Since its inception in 2000, Adesso Systems has built a successful business on the integrated Microsoft® platform, counting companies like Xerox, General Electric, and ExxonMobil among its satisfied customers. Using Microsoft’s Windows Server System™, Windows® XP, the .NET Framework, Windows CE, and Windows Mobile®, Adesso worked with its customers to design customized mobile applications for data collection, asset management, sales force automation, and other business functions.

However, the growing popularity of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models and rich “Web 2.0” applications highlighted the need for something new—software that can be built, customized, and deployed as easily as the simplest Web applications, yet be capable of delivering the power and “always-on” availability of the best Windows applications.

"Professionals and consumers want applications that meet their unique needs, that are fast and intuitive, and that work wherever they are—online or offline, in the office or on the road," says Adesso chairman and CTO John Landry. “The only way to do that is to harness both the power of the network and the power of the device. Traditional Web apps take terrific advantage of the network but do next to nothing with the device. We set out to fix that."

The Adesso RApp—Powered by .NET

By integrating its technology with Microsoft’s .NET Web services strategy, Adesso has created an entirely new kind of Internet application—the Adesso RApp—that works on any Windows PC, PDA, or Smartphone. Unlike traditional Windows applications, Adesso RApps are designed to be shared over the network and across multiple devices and users. And unlike traditional Web apps, Adesso RApps perform “intelligent replication” of data, logic, and permissions across all devices and users, optimizing the full processing power of both the device and the network.

For consumers, intelligent replication means that an Adesso RApp can maintain a photo collection across a family of devices—a desktop PC, home entertainment centers, and Smartphones, for example. Another RApp can automatically move the TV, music, and video you want from your Media Center PC at home to your PDA for the morning commute.

For businesses, intelligent replication means that an Adesso RApp can manage sales lead tracking, customized to the business’s exact needs and instantly deployed to every employee’s devices. Another RApp can keep collateral and pricing documents current across all employees’ machines, so they are available whenever and wherever those users want it, online or offline.

With these advances, Adesso makes application development easy and fast for professional programmers and much more accessible to hobbyist developers. The potential to create a variety of rich applications that can be customized and extended in minutes and distributed to everyone who needs them—from colleagues, family, and friends to communities of thousands of users—is virtually limitless.

The Adesso RAppsMarket

Applications with this kind of power and flexibility need a new ecosystem so users can find, extend, improve, exchange, discuss, and rate them. To that end, Adesso is putting the finishing touches on RAppsMarket—an online community and marketplace for Adesso RApps.

RAppsMarket will offer a comprehensive development, hosting, and billing infrastructure for the “long tail” of software—potentially large numbers of unique applications developed by individuals or small teams of developers for focused markets. RAppsMarket will provide a community and platform for developers building everything from free consumer solutions to specialized line-of-business software for specific industries—while Adesso handles the hosting, security, and billing.

“The kinds of applications that will be enabled through RAppsMarket are targeted at ‘millions of markets of dozens,’ which is a dramatic departure from the historic enterprise software model that targeted ‘dozens of markets of millions,’” says Landry. “With Adesso providing the tools, the hosting service, and a marketplace for our partners, even weekend developers can capitalize on the global market for their expertise, while our customers get access to a searchable database of unique and specialized applications.”

Microsoft Technologies Fueling Adesso’s Future

RAppsMarket is being built from the ground up to take optimal advantage of the capabilities and power of Windows.

For end-user devices, RAppsMarket makes extensive use of the Microsoft .NET common presentation framework, Web services stack, and runtime environment for both PCs and mobile devices. It also makes full use of the power and familiarity of Microsoft Office. For example, Adesso technologies designed specifically for use with Microsoft Excel® will enable users to rapidly create custom applications that are replicated and shared across multiple users and servers while taking advantage of all of the spreadsheet's analytics, forms, and charting capabilities.

On the server, Adesso relies on Microsoft technologies to support a very complex, highly-scalable site using ASP.NET Web development technologies, the SQL Server™ database, and, of course, the Windows Server System.

“In the ‘old days’—five years ago—programming tools were difficult to use, software development required specialized skills, and most online content and applications were produced by big software companies,” says Landry. “We’re now in the middle of a radical transformation that is creating remarkable opportunities for entrepreneurs and startups. Microsoft’s innovative development tools are a big part of that change, and we think RAppsMarket will help people create a wealth of new innovations and get those products into the hands of the people who want them the most.”

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