Developer(s) | IBM |
---|---|
Development status | Active |
Written in | Java |
Operating system | Cross-platform |
Type | OSGi Service Platform |
Website | lotus products |
IBM Lotus Expeditor is a software framework by IBM's Lotus Software division for the construction, integration, and deployment of "managed client applications", which are client applications that are deployed from, configured, and managed onto a desktop, usually by a remote server. The goal is to allow developers to create applications that take advantage of running on a local client, while having the same ease of maintenance as web-based applications.
There are several parts to Expeditor:
In addition, Lotus Expeditor Toolkit is for developers to create Expeditor applications and create customized Expeditor runtimes. It runs on top of the Eclipse integrated development environment.
Lotus Software uses Expeditor in many of its own products, including Notes (from version 8), Sametime (from version 7.5), and Symphony.
Lotus Expeditor has its roots in IBM's Pervasive Computing (PvC) initiatives. which were associated with the pursuit of ubiquitous computing. Early forms of Lotus Expeditor were first outlined publicly in 2001 in an article on IBM's Pervasive Computing Device Architecture. This architecture served as the basis for IBM PvC embedded software deliveries in many areas, including automotive telematics, industrial control, residential gateways, desktop screenphones, and handheld mobile devices.
In 2003, the core of the PvC Device Architecture, the OSGi Service Platform, was used in a refactoring of the Eclipse runtime to incubate what became Eclipse 3.0. This incubator project was referred to as Equinox. Eclipse 3.0 was released in 2004 as a refactored runtime (Rich Client Platform or RCP) and an integrated development environment (IDE) that exploited RCP.
Later in 2004, IBM announced Workplace Client Technology (WCT) for creating managed client applications targeted at desktops. WCT was an application of the PvC Device Architecture to desktops, which then included the RCP technologies. WCT also came with document editors that could read word processing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in OpenDocument format.