The goal of Ripple Server, and the Ripple Project overall, is to enable many types of applications to communicate with each other in order to establish credit, and make and route payments in a decentralized, non-hierarchical, and distributed way.
At time of writing, the only demonstration of the ripple concept is at ripplepay.com. At ripplepay.com, the functions of the ripple client and the ripple server are not differentiated, since the Ripple Server hasn't been implemented yet. After the Ripple Server is finished, ripplepay.com will probably be switched to be a client of the Ripple Server, rather than manage payment routing through an internal database.
For the Ripple Project to succeed in its present vision, ripplepay.com will be only the first of many ripple clients. The vision is that a wide array of existing software will be enhanced to become ripple enabled, and at the same time that completely new software will be written expressly to target the ripple payment systems. As the ripple project gains traction, we hope to see:
- Existing software become ripple enabled
- Quickbooks / Peachtree -- small to medium sized businesses could make ripple payments through a plugin to existing SME accounting software. Use case might be a food coop managing a line of credit with a dairy farm
- Oracle/SAP -- same idea, but targetting larger companies that use enterprise software. Use case might be Exxon managing a line of credit with a refinery, or a utility company permitting customers to make payments via ripple when a credit path exists.
- Cyclos -- Complementary currencies could be linked together directly via issuers having accounts with each other, or through users of multiple currencies who could act as exchange brokers between them.
- Banks -- The already established banking system could use ripple in conjunction with existing settlement systems such as Chips/Swift/ACH.
- Financial supply chain software such as Bolero, which was founded by the SWIFT bank settlement system.
- Hawala networks settlement software. (Excel? What do these guys use?)
- Accounting systems used by various types of currency brokers
- Vanilla currency brokers (Euro/Dollar trades) (Excel? Same question as for hawaladars.)
- MMPORG game currency brokers (World of Warcraft/LindenDollar trades)
- Internet payment system brokers (Paypal/Moneybrokers/Google Checkout trades)
- Metal backed digital currency brokers to "vanilla" currencies (Egold/Paypal trades)
- New software written expressly to target ripple
- An internet marketplace application with vanilla classified ads, a barter opportunity search function, and the capability to use ripple payments
- A standalone basic business accounting package released, which also makes it easy to accept ripple payments for receivables and make ripple payments for payables, when a credit path exists
- An sms gateway to track debts and make payments, which could be useful in the third world in conjunction with microfinance enterprises. (In the first world, it could be used similarly to billmonk). (How much mileage can a user population get out of the ripplenetwork if most people have cell phones but not computers? How much can be done with SMS? Because that is what the developing world is beginning to look like...)
- (Please add more examples as they occur to you!)
In sum, along with creating the ripple protocol and server, it is vital to ripple adoption that ripple clients be created which are useful in a real world setting. These ripple clients could be enhancements to existing accounting systems, or new accounting applications written from scratch.
Important questions for ripple stakeholders (developers, evangelists) are:
- what type of user could benefit most from using ripple?
- what kind of software, if any, do they currently use?
- what would an interface between this software and the ripple network look like?
- how difficult would it be to add such an interface?
- with the option to use ripple with this software, is ripple likely be adopted by this population of users?
- who are the most likely early adopters, and are they more motivated by pragmatism or idealism?
