THE TWI (True Web Integration) VISION

I fully agree with Scot Hacker's article "Missing the point of True Web Integration" (Whole Web Catalog). I prefer the True Web Integration (TWI) interface to previous ones.

I'd like to add that, currently, the TWI initiative only emphasizes file resources, and does not focus on messaging, electronic commerce, and database and electronic data interchange/integration re- sources. Those will come through the same TWI interface, transparent to the user, when those system architectures and infrastructures are developed to the level of ubiquity of file systems, resulting in a true electronic enterprise.

I envision not only the current situation of having file and messaging systems integrated and sharable through personal, team, departmental, and enterprise databases, but also having an object/relational DBMS built into the local Microsoft OS for sharable resources. In fact, I envision that all local, network, and Internet operating systems will soon operate in a federated manner as a single secure directory-centric, certified-permission DBMS environment.

With the rapid progress of Internet technologies, this ubiquitous mechanism to access file, message, and data stores and processors will come by the end of this century, and more importantly, the ubiquitous mechanism to dynamically organize that content and grant and/or revoke permissions to access it will come within the same time frame. The implications for humanity and our home are immensely positive, and are merely an initial step into something even more beneficial.

Roy Roebuck
Enterprise Engineer
One World Information System
Arlington, VA
roebuckr@erols.com

The TWI built into IE4 differs from your future vision not just in degree, but in type. The current TWI embarks on a path of user interface consistency between local and external resources and access methods. The system itself doesn't bring TWI into third-party apps automatically--new apps will need to be written to take advantage of these concepts.

To achieve the computing utopia you describe, Microsoft needs to start from scratch with an operating system that's built as a database from the ground up, so that all files, resources, e-mail, e-currency, aliases, and agents share a common data space by definition. An early example of this can be seen in the nascent operating system from Be, BeOS. Since every object visible to BeOS is an object in a database that's actually built into the file system, all apps can share data and views of data seamlessly. It's going to take Microsoft a long time to reverse-engineer their system to that kind of elegance. In the meantime, more on BeOS can be found at ZDNet BeHive. --ed