Features and benefits

• Helps improve customer care employee responsiveness and productivity by providing a composite client desktop that integrates and aggregates multiple applications - including Microsoft ActiveX, Java Swing, SWT, IBM WebSphere Host Access Transformation Services, IBM WebSphere Portal and Lotus Forms software. Composite applications which are integrated on the client desktop and optimized for the task at hand can help can cut seconds or minutes off of business processes.

• Helps increase employee productivity by providing access to business applications, anytime, anywhere - with or without network connectivity.

• Helps enhance developer productivity by allowing the re-use of program assets and developer skills.

• Helps increase flexibility through reuse of assets and helps lower total cost of ownership by using an SOA approach. Its managed client capabilities are already used by other IBM offerings like IBM WebSphere Portal, IBM Lotus® Sametime®, Lotus Forms and IBM WebSphere Application Server software.

• Eases application extension to clients with a familiar programming model.

• Helps prevent vendor lock-in by employing a standards-based programming model from the OSGi™ Alliance and the Eclipse Foundation. As an alternative to Microsoft client software, Lotus Expeditor software provides flexibility from service oriented architecture (SOA) and open standards based on the Eclipse platform. (Eclipse is an open source community committed to implementation of a universal development platform.).

• Enables faster solution development and deployment of managed client applications through IBM Business Partners tools and services.

• Helps reduce administration cost by enabling administrators to deploy and manage applications remotely.

Lotus Expeditor provides a toolkit which helps developers rapidly build and deploy applications on Lotus Expeditor. The toolkit is included in the Lotus Expeditor client.

Lotus Expeditor software provides client and the corresponding server-side connectors for the following capabilities:

• Composition. Provides comprehensive universal managed client software for service-oriented architecture (SOA). It can be used to build and deploy composite applications containing components of all types - from Java™ Foundation Class Swing, text terminal, Microsoft Visual Basic and ActiveX and applets to native or Web views like Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax), Adobe PDF, Java Server Pages, IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM Lotus Forms components. As a result, you can create a visually integrated view and integrated workflow within the composite application - using processes contained in your back-office applications. The Lotus Expeditor toolkit includes a property editor to assist in the wiring of components in a composite application to help speed the integration. Lotus Expeditor 6.1.2 software also provides Composite Application Editor capabilities (from IBM Lotus Notes 8 software) so that developers can integrate information across applications more quickly and easily.

• Integration. Helps bring information to your users' fingertips by enabling access to multiple data sources through the managed client using various technologies such as:

  • Web services (JSR 172 and Apache Axis - JSR 101)

  • IBM DB2® Everyplace® software

  • WebSphere Portal (JSR 168 portlets) software. In Lotus Expeditor 6.1.2 software, support for Portlet Struts Framework separates Java code from the Web artifacts so that Java and Web developers can each leverage their own skills to help speed the integration of portlets into desktop composite applications.

  • IBM WebSphere Business Integration Adapter (and SCA client proxy) software

• Disconnected access. Help increase productivity by providing offline access to applications through local business logic and data. Support for WebSphere Portlet Factory software means that it can be used to develop offline, managed client portlets.

• Mobile access. Enable employees to access enterprise information when away from the office, through laptops, PDAs and smartphones that are supported by the Lotus Expeditor client for devices.

• Server-managed deployment. Help reduce deployment and maintenance costs by enabling client applications to be remotely deployed and managed from the server.

• Rich client and Web-based user interfaces. Promote reuse of skills and help increase developer productivity by offering developers a choice of programming models. The client developer environment includes managed client software and a servlet container, enabling developers to write Eclipse - and OSGi™ - based software or Web-based applications that run locally.

• Client access via a Web browser. Citrix Presentation Server environment support in Lotus Expeditor 6.1.2 software means that users can use a browser from existing lower-powered workstations to access Lotus Expeditor software based applications.

Lotus Expeditor software also includes many client security features including desktop lockdown, credential (key) store, enterprise single sign-on, two-factor authentication, enhanced Web services security, RSA encryption and integration with eTrust® SiteMinder® and Tivoli® Access Manager for e-Business (WebSEAL) for authentication.

With Lotus Expeditor software you can extend SOA-based composite applications to a managed client environment on various supported devices. It is an open standards based alternative to Microsoft .NET clients supporting Release 4 of the OSGi Service Platform. Here are examples of how it can be used to extend your existing and future IBM Lotus, IBM WebSphere or Eclipse infrastructures to a managed client environment.

Lotus Expeditor can be complemented by mobile and wireless connection software for seamless roaming and security extensions for employees who use devices such as laptops, smartphones and PDAs. This software is currently available as IBM Lotus Mobile Connect, which is the follow-on release to IBM WebSphere Everyplace Connection Manager.