Adding to an Infinite View - Software Development Times On The Web

Adding to an Infinite View
MB Technologies boosts InfiView with Google Maps integration
By Jeff Feinman

September 5, 2007 — MB Technologies, creator of the Bindows development framework, has updated its tool platform for developing interactive and rich maps and diagrams.

The company is set to release version 1.5 of InfiView on Sept. 10; the first release of the tool was in March at the AJAXWorld Conference in New York. InfiView is a platform for creating diagrams including network topologies, airline routes and mapping support.

Version 1.5 of InfiView will offer graphical grouping integration capabilities with Google Maps. Users can create layers in InfiView to load maps from Google, and then add diagrams with graphics. Yoram Meriaz, CEO of MB Technologies, said that this could be used to take maps from one supplier and put in additional information for users without the limitations of Google Maps.

Layer Concept
InfiView is built in Bindows and can be used with it. InfiView allows the user to define and select tools by either modifying XML templates or by using the InfiView wizard. Users can create applications or embed diagrams into a mashup. InfiView uses a “layer” concept of mashup creation, in which Web sites or maps can be laid on top of existing data such as maps or schematic diagrams, creating interactive applications.

“I think InfiView is pretty unique. I don’t think anyone has created on the AJAX side something that would use AJAX, which means that you can have an infinite view,” Meriaz said. “People create diagramming tools, but they’re limited to three or four screen sizes… this can have infinite screens showing diagrams.”

Yoram Meriaz and his brother Ran established MB Technologies in 2002 in Warner Robins, Ga., with another office in Sweden. The company started off with the creation of the Bindows AJAX framework, which Meriaz called “AJAX before [the term] AJAX was coined.”

The Bindows framework is object-oriented, server-agnostic and offers integration capabilities with both Eclipse and IntelliJ’s IDEA. The company claims Bindows is built with the performance requirements of large complex applications in mind. Meriaz claimed that customer-built Bindows applications are used by 91 of the Fortune 100 companies and 85 of the Global 100 companies.

“Bindows, I think today, is by far richer than any of the other frameworks, whether they’re commercial or open source,” Meriaz said. “The architecture of it, which is similar to many things in Java, is easily understood by object-oriented people. You don’t need to know about HTML, but you do have all the power of JavaScript within it.”

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