Why is it, that we cannot provide a single place for employee’s to get all of their applications? This is a question that I have been wrestling with for the past few years, and as more and more technologies crop up, this problem gets worse. If we think about it, the application classification determines where the user has to go launch (or see) the application. For the purposes of this posting I will group applications into three distinct groups

  1. Locally installed applications. These are applications that are on the users device and are typically launched from the user’s start menu
  2. Web Based Applications. Web applications that have no client component and are entirely browser based.
  3. Delivered or hosted Applications. These are applications that typically run in a Citrix/Terminal server environment, where the user executes an application running on the server.

Undoubtedly, if you work in a large enterprise, you will likely have at least two of the application classifications above, and probably will have all three. So, if we think about the scenario, if Maxwell Smart needs to start Word 2007, he goes to his start menu and finds MS Word and launches it. Now, if Max needs to to go to his web based HR system, he will probably launch his browser, go to his company portal (which has links to the web applications he has access to) and clicks on the link for his HR system, opening a new browser for him to accomplish his tasks. Finally, lets say Max needs to launch a clinical application hosted in a Citrix environment, well, in this instance he would most likely open up Citrix Program Neighborhood, find the application in the listing and the launch in from there. As you can see from this scenario, for the three different application classification, the user has three interfaces they have to go to in order to launch the applications. Why cant we provide them with the holy grail of a single interface? Shouldn’t users, at least those in the enterprise, have a single interface for all of their applications and not have to worry about figuring out where they need to go to launch an application? Up to this point i have not seen anyone try to provide a comprehensive approach to solving this problem and while their may be work-around's, like adding file://c:john.exe links to a SharePoint site, none of these are particularly enticing.

Now I should probably make some clarifications here.

  1. I know that Citrix/Terminal services has a web interface that can be integrated into SharePoint, but at a minimum, we are still talking two scenarios, not the holy grail of one. If your interested in the WISP webpart for citrix check it out here.
  2. While I do have some experience with MS SMS I have not played around with the recently released version. The last version, thought, did not have a unified UI for displaying applications, the philosophy is to push applications/links into the start menu.

So, since only bringing up a problem without a proposed solution doesn't bear much weight, I though I would put in my two cents for providing a better single interface for application delivery. The best as i can see it, this is really a two part problem, area #1 is displaying and application listing to the user. Since this blog is SharePoint focused, lets use SharePoint!!!.