Presto puts users
managers, IT staff or users in a
Presto repository, or they can be
supplied by existing systems.
in control of
app design
REVIEW: JackBe Presto 3.1 puts power users in
the driver' s seat for developing enterprise applica-
tions that provide real-time intelligence.
By P. J. Connolly
Afew years ago, mashups were the bee' s knees of enterprise development, and when you looked at
what traditional business applications did and how they were built,
the idea made perfect sense.
The mashup concept was sup-
posed to allow organizations to
build on the last decade' s invest-
ment in service-oriented archi-
tectures, combine SOA-driven
workflows with federated data and
agile-development philosophies,
The architecture behind PrestoÐ
which should not be confused with
the social-knowledge product of
the same name from InmagicÐ
is a bit complicated. That' s to be
expected in a product designed to
build on existing data structures
and transformation tools, instead
of replacing them.
The foundation of Presto, as
one might guess, is data, which
can come from internal or exter-
nal sources. Data snapshots, user
and group information, and other
metadata can be placed by data
Through Presto's APIs and
extensions, it' s possible to use the
Developers and power users
can use these tools to quickly cre-
ate applications that are easily
reworked as needed to react to rap-
Maybe that's why JackBe is
now pitching its Presto develop-
ment environment as a platform
for ª real-time intelligenceº and
is contrasting it with traditional
business intelligence products that
are good at explaining what hap-
pened, rather than what' s happen-
ing. But no matter how you slice,
dice or julienne it, Presto 3.1 does
a good job of putting power users
in control of application design
without compromising traditional
IT-centric controls on information.
The Presto App Editor is a Web-based tool that uses RIA languages to programmatically
define applications for enterprise use.
