Book Avis. Why though?
For whatever reason I was looking at some of the smart client work Realtime Enterprises was touting on their site.
The Book Avis Outlook add-in elicited a half-typical response.
Let's preface this: I think this is inherently cool.
That said, it may not necessarily translate into 'useful', 'necessary' or 'viable'.
I installed, entered my wizard number, made a reservation. Okay. I can do all of that today at avis.com. Having it native in outlook may save me 30 to 60 seconds (I tend to copy and paste the reservation details into Outlook appt).
So okay some time was saved. I'm not sure it even gets near the initial installation investment (say 2 minutes), any maintenance effort over time (presumably minimal), any degradation in Outlook performance or stability (presumably slight) and the inherent impedence between doing all of my other travel on the web vs. switching from browser for flights and hotels to Outlook for cars, etc.
Meaning, yes there may be some small increase in the discrete user experience by moving from browser to smart client. At the same time, is the inherent cost of having a different metaphor from the rest of the relevant world far steeper than any small bits of transcational time savings?
I like smart clients. I'm just not sure this application is anything but neat.