Hi Zahy,
As part of the team that develops Geocortex Essentials and the associated Geocortex Sample Flex Viewer (GSFV), I thought I'd offer my thoughts on why you might choose to leverage our work. Our goal with Geocortex Essentials is to deliver the features people need and want today, while providing an underlying platform that streamlines development and keeps you aligned with Esri�??s platform direction on an ongoing basis.
The Geocortex Sample Flex Viewer, released earlier this year in advance of our fully productized viewers for Flex and Silverlight coming in December, adds capabilities and provides an alternative viewer design for developers to get started with. Regardless of whether you use the GSFV, the Geocortex Essentials platform puts at your fingertips an assortment of features and capabilities (e.g. advanced printing, reporting, security, external data linking, powerful workflow technology built on Windows Workflow foundation, and many other features) that we�??ve spent thousands of hours developing.
We built our GSFV using the Esri Flex API and encourage the continued use of it when working with Esri-specific functionality. When you use the Geocortex approach to build an application or site, it is exposed through a REST API and consumed with a client-side Flex API (we also offer Silverlight and JavaScript APIs), that work in conjunction with the Esri APIs.
As with any new technology, there are some concepts and approaches to learn with Geocortex software that may seem complex at first. That said, our technology is not unduly complicated and is fully supported, complete with full documentation, an online resource center, and various other learning resources. GUI-driven management and development tools simplify things for administrators and developers. I believe our technology reduces complexity, improves management, and allows people to accomplish things they otherwise wouldn�??t be able to without massive investment and reinvention of the wheel.
Depending on your comfort level and your organization�??s requirements, Esri�??s Sample Flex Viewer (now the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex) might be all you require. However, I encourage you to learn more about what Geocortex Essentials can offer.
Dave Stevenson
Latitude Geographics
