Start with the Firefox browser from Mozilla.org and make it a Web developer's primary target; the object of an AJAX scripter's dream; a parser's parser; the rose on a Web services vine; the easiest endpoint for object, relational, and XML data connectivity. Make it open, fast, and rich — but not too rich — in UI niceties. Make it secure and easily up-dateable. Let me use a headset for VOIP calls. Let me synch to my cell phone and/or iPod through it, too. This software client, which Oracle, of course, would donate back to the appropriate open source communities with a no strings-attached and unfettered license, would be what Internet Explorer could have been but never will be.

For enterprises, put an Oracle data cache on the client, if you must, for those odd offline times and speedier performance requirements. And, oh, well … fine, optimize it to perform best with Oracle RAC applications and stripped grid data servers. Fine. I can live with that. Just let me live in the thing as a user across all my REST/POX, SOAP, SIP, VOIP, and DHTML productivity needs. A truly unified thin client. Ahhhh.

But don't wait. The newest Microsoft Office 12 clients-as-rich-front-ends stuff won't arrive for 14 months, and not enter the market in a meaningful way for probably 20 months, so now's the time to get the new definition of thin-client computing out the door. That way the ISVs, corporate developers, on-demand services providers, SOA architects, and mobile carriers will see the true future, the one of choice, freedom, and the services fabric. Hell, even Benioff will like it, even if software is ended.

Oh, and if Oracle is not into this right now, too busy with M&A details, for example, how about you, IBM? Whattaya say? We could call it Wicked WorkPlace, or something catchy like that. Market it as Multi-Protocol, Client-Enabled Portal-Optimized Middleware (WebSphere MPCE-POM), as you are wont to do, if you must. Just get it done.

After a week like this, you have to dream.


Surrupiada da ZDNet.

ps do pv: Só não creio que Oracle ou IBM, mesmo compartilhando (concorrendo com) o mesmo sonho, sejam capazes de realizá-lo.