Manufacturing

Extending the desktop to mobile

9 February 2009

Wonderware is enhancing its mobile workforce and decision support system software, IntelaTrac, by adding new Microsoft technologies for improved presentation and reporting.

We believe that the commonality between Microsoft WPF and Silverlight technologies should enable Wonderware to more easily extend some desktop experiences to the Web and mobile clients.

John Madden, Wonderware Wonderware will be adding compatibility with several of Microsoft's enhanced .NET Framework 3.0 capabilities. Future Wonderware IntelaTrac developments will feature Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), which is a graphical subsystem in .NET Framework 3.0 that uses a markup language known as XAML for rich user interface development.

"With current Wonderware development efforts focused on the .NET framework, WPF is the next logical step for enhancing the functionality of IntelaTrac," said John Madden, director of product development for Wonderware Mobile Solutions. "We expect that the clean separation between the user interface and business logic that WPF supports will greatly increase Wonderware software development productivity. Wonderware also expects to be able to speed our quality assurance and issue resolution times, while simultaneously speeding time-to-market for future releases of Wonderware IntelaTrac.

"In addition, we believe that the commonality between Microsoft WPF and Silverlight technologies should enable Wonderware to more easily extend some desktop experiences to the Web and mobile clients."

Wonderware IntelaTrac software reporting also will be enhanced with the addition of connectivity to Microsoft's SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). SSRS is a server-based report generation software system from Microsoft that can be used to prepare and deliver a variety of interactive and printed reports via the internet.

"SQL Server Reporting Services is a rich reporting platform that delivers business intelligence to everyone in the enterprise," said Jared Bienz, ISV architect advisor with Microsoft. "Reports are built in a familiar Microsoft Office-like design that can be shared with peers and workgroups to promote collaboration and knowledge transfer. SSRS also integrates with SharePoint, adding value to the infrastructure many customers already have in place."

"Customers will be excited to know that many of their functionality suggestions, such as caching, subscriptions and exporting to Excel, Word or PDF, will be available out of the box with the future use of this new mobile platform technology," Madden added.

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