Early Problems for Microsoft's Software as a Service Sample: LitwareHR

Posted by Jonathan Allen on Feb 20, 2007 06:10 AM

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Microsoft is offering a new sample application called LitewareHR to serve as a springboard for discussions about software as a service. Available on CodePlex , this sample application uses many of the concepts and theories described in the white papers and articles on MSDN.

While the theory behind a living application to test theories sounds promising, early participation doesn't seem to be meeting expectations. As of the 19th, there are only two discussions, both about installation, and seven bugs/feature requests.

One possible reason for the lack of community interest is the high barrier to entry. Only developers with access to a Windows 2003 Server to play with can really participate in the program. As most developers probably use XP Pro for their day-to-day work, LitwareHR isn't something one can try without a spare server lying around. Other requirements include SQL Server 2005, .NET 3.0, Active Directory Application Mode, and Visual Studio 2005.

Eric Nelson does offer one suggestion; Microsoft is currently offering Windows Server 2003 as a virtual image. This does require Virtual Server 2005 R2.

In addition to the code itself, Microsoft is offering plenty of documentation and videos on both LitwareHR itself and the process that led to its creation.

InfoQ Asks: Are these reasonable requirements for sample code?

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   SaaS

   Feb 21, 2007 12:32 AM by Thamaraiselvan Poomalai

   After reading the article, it seems to me that customers want to use software as service need to tailor their business processes according to software service provided. SaaS may be suitable for repetitive, low impact business goals not for high impact, innovative business goals as same service can be subscribed by your competitors too.

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   Running Litware HR on Windows XP: HowTo released

   Feb 28, 2007 9:40 PM by Ariel Schapiro

   Litware HR was designed to run in Windows Server 2003 because it provides features that a real world production datacenter needs, such as the ability to run multiple websites at the same time. Through Litware HR community site, we collected feedback from people that would prefer to evaluate the application on Windows XP.
   
   Litware HR uses multiple websites but Windows XP?s IIS (version 5.1) does not allow that, so we came up with a set of instructions that will allow people to work around that and other issues too.
   
   We?ll keep working on this so hopefully a new MSI will be published soon; but if people want to test and evaluate LitwareHR on Windows XP today, they can follow this how-to.
   
   More information on LitwareHR community site news

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