D2 and browser support

Everything I've seen and read leads me to believe that D2 will only support Internet Explorer on Windows. Please tell me this isn't the case. Surely EMC knows they can't just shutout every other browser and operating system. That would be unacceptable.

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gabriel_raul

Multi-browser support to include Widget-based user interfaces and Skins configurations will be available with the 4.0 release slated for Q3 2012.

All comments

DCTM_Guru

The current release only supports IE. The next major release (v4) will have support for other browsers, which will probably happen during EMC World.

Julien.Fontaine

Yes you are right Johnny. D2 currently use an activeX that's why it juSt supports IE

fainemr

Johnny, thanks for the confirmation but I'm really sorry to hear this. The way I see it, you should never even release a product like D2 (except maybe as a beta or customer preview) until it supports at a minimum Internet Explorer, Firefox (any platform) and maybe Safari on Mac OS X . Until then you don't really have a viable product, it is just partially substantiated vaporware. There is no way I could convince my managment to let me roll out enterprise-wide something that only works on Windows and then only in Internet Explorer.

So, for all intents and purposes, 4.0 is really 1.0 as far as I'm concerned.

DCTM_Guru

Keep in mind D2 was acquired by EMC from a smaller company (dont remember the name off the top of my head). The smaller company probably did not have resources to focus on supporting (which includes testing) multiple environments. The smaller company probably also had a smaller market base that they were targetting.

Now that EMC has aquired the product, the supported environments obviously has to grow. v4.0 is probably the first version that EMC has control from development/testing perspective.

Francois Dauberlieu

Name is C6, a French company.

Being myself part of a small software company, I completely agree with Johnny. It is hard to be able to support all and everything because of limited resources even with the best will in the world

tsg_dave

Agree with all the conversation so far that, as an acquired product, IIG purchased/licensed the product and understood that it only supported IE (I think it is only 7 and 8 - not sure on 9).

The bigger issue is the D2 is that it is ActiveX based. While it provides some good capabilities for check-in/check-out, it will limit the browser support and would probably involve a rearchitecting of the product if IIG wanted to move to a more cross-browser HTML/Javascript approach.

Given that IIG is currently hiring a product manager for D2 (any volunteers from this group?):

http://sales-jobs.fins.com/Jobs/197107/Principal-Product-Manager-Documentum-D2-Configuration-US-Pleasan?reflink=djm_modulewsj_widgetjobs_jobsatdmedia&cobrand=ATD

I would guess that moving to support multi-browsers is pretty far into the future.

Dave

As an aside, Tony from our group did a comparison of check-in/check-out of D2 and other options - screen cam is here

http://www.tsgrp.com/LearningZone?video=d3ae21ba-0f19-48ab-9419-25b1757dcd83

DCTM_Guru

Hi Dave,

Multi-browser support is in the next version (v4), which hopefully comes out by EMC World..

gabriel_raul

Multi-browser support to include Widget-based user interfaces and Skins configurations will be available with the 4.0 release slated for Q3 2012.

DCTM_Guru

Thanks Gabriel for update. I guess it wont be ready by EMC World

fainemr

Thanks all for the information. I had a sales rep tell me just about the same as Gabriel but with the usual caveats (these things tend to slip, etc).

Aren't we already in the third quarter of 2012? Perhaps they don't mean fiscal year? If not, let's hope it is in the early part of the third quarter and not the end.

Honestly, if it weren't for all the Mac computers we have here we could probably float a Windows/Internet Explorer only interface. Though, even then it would probably not last long once the first person complained that they could not use Firefox and yet Firefox is listed as a browser that the agency supports.

However, it doesn't matter since we have a lot of users with Mac OS X workstations here and many of those users, at some point, will require access to Documentum, some of them even daily access.

tsg_dave

IIG tends to talk in terms of fiscal quarters so third quarter would be sometime between July and September - 2012.

In regards to roadmap dates, typically IIG will talk about committed versus uncommitted. In regards to multi-browser support, it is probably uncommitted at this point in time. Maybe it will be committed by EMC World (and we get to see a demo).

I did a blog post about committed items at EMC World 2011

http://blog.tsgrp.com/2011/05/11/emc-world-%E2%80%93-2011-%E2%80%93-day-three-ecm-strategy-and-roadmap-%E2%80%93-20112012-mark-arbour-%E2%80%93-head-of-product-management-%E2%80%93-ecm-applications/

and would agree that IIG has done a good job at hitting the items that they committed to hitting. Items like the Uninified Client were uncommitted and will probably either slip or drop off the roadmap. Items like D7 will probably just slip a quarter or two.

I agree with your Mac clients but other browsers are a big issue with an IE only approach. Most of my clients have IE but lots of other browsers. Add the number that want mobile access from phones and tablets and I think there is a pretty solid trend for non-IE only solutions.

My two cents,

Dave

fainemr

Yeah, we haven't seen an rise in mobile traffic yet but I'm expecting it. I have a really novel concept for application deveopers, especially web application developers.

How about you stick to a entirely standards based approach and say whatever browsers conform to the W3C web standards we will support?

End users wouldn't need to care about what browswers are supported by the vendor. I'd even be okay if this meant a least-common-denominator set of features since then we know we have support on all platforms and operating systems.

If the vendor then wants to offer a feature but can't and stay within the specification of the standard they should take up their issue with the browser vendors (MS, Firefox, etc) and standards board since the only way this could be the case is if there were some incompliance with the standards.

Customers have enough to deal with already and it is likely that this isn't the first time that this battle has been fought, in fact it is probably being fought with several vendors simultaneously. I have little sway with Microsoft when I tell them to do a better job supporting X or asking them to support a feature in Java (or some portable, cross-platform technology) that already exists in Active X (don't get me started on proprietary plugins).

The point is, EMC has far more weight and resources than I do. They should be fighting this battle for me (their customer) but instead they play the victim like all the other vendors. By the way, I'm not just referring to the current D2 discussion, but the very fact that it still matters what browser we choose for any application in 2012.