So, does FlowBuilder meet its promise to transfer Domino data as well as provide a J2EE skills bridge? My observations of application transition echo those of John Tripp (at http://www.jwt.com) who chose FlowBuilder 3.0 to convert a Domino web application that had become too ungainly to maintain.

John saw similarities in the RAD orientation of FlowBuilder 3.0 and Lotus Domino/Notes, "If Lotus Notes was built today, it would look a lot like FlowBuilder 3.0."

He also added that a surprising benefit to switching to FlowBuilder was a collateral "Huge productivity boost." The new architecture allowed his department to streamline its staffing levels, a welcome benefit that they had not expected.

Like Domino, FlowBuilder 3.0 is a big product and there are lots of features and capabilities that are beyond the scope of this review (like portal integration), but I was very impressed by the development capabilities of FlowBuilder 3.0. There were times when working with FlowBuilder felt like working with a combination of Lotus Workflow and Domino, as if they had been fused together and redesigned for J2EE. I say this, not because FlowBuilder is a repackaged Lotus Domino, but because the RAD power of Domino is very much alive and well in FlowBuilder 3.0.

I am personally surprised that more ISVs and IBM Business Partners haven't examined FlowBuilder 3.0 as a way to assist their clients who are interested in transferring successful Domino applications into J2EE. If you are looking to build workflow applications that offer a web interface and the scalability of J2EE, then FlowBuilder is a home run. Go ahead, download and try the personal evaluation of FlowBuilder 3.0.

I think FlowBuilder 3.0 deserves a 5 out of 5 rating. However, there are two areas that deserve comment: product pricing and long-term viability. The pricing for FlowBuilder (which they don't post with any visibility) is a little restrictive for SMBs. I'd say that while FlowBuilder 3.0 could be very useful for many corporations on the smaller side of a SMB, probably only companies in excess of two or three-thousand employees can easily justify the expense.

On the second point, about viability, Flowbuilder 3.0 uses many commodity offerings for its undercarriage parts. A wide range of RDBMS (including the Open Source MySQL), and web application servers make it very attractive. However, the application logic is still encoded with a proprietary XSP framework. It's very neat and efficient, but it may prove challenging to convert the data and application logic into the next generation application services (whatever they may turn out to be). I don't necessarily think this is a caveat warning, as much as it simply deserves to be said out loud. I think the proprietary nature of their XSP model is a reasonable compromise for the Rapid Application Development platform.

OUR RATING: 5 of 5

Jack Dausman is a partner at ICI Systems, Inc., providing IBM/Lotus, Microsoft training and consulting services in the Washington, DC area. He is a Dual-Principal CLI who has served on the IBM/Lotus CLI Advisory Board. He also holds two masters' degrees and is certified as MCT/MCP, CNE, and Linux+. To relax, he and his son are both blackbelts at http://www.kumdo.com and he enjoys making music with his daughter. Jack invites you to visit his blog at http://LeadershipByNumbers.com.