Mercur Solutions AB is a software development company delivering solutions for corporate performance management and business intelligence. The company’s application Mercur Business Control®, is used for; budgeting, forecasting, reporting, analysis, and strategic target management.
mercur.comMercur Business Control® application has a proven history of usage by businesses, mainly in the financial domain, to process, visualize, and analyze huge amounts of data and make informed business decisions.
On the track of developing and modernizing their product, Mercur Solutions AB created the web client for their application which initially had only a desktop Java Swing-based version. The web technologies enhanced the app’s interaction and visualization capabilities greatly.
However, the need to support the desktop version persisted as many of the app’s corporate users had their business processes long-established around the in-house implementation of Mercur Business Control®. In addition, the security-sensitive nature of the data processed creates a cluster of the app’s users, who prefer to store and operate this information on their own servers.
As the development team was willing to focus their effort on a more promising web version, while having the need to keep their desktop app up-to-date with the latest improvements, they started searching for a way to wrap a browser-based content with a Java Swing application.
The client’s key requirement was a browser component powerful enough to process complex JavaScript interactions of the sophisticated user interface while making them look native.
After research and testing, the development team chose JxBrowser as a component capable of functioning as a full-fledged browser due to Chromium™ under its hood.
Another JxBrowser’s headless browsing feature that added sufficiently to the Mercur Business Control® functionality was used for document exporting. Generating printer-friendly report versions and utilizing JxBrowser to create formats like PDF, PNG, Excel, and PowerPoint eliminated the need for a separate client-side installation.
By integrating JxBrowser into the Java Swing client of Mercur Business Control®, our client has developed a sustainable solution. This integration allows their customers to continue using the desktop version of the app while benefiting from the latest improvements and the convenience of a web-based interface.
This allowed Mercur Solutions AB to further develop the cloud direction of their business without compromising on the relations and support of their long-term corporate users.
The JxBrowser’s licensing model allowing free distribution within the application met another client’s concern of being able to scale their customer base without a sufficient rise in costs.
