Editor's Pick: Exceed onDemand 7 Reduces Costs, Improves Remote User Experience

By Anthony J. Lockwood

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

I was so hip in '85. I could work from home on an online techno-news, information, and gossiping community for computer geeks worldwide. I had a 1200-baud modem, and this blazing glory (often) let me comfortably access the Unix system running text-based conferencing software until the demand for graphics came along. Graphics were our Waterloo. And they still are for high-tech companies that need to support the talent wherever he or she lives or travels. That's where Exceed onDemand 7 from Open Text levels the playing field.

Exceed onDemand empowers outfits working with MCAD, CAM, scientific and engineering modeling, and so on to support scattered workforces by enabling centralized, Unix-based graphics-intensive applications to work on Windows and Linux workstations over the Internet or a subpar WAN as if the end-user were wired to the LAN downstairs. This means that stuff like real-time collaboration or hiring the best person in the world (who lives in a yurt outside of Monowi, Nebraska) is no longer out of the question.

At the heart of Exceed onDemand version 7 is a networking protocol infused with compression algorithms, caching schemes, and optimization techniques that minimize all the data that gags most networks. It adjusts compression and optimization levels in response to fluctuations in network bandwidth, and it solves problems that X server proxies have with protocol requests -- all making end-user application requests quicker.

Full, modern security and encryption methods are standard. It supports cluster computing, any-server access of a common license pool, and Microsoft Active Directory user and group information. Its end-user thin client works with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Exceed onDemand has more tricks up its sleeve. If your network connection drops out, it saves your application's state so that you resume where you were when reconnected. It's sparky enough for collaborative desktop sharing, and it's engineered to handle full-gourmand Open GL 3D graphics so that the end-user experience is close to console.

Close to console might be the best way of envisioning Exceed onDemand 7. The workforce, the  workspace, and the workload are changing as the demands get more intense. You can't support multiple application centers, and most VPNs are maddening slow. So, what do you do? You can hire somebody anywhere, hope they have the same applications as you do, and use e-mail to send Zipped files and poorly expressed messages back and forth. Or you can leverage Exceed onDemand 7 and that remote knowledge worker can use same application you have and have the ability to collaborate on the same graphics-intensive model simultaneously without the hassle of networking delays.

You can read more about Exceed onDemand 7 in today's Pick of the Week write-up. Check out some of the PDFs to get a full picture then sign up for the evaluation. Exceed onDemand 7 seems like one of those solutions that answers even more problems than you or its developer imagine it will. Good stuff.

Read today's Pick of the Week write-up.

Thanks, pal. -- Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering Magazine