ZapNote: RatchetSoft
As ZapThink discusses in most of its research, Web Services provide an excellent means for exposing application functionality as network-discoverable Services that can then be consumed and composed as needed to suit evolving business requirements. However, one of the challenges that developers face in attempting to build such Services is defining the exact Services that might be required by end users that will consume those Services. Indeed, accomplishing the goals of widespread application reuse has always been a challenge since in a truly loosely coupled environment the developer has little or no communication with the consumers of those application Services. RatchetSoft hopes to change the fundamental challenge of Service development and application reuse by providing a tool for developers called Ratchet-X that allows them to map user interface elements to Service interfaces. End users can then consume these Services without needing to communicate with the original application developer to meet their ongoing needs.