Investigation of hosted tools for web application delivery

Abstract

With the web becoming more interactive, web application development environments are shifting to the web platform as well, as we call web hosted tools. However because of the nature of the web itself, web hosted tools are different from traditional desktop IDE (Integrated Development Environment). This paper analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of web hosted tools and summarizes three kinds of web hosted tools delivery models that appear on the Internet. Based on the widespread study of existing hosted tools, this paper analyzes the web hosted tools requirements in the Small and Medium Business (SMB) market, and summarizes a list of features for web hosted tools to support SMB business application delivery. Web hosted tools providers can benefit from the investigation of this paper in their tool development and business models.