The Other Components
In addition to the CMS and enterprise tools, Jcorporate offers a
couple of pre-built Web applications: an FAQ tool (eFAQ) and a
help desk application(eHelpDesk). Both are relatively
inexpensive at $99/domain compiled and $599/domain source. The
eHelpDesk application seemed a worthwhile investment if your
company needs any kind of support and issue tracking software,
this can be pretty complicated, and getting a head start with
this sort of application could save a lot of time/money.
However, the FAQ seemed somewhat less worthwhile. FAQs are
inherently simple, even when categorized, but it may be worth a
look for only a hundred bucks if it can save you a few hours.
Conclusion
Overall, I was pretty excited about Jcorporate and their
offerings. I would certainly say that their Web site is not a
good representation of the actual value here. They need to more
efficiently communicate what their value is - and why people
should buy it. That being said it is open source and that they
are basing their projects on other open-source standards, this
is less of a concern. If their documentation and application
speak for their passion and commitment, Jcorporate Expresso may
someday be more ubiquitous.
That all said, I'm here to evaluate the software, not give them
a lesson on marketing and the software is pretty good, although
I don't think it's always right for every application or every
company. There's a lot to consider, and the J2EE vision (which
Jcorporate uses as a mantra) of write-once-run-anywhere is
somewhat less than a reality today. Most of their software in
particular the Expresso framework is mature, tested, logical and
well documented. I recommend at least evaluating this software
for your Web development needs.
Drew Falkman is
the author of the JRun Web Application Construction Kit and co-
author (with Ben Forta) of Reality ColdFusion: J2EE Integration,
both published by Macromedia Press. Over the past 6 years, Drew
has developed over 150 Web applications in all sizes using
ColdFusion and Java. Currently Drew consults, speaks at events,
writes for numerous publications, and teaches courses at
Portland State University. His latest project through his
consulting company, Veraison LLC, was a real-time cattle auction
using Flash Remoting and Flash Communication Server. In
addition, Drew is a member of Team Macromedia, a certified
ColdFusion Developer and a certified Macromedia instructor.
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