foundation
When the development of a new analytic product started at Spotfire we had a few different options regarding what development platform to choose:
- Microsoft .Net 1.1
- Microsoft .Net 2.0
- A mix of Microsoft .Net and C
- Java
Java was ruled out almost immediately, since it is not well suited for integration with COM enabled applications.
From a technical point of view we were convinced that the Microsoft .Net 2.0 framework had the greatest potential; some of the advantages we saw were:
- Tight integration with COM enabled applications possible
- Many attractive language features that may increase development productivity
- Good track record for end user adoption of previous .Net releases
- New software deployment features in .Net 2.0 enables better control over centralized deployment
Still the decision to use the 2.0 platform was not an easy one; the main factor against it at the time was that it was still in beta release…
After struggling with bugs in beta releases of platform and development tools, we still believe that we made the best choice. I’m confident that the analytics platform that we have built for Spotfire DXP will be just as successful as the Spotfire DecisionSite platform has been.
The key features of the Microsoft .Net 2.0 platform that we have made great use of are:
C# language feature like:
- Generics
- Anonymous delegates
New runtime features:
- Improved remoremoting>
- Web services
- Windows Forms enhaenhancements
- Internationalization
- 64 bit platform support
In the next year you will see a number of releases of Spotfire DXP that exposes more of the great analytics platform that we have put in place.
Regards,
Jonas
Posted by Jonas Lagerblad at October 5, 2006 2:45 PM
