What happened to OASIS Mobile and why doesn't O4 work with Internet Explorer?

This is a bit of history concerning OASIS "O4" - at least one aspect anyway.

In 2010, we re-wrote the OASIS Customer Portal using a new technology from Google. What was very nice about the technology was that it allowed a developer to code once and target all the different browsers that were vying for dominance of the web. It was not uncommon to hear a developer say, "you can only do that in web kit and not IE". It really was frustrating but the technology was a good solution at the time, and started the talk of a "web based OASIS" where all one needed was a web browser to use OASIS. The only downside to the Google technology was that it was fairly difficult to use as well.

At the same time, everyone was talking about mobile devices. Since we were already using Google technologies, we implemented a thin version of OASIS on android devices. Happy with the result, we showed it a few years later at Light Fair. After dozens of individuals told us "let me know when you have it for my iPhone" we decided to take the time to re-write the mobile version for the iPhone. That was NOT easy. But OASIS Mobile did work.

There are several downsides to full mobile applications. The first is that all applications need data and in the case of OASIS the ability to sync enough data through the web to a given mobile device is frustratingly difficult. With a lot of work, we continued to develop a very powerful data synchronization technology - more on that in another article. But another big downside to the mobile app started appearing: users want FEATURES! LOTS OF THEM! Porting an application the size of OASIS to a mobile device costs lots of money - six figures just to get started, and we were years into the process. And how much do users like to pay for mobile applications...? Especially when many free ones are out there? Think about it ...

So where does Internet Explorer come into this discussion?

In 2015, Microsoft did something amazing. They dropped support for Internet Explorer. This was a good thing in that everyone could see that HTML5 was where the industry was headed. However, Internet Explorer still accounted for more than 25% of the browsers being used. That was a problem for software developers trying to create useful applications in a browser. Since 2015, developers have moved exclusively to HTML5 and related technologies. The result is that a developer can create a web application in one browser and just tweak it for a different platform (mobile devices have size challenges, but work the same as desktop browsers).

In 2016, we terminated the OASIS Mobile platform and started creating what we now call OASIS O4. There are many moving parts that will be discussed here. But the key to all of them is to seamlessly integrate complex technologies for our users.

But we won't support Internet Explorer.