London Underground's Network Tracking Application
If you attended the Windows Vista Developer Launch [UK] event in Reading or watched the live/on-demand webcast, then it is very likely that you have already seen the London Underground's network tracking application, which was demonstrated in the keynote:
Download [217MB]
Streaming (Skip to 38:00 for the demo)
So... this is indeed the "cool" application I was referring to in my earlier post (I couldn't mention any names at the time I was writing that post).
The London Underground's development team have been working together with Microsoft UK and my colleagues at Edenbrook to create an innovative solution based on WPF, Office 2007 (Excel and SharePoint) and Web Services.
This application is a very good example of SOA put into action. After all the hype around the SOA over the last couple of years, we haven't heard much about success stories that can clearly show the value of SOA to the senior management and key decision makers and this application seems to be an exception according to Tim Anderson:
"I was not the only person impressed by this application; apparently the governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, paid the developers a visit to find out more about it."
This application shows how the latest technology (WPF and Office 2007) can be used in an application that consumes a set of services built on top of the existing applications to create an eye-catching enterprise mash-up. Tim then concludes:
"So what does it take to be successful with SOA? It’s hard to discern whether London Underground is just a particularly good fit for this kind of architecture, or whether it happens to be using development principles that would work equally well in other contexts."
I believe that the latter is the case and many organisations out there can benefit from such development principles. The "Wow" factor on the presentation side is the key (or at least part of the key!) when it comes to winning the hearts and if we want to see such applications being materialised in a larger scale, we need more than a CTP for our development tools. That's why we are desperately waiting for Orcas to be released, and yes, we have exciting moments ahead of us and as Sanjay Parthasarathy mentioned in the keynote, now is a very good time to be a developer.
Here are a couple of links with more information on the London Underground project:
London Underground
Most Compelling Example Of WPF To Date
Tube Trains Show Off Windows Presentation Foundation
Software Architects Cautious About SOA; London Underground Make It Work
Vista and Office 2007 Spin Tales From The Underground