We’ve recently opened our silly lil’ web app to the world. It is a very basic app that shows how it is possible to register a “context” with our Salient server, use an instant messaging client that is connected to an Openfire Jabber server (running our Openfire Voozer), and get matches based on that context.

Unfortunately, the app opened up a few cans of “worms” including Adobe’s Flex(Builder). We also have spent a bit of time with Javascript which we ultimately dumped in favor of an all-Flash version of the app.

Take ’er for a spin - and let me know if it doesn’t make sense. The potential for integrating IM, or VoIP into existing applications in order to “link” people is just huge. We are beginning to think about scalability issues and are considering a jump to a true web-application enviro - over our current server-based architecture based on OSGi and Jetty. One of the key problems we have to overcome is the handling of user-security and data-security. The solution here will push in one direction over the other. Although I really appreciate OSGi (and to a lesser extent Java), the need for this Open Source project’s product to function as a “software service” is driving us away. Ruby on Rails is looking nice, simply because it solves a lot of our problems out of the box.

We’ve also done some preliminary research on Amazon’s EC2 and S3 services. Those combined with RoR’s “portability” make for a nice delivery platform that scales out as necessary.

Anyway…check out the demo.