Lotus Expeditor

Features and benefits

IBM® Lotus® Expeditor software is IBM's client integration framework. It assists developers in integrating a wide variety of client and server applications to optimize the information that your employees need to accelerate your business processes. Expeditor is used in production by bank tellers, call centers, government employees, insurance adjusters, and in other customer care applications, worldwide. Use it to extend your IBM Lotus or IBM WebSphere® or other legacy applications such as Microsoft .NET. Lotus Expeditor software supports laptops, desktops, kiosks, branch office integration hubs and mobile device clients. It provides the flexibility of service oriented architecture (SOA) and a standards-based programming model from the OSGi™ alliance and the Eclipse foundation. Lotus Expeditor software also includes Lotus Expeditor integrator software which provides a local concentrator and integration hub for transactional messaging for satellite locations of an enterprise such as retail outlets or remote offices.

Benefits

Helps improve customer care employee responsiveness and productivity by providing a composite client desktop that integrates and aggregates multiple applications - including Microsoft ActiveX, native Windows and Linux applications, Java Swing, SWT, IBM WebSphere Host Access Transformation Services, and IBM Forms software. Composite applications which are integrated on the client desktop and optimized for the task at hand can help can cut seconds or minutes off of business processes.
Helps increase employee productivity by providing access to business applications, anytime, anywhere - with or without network connectivity.
Helps enhance developer productivity by allowing the re-use of program assets and developer skills.
Eases application extension to clients with a familiar programming model.
Helps prevent vendor lock-in by employing a standards-based programming model from the OSGi™ Alliance and the Eclipse Foundation. As an alternative to Microsoft client software, Lotus Expeditor software provides flexibility from service oriented architecture (SOA) and open standards based on the Eclipse platform. (Eclipse is an open source community committed to implementation of a universal development platform.).
Enables faster solution development and deployment of managed client applications through IBM Business Partners tools and services.
Helps reduce administration cost by enabling administrators to deploy and manage applications remotely.
Provides, with Lotus Expeditor integrator software, a local concentrator and integration hub for transactional messaging for satellite locations of an enterprise such as retail outlets or remote branch offices
Platform support: Works on a wide variety of operating system platforms, including Windows, Linux, AIX, Citrix and (on client only) Windows Mobile.

Features

IBM Lotus Expeditor software provides a desktop client integration solution to build composite applications and extend managed clients to a variety of devices. It also provides an integration hub for distributed locations. Built on Eclipse and OSGi technologies, Lotus Expeditor is an open, standards-based alternative to Microsoft® .NET clients. Lotus Expeditor software augments the Eclipse Rich Client platform with security, middleware, and an integration framework to provide customers with a supported product that has been proven in production on millions of desktops. The software toolkit plugs into your existing Eclipse or IBM Rational® Application Developer environment to help developers rapidly build and deploy applications. The software can be used to extend other IBM offerings like IBM Sametime, IBM Lotus Notes, IBM Lotus Symphony, IBM Forms and IBM WebSphere Application Server software.

Lotus Expeditor software provides client and the corresponding server-side connectors for the following capabilities:

Composition: Provides support for building and deploying composite applications containing components of virtually all types - from Java™ Foundation Class Swing, text terminal, Microsoft Visual Basic and ActiveX and applets to native or Web views like Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax), Adobe PDF, Java Server Pages, and IBM Lotus Forms components. As a result, you can create a visually integrated view and integrated workflow within the composite application - using processes contained in your back-office applications. The Lotus Expeditor toolkit includes many composition functions to help simplify and speed the development and deployment of composite applications developer productivity. See the developer productivity page for details.

Client integration: Helps bring information to your users' fingertips by enabling access to multiple data sources through the managed client using various technologies such as:

Transactional Messaging with the Lotus Expeditor Microbroker component, which provides publish/subscribe messaging
Web services with security features
Web container that supports Servlet 2.5 / JSP 2.1
Synchronized databases with IBM DB2® Everyplace® and with Apache Derby
Portlets (JSR 168)
IBM WebSphere Business Integration Adapter (and SCA client proxy) software

Transaction integration hub. Provides, with Lotus Expeditor Integrator software, a lightweight local concentrator and integration hub for transactional messages at each remote location and then provides intelligent routing and filtering of business events and data to the IBM WebSphere Message Broker software at the central site.

Disconnected access support: Help increase productivity by providing offline access to applications through local business logic and data.

Mobile access support: Enable employees to access enterprise information when away from the office, through laptops, PDAs and smartphones that are supported by the Lotus Expeditor client for devices. With Lotus Expeditor software you can extend SOA-based composite applications to a managed client environment on various supported devices. In addition, Expeditor software enables location APIs that developers can use to provide geographic-specific information in their applications.

Server-managed deployment: Help reduce deployment and maintenance costs by enabling client applications to be remotely deployed and managed from the server.

Rich client and Web-based user interface support: Promote reuse of skills and help increase developer productivity by offering developers a choice of programming models. The client developer environment includes managed client software and a servlet container, enabling developers to write Eclipse - and OSGi™ - based software or Web-based applications that run locally.

Client access via a Web browser: Citrix Presentation Server environment support in Lotus Expeditor software means that users can use a browser from existing lower-powered workstations to access Lotus Expeditor software based applications.

Security features: Lotus Expeditor software also includes many client security features including credential (key) store, enterprise single sign-on, two-factor authentication, enhanced Web services security, RSA encryption and integration with eTrust® SiteMinder® and Tivoli® Access Manager for e-Business (WebSEAL) for authentication. Lotus Expeditor software also supports Signed Features, is FIPS 140-2 compliant, provides local encryption of the Microbroker software, and time stamping for signed plug-ins.

Here are examples of how Lotus Expeditor software can be used to extend your existing and future IBM Lotus, IBM WebSphere or Eclipse infrastructures to a managed client environment.

For companies using...	Lotus Expeditor software can help...
IBM WebSphere® Message Broker	Integrate transactional data more quickly from remote offices or to enterprise systems – at near realtime, rather than waiting for batch data transfers. Extend WebSphere transaction processing into satellite locations at low cost. Provide a low-cost and near-zero maintenance infrastructure to enable local terminals and equipment to communicate with each other and with the central site.
Other WebSphere and Eclipse applications	Extend the WebSphere programming model with a flexible user interface on managed clients on various supported devices for access of Web applications in poor connectivity or occasionally connected environments Deploy the Lotus Expeditor client to a Citrix XenApp environment to extend the productivity of Lotus Expeditor software-based applications via browser access from existing, lower-powered workstations.
IBM Forms software	Streamlines the submission process for offline forms completed with IBM Forms software Include forms components in composite applications Extract data from e-forms and integrate it into business processes Manage e-forms with existing enterprise systems, such as relational databases, IBM Lotus Domino® solutions and host systems
IBM Sametime software	Incorporate real-time communication into line-of-business workflows by using Sametime with Lotus Expeditor or by using the Sametime features embedded in Expeditor. (Note: A Sametime license must be acquired to use these features). Provide a toolkit to add or extend new capabilities in Lotus Sametime through plug-ins.
IBM Lotus Notes 8	Provide a universal client that includes most capabilities of Lotus Expeditor Client for Desktop in IBM Lotus Notes 8 software, helping to enable the following: Deploy applications that integrate easily with server-based relational data sources other than IBM DB2 Support a mix of Microsoft .NET and Lotus Domino applications that require access from a client other than Lotus Notes Support a rich client desktop for employees who may not need mail and messaging (for example, bank teller, car rental agents, telesales agents)
IBM Lotus Symphony	Provide a toolkit to add or extend new capabilities in Lotus Symphony through plug-ins.
3270 and 5250 terminal applications	Provide a client for terminal applications that have been transformed with a GUI using IBM WebSphere Host Access Transformation Services (HATS).