Latest News from SOAWorld Conference & Expo 2007 West

Neotys Named "Bronze Sponsor" of SYS-CON's AJAX World RIA Conference & Expo

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:45:00 EDT

Neotys is a leader in easy-to-use, cost effective stress and load testing tools for Web 2.0 Applications. Since 2005, Neotys has been helping its clients in more than 40 countries to ensure their applications' reliability, performance and quality. NeoLoad, load testing solution for RIAs, ensures better efficiency to perform your tests faster, while providing pertinent analyses and full support for all new technologies. NeoLoad is one of the first web application testing tools to fully support Adobe Flex 3 and the AMF protocol. NeoLoad also perfectly handles other RIA applications that exchange data in text or XML formats over HTTP/S like AJAX, GWT or Silverlight applications.

Comcast Works with Intel: Java-based 'Widget Channel'

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:30:00 EDT

Comcast Corporation the nation's provider of entertainment, information and communications, announced that they are working with Intel Corporation to bring Internet Protocol (IP) based applications to the television experience set using a new technology co-developed by Intel and called the Widget Channel framework. This technology is an open software development framework that enables the ability to combine Internet-based applications with a TV experience through a widget-based user interface that can be easily accessed while watching television programs. The Widget Channel framework's graphical user interface will let consumers click an onscreen widget to access and view a variety of Internet-based applications or content such as weather updates, news, games, and other -interactive applications on their TV.

Avnet Announces Services To Help Sun Microsystems Partners Capitalize on the Growing Virtualization Market

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:30:00 EDT

Avnet Technology Solutions announced services designed to assist Sun partners in targeting the virtualization market and creating incremental revenue opportunities. The services will focus on enabling Sun partners to demonstrate how virtualization solves key business challenges and the benefits it provides. Avnet Technology Solutions' services include Avnet OneTech server assessments, seminars, technical and financial support, partner training and enablement, business development, demand generation, continuing education, and solutions partnering and development.

Cloud Computing Expo - IBM To Offer Cloud Cover

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:00:00 EDT

IBM’s going to peel off another $300 million and sink the money into building 13 clouds scattered in 10 countries around the world where business and government can tuck their data and applications against disaster and destruction.

Microsoft To Funnel Up to $100M More to Novell

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:45:00 EDT

Microsoft is going to pump up to $100 million more into Novell for additional certificates that it will sell or give to customers to redeem for SUSE Linux support. Novell should get the money on November 1 right before the second anniversary of the widely loathed Microsoft-Novell pact that indemnifies SUSE users against infringing Microsoft patents under a so-called covenant not to sue and got the open source community’s knickers in a twist.

AJAX-enabled ProcessMaker Certified Through Intel

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:30:00 EDT

Colosa, a developer of business process management (BPM) software that enables small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to simplify workflow through the automation of paper-based processes, has announced that its flagship solution, ProcessMaker, is one of the first applications to achieve certification through the Intel Certified Solutions Program and will be available on the Intel Business Exchange. The Intel Business Exchange is an online marketplace for small and medium businesses to search for and buy software specifically geared towards their special needs.

MacsDesign Releases Version 9, AJAX-enabled Web Help Desk

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:30:00 EDT

MacsDesign Studio LLC, developers of the cross-platform help desk software solution, Web Help Desk, announced the availability of Version 9, a major update to its flagship service management solution. Web Help Desk Software Version 9 adds rules-based voting and approval process for change requests, an extensible plug-in architecture for popular 3rd party asset management tools, and an AJAX enhanced user interface. Version 9 remains truly cross-platform, with server side installers for Mac OS X Server, Windows Server, Linux, and Unix.

Java, Standards, and Free Software in Europe

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:30:00 EDT

Government intervention and direction has long been critical to the development of the computer industry. The Internet, after all, was derived from the ARPANET, developed in the early 1970s from a U.S. government-sponsored research project by the Advanced Research Projects Agency. Today local, national, and supranational governments from Latin America to the United States to Europe continue to influence the development of our industry.

Apple Adds HyperOffice to iPhone App Store

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:15:00 EDT

HyperOffice is now available by download from Apple's new App Store, putting the business collaboration suite within easy reach of any iPhone user. HyperOffice transforms the iPhone into a tool for mobile business. Users connect to secure corporate email, contacts, calendars, tasks and notes - and share documents and data without Microsoft Exchange and Sharepoint.

Java SpringSource Partners with Carahsoft

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:00:00 EDT

SpringSource, the company behind Spring, the de facto standard in enterprise Java, and a provider of infrastructure software, announced a strategic partnership with Carahsoft Technology Corporation, a government IT solutions provider. Under the terms of the partnership, Carahsoft will resell SpringSource products and services to the public sector for the first time. SpringSource Enterprise and Application Platform software offerings, as well as commercial support offerings around Apache Tomcat and other Apache technologies, will be offered under numerous contract programs, including the Federal GSA.

Avineon to Use SOA in Dept Defense Contract

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:30:00 EDT

Avineon has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program Phase II contract by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). Under the contract, which is a continuation of its Phase I work, Avineon will continue transforming NAVSEA's existing Afloat Master Planning System (AMPS) into a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to support the Navy's Strike Force Interoperability (SFI) initiative.

Cloud Computing Expo - PTO Denies Dell’s Trademark

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:28:00 EDT

If Dell is going to pursue its quixotic quest to trademark the expression “Cloud Computing,” it’s going to have to convince the US Patent and Trademark Office that the buzzword is neither merely descriptive (like, say, spotted pony) or generic and so “incapable of functioning as a source-identifier” for Dell’s services because that’s what the PTO called it in its latest communiqué to the company, a “non-final action” that denies its trademark application.

Maximizing Java Performance with Bespoke Programming

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:24:00 EDT

Commercial systems are developed with a huge range of performance requirements and we are concerned in this article with the small number of systems where absolute maximum performance is demanded either in terms of execution speed or available memory. We'll discuss the role of bespoke implementation and show that writing programs that utilize novel data structures and new algorithms designed with knowledge of the specific problem context is a necessary complement to the generic components and automatic optimizations offered by compilers and modern JVMs to maximize performance.

A Sneak Peak at ASP.NET AJAX 4.0’s Client-Side Templating

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:55:00 EDT

Hot on the heels of the recent ASP.NET AJAX roadmap, Bertrand and team have released a limited preview of the new AJAX functionality coming in ASP.NET 4.0. To see how the new functionality stacks up, I decided to recreate my recent jTemplates example, using only ASP.NET AJAX and its new templating features. Eventually, I settled on using the DataView class, which offers more advanced, repeater-like functionality.

Curl Releases New Web-Based Training Courses

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:02:00 EDT

Curl announced the availability of three interactive training courses based on the Curl Web-Based Training (CurlWBT), a standards-based e-learning framework implemented in the Curl language that supports the deployment of Web-based training materials for the Curl Rich Internet Application (RIA) Platform. These courses are available to members of the Curl Developer Community, helping them further shorten the already minimal learning curve for building enterprise-class RIAs using Curl.

IBM Allows Clients to Access Services that Support Business Continuity from A Cloud Computing Environment

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:00:00 EDT

IBM announced it is investing US$300 million to construct 13 Business Resilience service delivery centers in 10 countries in 2008, increasing its ability to address surging demand from businesses and governments from around the world seeking to keep their operations safe from disruption. The massive infrastructure expansion is the largest of its kind and will permit IBM clients to access services that support business continuity for the first time from a cloud computing environment.

Baking Company Preserves Tradition With Acronis' Recipe for Disaster Recovery

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:34:00 EDT

Specialty Bakers recently deployed IT backup and recovery software from Acronis resulting in uninterrupted customer service and protection of information that keeps the business running. To reduce downtime during system recovery, Specialty Bakers replaced its time-consuming, file-based tape technology with both Acronis True Image Workstation and Acronis True Image Server for Windows.

RoboHead Offers Amazon Cloud Computing Storage Option

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Aquent's On Demand division has integrated RoboHead with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to provide new clients the option of storing their data on the S3 infrastructure. RoboHead, Aquent's web-based marketing project management tool, helps marketing organizations and agencies manage the full life cycle of their projects, from intake through delivery.

Entisys Honored as a Top Performing Citrix Virtualization Solution Advisor Partner in the 2008 "Go for the Green" Program

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:48:00 EDT

Entisys Solutions announced that it has been named a winner of the 2008 Citrix Systems "Go for the Green" program, ranking #1 in North American sales revenue and influence for Citrix XenServer and Citrix Desktop virtualization software solutions.

6th International AJAX World RIA Conference & Expo News: An A to Z for the RIA Era

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:47:00 EDT

From AIR to ZK, this is an alphabetical round-up of the fast moving-world of application development tools and frameworks spawned ever since the appearance of Google Maps, the canonical early RIA. The list includes AIR, Appcelerator, ATF, Curl, Dojo, Echo, Eclipse RCP, Ext JS, Flex, Grails, GWT, JavaFX, Kabuki, Nexaweb Enterprise Web 2.0 platform, Novulu, OpenLaszlo, Prototype, Rico, Ruby on Rails, Seam, Silverlight, ThinWire, TIBCO GI, ULC, WaveMaker, Yahoo! User Interface Library, Zend Framework, and ZK.

"To Google" Is Officially a Verb: A Behind-the-Scenes History

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:45:00 EDT

Having your brand name used as a generic term, is of course, a mixed blessing for a company. On the one hand, it’s great to have your name become the common shorthand for an entire category. It implies acceptance that your product is the standard by which all others in the category are judged and it’s great word-of-mouth for building awareness and trial. On the other hand, you want to protect your trademark and it’s difficult to do that if overuse dilutes its connection to your product.

Preferred Hotel Group Chooses Terremark's Enterprise Cloud

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:36:00 EDT

Terremark announced Preferred Hotel Group as a customer on The Enterprise Cloud. Preferred Hotel Group will leverage Terremark's Enterprise Cloud services to meet the disaster recovery needs of its mission-critical applications, including its online reservation system.

Advanced Millennium Technologies to Distribute Lightstreamer’s COMET Products in India

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:25:00 EDT

Advanced Millennium Technologies (AMT) has inked a partnership agreement with Lightstreamer. According to the agreement, AMT will distribute Lightstreamer push technology (COMET) products in the fast growing Indian Market. Lightstreamer is a push server for live data distribution based on the AJAX-Comet paradigm (also known as “AJAX Push”). In web development, COMET is a term used to describe a web application model in which a web server is able to push real-time data to a browser, based on a subscription paradigm. Lightstreamer is one of the oldest products used widely for COMET implementations.

SOA Web-based Application, ProcessMaker, Will Be Available On the Intel Business Exchange

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:15:00 EDT

Colosa announced that its flagship solution, ProcessMaker, is one of the first applications to achieve certification through the Intel Certified Solutions Program and will be available on the Intel Business Exchange. The Intel Business Exchange is an online marketplace for small and medium businesses to search for and buy software specifically geared towards their special needs.

Adexis Deduplication and Virtualization Tools Now Online for Business Community

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:05:00 EDT

Adexis achieved NetApp's highest professional services partner status -- Authorized Professional Service Partner (APSP). "This designation means we have the experience, resources and credentials that customers can trust when it comes to providing professional services for NetApp," said Adexis Vice President of Operations and Storage Consulting Nick Cellentani. NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that accelerate business breakthroughs and achieve cost efficiency.

Avnet Expands Virtualization Portfolio

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:33:00 EDT

Reflex Security announced a global distribution agreement with Avnet which will be implemented initially in the U.S. and Canada. Under the agreement, Avnet will distribute Reflex Security's "Virtual Security Manager" (VSM) solution. The agreement will broaden the market opportunities for Reflex, and value-added reseller partners will benefit from Avnet's virtualization solutions practice that includes the products, services, tools and training needed to successfully target the virtualization market.

Internet Research Group Publishes Research Study on Microsoft Virtualization

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:20:00 EDT

Internet Research Group (IRG) announced the release of its latest report on technology infrastructure, "Why Microsoft Virtualization is Different (and possibly better)." With this summer's launch of Hyper-V, Microsoft began shipping its long awaited entry into the server virtualization market in competition with VMware's ESX, the market leader. This new research report compares Microsoft's quite distinct virtualization strategy to that of VMware as the two companies battle to win enterprise customers.

Google App Engine Monitoring Available on Hyperic CloudStatus

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:15:00 EDT

Hyperic announced the newest cloud provider to be supported by its CloudStatus service—Google App Engine. Google App Engine is the second cloud service to be monitored by CloudStatus, which launched in June with support for Amazon Web Services. Support for additional cloud providers is planned for the coming months.

Google Launches Cloud Computing Road Trip: "App to School"

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:15:00 EDT

Google intends in September to launch a cross-country bus tour called "App to School" so that the company can speak with college students about how cloud computing can benefit education. "We're looking forward to meeting students to talk about Google Apps and hear how they're using our productivity tools on and off campus," said Jeff Keltner, Business Development Manager, Google Apps via the official Google Enterprise blog.

Xythos Updates Web 2.0 Services and Applications

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:02:00 EDT

Xythos Software announced upgrades to its Xythos on Demand online service and its Enterprise Document Management and Digital Locker software suites. The new software and service upgrades are currently available for evaluation and purchase.

VirtualLogix Delivers Virtualization Support for Intel-Based Mobile Internet Devices

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:00:00 EDT

VirtualLogix announced that its VLX virtualization solution will be supporting the latest Intel Atom processor Z5XX series-based Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs). Device makers using VLX on these MIDs can simplify hardware designs, reduce costs and enhance the end-user experience through improved quality of voice, multimedia services and stronger security capabilities. VirtualLogix VLX also offers complete power management support for virtualized environments, which reduces MIDs' overall energy consumption.

Apptis Teams with ServerVault to Launch the Trusted Cloud Computing Environment for U.S. Government

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Apptis announced a partnership with ServerVault to offer a trusted cloud computing environment to federal agencies. The Apptis/ServerVault Trusted Cloud offering will provide federal agencies a cloud computing platform that boosts the efficiency and productivity of their IT systems by delivering a flexible, highly secure, fully-managed and federally compliant computing infrastructure, as well as application support services.

AppSense Teams with Enterprise Systems to Fuel U.S. Adoption of Virtualization Environments

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:45:00 EDT

AppSense announced that it is partnering with Enterprise Systems to extend its VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) offerings to customers throughout the U.S. Southwest, particularly those in the healthcare market.

Red Gate Acquires .NET Reflector

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:32:00 EDT

An agreement between Red Gate and Lutz Roeder will place future development of .NET Reflector, the popular class browser for .NET developers, in the hands of Red Gate. Red Gate is maintaining a free version of the software for downloading.

Cloud Computing Provider, GoGrid, Now Offers Windows Server 2008 in the Cloud

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:30:00 EDT

GoGrid announced the availability of 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Server 2008 within its Cloud Computing infrastructure. Parent company ServePath is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, and launched Windows Server 2008 dedicated hosting in February of this year.

Sun Microsystems Annouces Demand for Sun's Virtualization Products

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:26:00 EDT

Sun Microsystems announced the company nearly doubled shipments of its Sun Ray thin clients during the fourth quarter of Sun's 2008 fiscal year, compared to the third quarter of its 2008 fiscal year. Sun Ray unit shipments are growing fast, underscoring the increased appeal thin client and desktop virtualization solutions are experiencing among businesses and organizations. Contributing to this growth is strong market demand for Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Software 2.0, which now ships on approximately 25% of Sun Ray units since being introduced in March 2008, in addition to the unparalleled choice Sun Ray thin clients offer customers, enabling them to display Solaris, Windows or Linux desktops on the same device.

eBay vs Amazon.com: eBay Price-Structure Overhaul Coming Today

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:00:00 EDT

Lorrie Norrington, president of eBay's global marketplaces business, has been telling BusinessWeek about a sea change in eBay's pricing structure. Calling it "the biggest, most fundamental change we have made," Norrington has told BW that eBay will today announce plans to reduce the upfront fees it charges to list sale items - source of up to 60% of its revenues till now - while increasing its final sales commission to make up for the reductions, which in some cases will be by as much as 75%.

New IBM Software Expands SOA Infosphere

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:30:00 EDT

IBM has introduced new versions of two software products, part of its growing InfoSphere portfolio, that deliver information on demand to the people, processes and applications that rely on it. The new products help customers create and manage trusted information from across their enterprises to improve business performance. IBM is introducing a new version of its IBM master data management software. The company is also releasing a new version of IBM InfoSphere Information Server, which allows customers to standardize and resolve multicultural name data.

SOA Consortium Releases New Podcast from K. Scott Morrison, Layer 7 Technologies

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:30:00 EDT

The SOA Consortium announced the availability of a podcast and slide deck of the presentation by K. Scott Morrison, VP of Engineering and Chief Architect at Layer 7 Technologies, on "How to Fail at SOA," recorded at the SOA Consortium meeting in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in June. Calling on Layer 7 Technologies' six years of experience Scott warned meeting attendees about repeated patterns of bad practices, pitfalls and bad decisions.

Active Power Selected by Java Sun Microsystems

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:00:00 EDT

Active Power, Inc., inventor and manufacturer of energy-efficient critical power systems in the world, announced it has sold and shipped one of its CleanSource UPS (uninterruptible power supply) 1200 kVA system to Sun Microsystems. The flywheel based UPS system will provide power protection and conditioning for Sun’s Broomfield, Colo. based data center facility.

New Book from Packt: Build Powerful Java Apps using SOA

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:30:00 EDT

Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a software architecture where functionality is grouped around business processes and packaged as interoperable services. SOA also describes IT infrastructure which allows different applications to exchange data with one another as they participate in business processes. Through this book, users will learn when SOA is the best choice for their web services-based applications and also to design and implement a sound architecture for successful implementation of any business solution.

JOT Servlets 3.0 Java Web Framework Released

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:00:00 EDT

JOT Object Technologies has released version 3.0 of the JOT Servlets Java web components framework. JOT Servlets is a software development framework for dynamic content web applications. This release includes new demonstration applications that illustrate JOT Web Components. The demonstration applications are included and can also be launched from the website.

Is VMware Buying Red Hat?

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:30:00 EDT

Because of its slow growth - a factor of the freebie open source business model - Red Hat has become fodder for Wall Street acquisition speculation, BusinessWeek says, and offers VMware as a possible suitor. Such an acquisition would give VMware the operating system it's lacking, make its products cheaper and make it a more viable competitor against Microsoft - or so the theory goes. BusinessWeek claims to have heard from "some industry executives" that VMware is looking for an operating system and says ousted VMware CEO Diane Greene "had set up meetings with Red Hat in part to position VMware as friendly to open source and possibly as a prelude to a buyout discussion." Red Hat also needs the virtualization halo for growth.

Symbian to Publish Second Quarter and First Half 2008 Financial and Operational Results

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:45:00 EDT

Symbian will release its second quarter and first half 2008 financial and operational results on 2 September. The news release will be published and distributed at 8.00 AM BST. Symbian is a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the open operating system for mobile phones.

Virtualization Update: Microsoft Lightens Up on its Virtual Migration Rules

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:30:00 EDT

Microsoft Tuesday liberalized its virtual machine policies, as expected, and said that starting September 1 its big customers will be able to move Microsoft virtualized server applications between servers “in a server farm” as often as they want without paying additional licensing fees. The company is overturning its existing customer-irritating “90-day reassignment rule” that has restricted virtualized Microsoft applications to the physical servers they were assigned, allowing them be moved only every three months.

Solutions for Optimizing ASP.NET Applications

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:30:00 EDT

One of the reasons that ASP.NET has become popular as a framework for Web developers is the availability of third-party controls and tools. This third-party product support means that, when you’re developing features and functionality in an ASP.NET application, you have "buy versus build" options in many areas. Usually, if the options are buying a third-party control or rolling up your sleeves and manually coding the solution yourself, the choice is an easy one.

Appeals Denied, OOXML Inches Toward Apotheosis

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:30:00 EDT

ISO said Friday that the appeals made by Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela protesting the standardization of Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) file format hadn’t gone anywhere – it was unclear whether any of them had any standing anyway – but since they “failed to garner sufficient support” from the ISO/IEC technical committees, as ISO put it – the standards body is going to go ahead and publish OOXML as an ISO/IEC International Standard, ISO/IEC DIS 29500 – or it will provided another, effective appeal isn’t registered.

Web Services Manifesto - RESTful Architecture and the Programmable Web

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:30:00 EDT

I don't need to go into too much detail here about what exactly REST is - I know that most of the readers of this blog are well versed in Web Services technologies and architectural patterns. The thing that I want to cover is that REST is an architectural decision, it is not a protocol or a wire format or even an industry standard. It is a set of recommendations for how you organize the information exposed by your Web Services. Before I go into detail here, I personally think that REST is the way to go. Unless you have a particular need to be strapped into the SOAP/WS-* roller coaster, your Web Service should be exposing resources via RESTful URLs. I can't imagine why people would chose not to do so.

Maximizing Your Virtualized Environment

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:30:00 EDT

While virtualization brings tremendous benefits to today's enterprises, many may find the added complexity and management too daunting to undertake the adoption of virtual technologies and so forgo opportunities to lower CapEx, reduce power consumption, optimize space requirements, and bring operational efficiencies.

MESH-Solutions Uses Parallels Virtualization Automation Software to Offer Hosted Microsoft Exchange

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:30:00 EDT

Parallels announced that MESH-Solutions is using Parallels Automation software to offer business-class email based on hosted Microsoft Exchange. The offering is aimed at European resellers looking for a hosting partner that provides customization and branding of the Hosted Exchange infrastructure.