Behind every cloud service or cloud-based solution, there are real people... A robust ecosystem of solutions providers has emerged around cloud computing. But who are the CEOs & CTOs behind those providers, who are the internal and external entrepreneurs driving companies involved in the Cloud, who are the leading engineers, developers, analysts, researchers, marketing professionals, authors...who, in short, are the people behind the cloud? This list will be updated weekly between now and November 4-7, 2013, when 13th Cloud Expo | Cloud Expo Silicon Valley opens its doors in the Santa Clara Convention Center, in the heart of California's Silicon Valley. Here are some highly prominent "Cloud People" to kick off with... RANDY BIAS | @randybias "Randy Bias is visionary. He sees things others don't." [Emphasis added.] That is how Mårten Mickos puts it, as succinctly as ever.... (more)

Open Letter to the President of Syria Bashar al-Assad

Thursday, July 29, 2010 Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey   To the President of Syria, Mr. and Mrs. Bashar al-Assad Mr. and Mrs. President Bashar al-Assad: At the tender age of 17 months my severely ill daughter Sofia, an American citizen, was abducted by her mother on Monday, July 26, in Istanbul, Turkey, and taken to Syria. Fox News: ▸ video ▸ story I was informed yesterday by Sofia's mother that she will not be coming back to the United States nor will she allow Sofia to return home. Sofia has been diagnosed with a severe medical condition that requires immediate treatment in the United States. It was scheduled to start on July 27, 2010, in New Jersey, the day after her abduction and was supposed to last until she reaches the age of 3. Any delay in the urgently needed treatment will result in a life-long disability for Sofia and make her dependent for the whole of her a... (more)

Where Are RIA Technologies Headed in 2008?

I am always being told off by i-technologists for quoting Picasso as having said that computers are useless. But I still love his reasoning? "Because they can only give you answers." Picasso, like AJAXWorld Magazine, liked questions. So we thought we would share with you what some of the world's leading rich Internet application pioneers are thinking may be the next questions that we need to see answered. From that readers can themselves infer where AJAX is headed. What are the top questions to ask next about AJAX? Eric Miraglia of Yahoo! 1.  (From March'08) How do I calculate the ROI of building my RIA on the iPhone SDK vs using AJAX? 2.  How do I assess the performance of my app and decide what to do next to make it faster?  3.  When it comes to accessibility, how do I know what's required of me for my rich web apps?  Beyond what's required, what makes good business se... (more)

Apple Smothers Samsung Widgets in Infringement Claims

Apple claims six more Samsung products, including the Galaxy Note II, infringe eight of its patents and wants to add them to its other California suit against the Korean giant, the one that doesn't go to trial until March of 2014. Its first California suit against Samsung resulted in a jury verdict awarding it $1.05 billion in damages. The decision will be reviewed by presiding District Court Judge Lucy Koh on December 6. She could ban the Samsung products that were found to infringe or throw the verdict out. Since they are older products, Samsung's biggest risk is to its pride and reputation. The other widgets Apple wants added to the suit it filed in February are Samsung's flagship Galaxy S III as well as its Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system; the Galaxy Tab 8.9 Wi-Fi model; the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1; the Rugby Pr;, and the Galaxy S III Mini according to a cou... (more)

Adobe Betas Target RIAs and Cloud Computing

Adobe AIR on Ulitzer Adobe Systems announced that beta versions of Adobe AIR 2 and Adobe Flash Player 10.1 software are now available from Adobe Labs for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. Flash Player 10.1 is also available for x86-based netbooks, and expected to be available across a broad spectrum of smartphones and other Internet-connected devices in 2010 The Rise of RIAs and Cloud Computing The rise of RIAs and cloud computing, and the increased diversity of Internet-connected devices are spawning the need for contextual applications that take advantage of specific functionality offered by operating systems and devices. The Flash Platform enables developers to create contextual applications for users across a number of devices while maintaining content and a user experience that is consistent yet unique to each device. Adobe AIR 2 Adobe AIR 2 builds on ... (more)

Adaptivity “Platinum Plus Sponsor” of Cloud Expo

SYS-CON Events announced today that Adaptivity, the IT transformation company, has been named "Platinum Plus Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 5th International Cloud Expo (www.CloudComputingExpo.com), which will take place on April 19-21, 2010, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. Adaptivity's CEO Tony Bishop (http://tonybishop.ulitzer.com) will be offering major thought leadership on Day Two of the 3-day event in a Morning Keynote. Read Exclusive Cloud Computing Journal Q&A; with Tony Bishop here. Cloud Expo was announced on February 24, 2007, the day the term "cloud computing" was coined. That same year, the first Cloud Expo took place in New York City with 450 delegates. Next April, Cloud Expo is returning to New York City with more than 5,000 delegates and over 100 sponsors and exhibitors. The three-day event will attract more than 5,000 delegates from 48 co... (more)

Is Microsoft as Free as Open Source?

Jon Davis posted an interesting article discussing whether the Microsoft stack is really more expensive than open source alternatives. Jon has a point; Microsoft’s restricted (i.e., Express) editions are as free as the open source alternatives. This is undeniably true, since the purpose of many software vendor’s “Express” edition is to compete against open source on price. However, the difference is that with open source you get the full-powered editions. For example, Linux (e.g., CentOs), Xen (for virtualization), PostgreSQL/MySQL, Apache, Java, Tomcat, AspectJ, Lucene, Hibernate, and Eclipse are all robust, full-featured, and powerful technologies available for free to developers. The variety and the quality of product available from the open source community are just astonishing. On the other hand, Microsoft’s “Express” editions are just limited editions that are... (more)

Surface Off to Modest Start: Ballmer

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told French daily Le Parisien Monday that sales of the company's iPad- and Android-challenging Surface tablet had a "modest" start because of limited availability confined to its online retail sites and the few Microsoft stores in the US. Surface tablets are based on the ARM chip and are not compatible with the huge library of x86 Windows apps. It's got a click-on keyboard cover that's supposed to represent the best of the PC and tablet worlds. Ballmer also reportedly said that four million upgrades to Windows 8 were sold in the three days following its launch. ... (more)

Apple Makes Highly Eccentric Hire

Apple polished its reputation as a contrarian Tuesday when the news broke because of an SEC filing that it had hired Adobe's CTO Kevin Lynch to be VP of technology and reportedly coordinate its hardware and software teams. Adobe confirmed his departure effective Friday, March 22. He will report to SVP Bob Mansfield, Apple's core hardware maven, who leads Apple's Technologies Group, which includes its wireless and semiconductor interests. Provocatively Mansfield is scheduled to retire from Apple for the second time next year. Lynch, a Macromedia legacy, violently backed Mobile Flash to the hilt as a sine qua non platform long after Steve Jobs famously blasted the widgetry's reliability, security, performance and battery life problems, chalking it up as bad, inelegant software and barring it from the iPhone and the iPad. The news of Lynch going to Apple lit up the blog... (more)

Has the Technology Bounceback Begun?

2004 was the year that saw the iPod blaze its trail through the technology heaven, saw Google Inc. go public and double its share price from $100 to $200, and watched the fortune of RIM (of Blackberry fame) founder Mike Lazaridis's fortunes grow still further as wireless e-mail became more and more the rule and not the exception. But what of 2005? Has a wider technology bounceback begun? At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2005 last week, the answer seemed to be a resounding: "Yes!" As everyone who has not been living in a cave for the past 29 years knows, Microsoft is 100% devoted to changing the world. "Most people are still not in the digital realm," said Bill Gates in his opening keynote at CES. But it is far from being the only onion in the stew. The industry-wide 'return of technology' has begun. Even Gates himself acknowledged we stand at the threshhold of ... (more)

Will Google's Android Sink or Swim?

Kevin Hoffman's Blog I've been poking around at some of the documentation for Google's Android project. I've seen a couple of the code samples, read through a lot of the SDK documentation and I've even checked out a couple of YouTube videos, including this one: I also highly recommend that you check out the 3 architecture videos that you can find on YouTube. One of the engineers on the Android project takes us on a detailed walkthrough of the architecture of the platform, how applications work, and even shows us how memory, processes, activities, and state are managed. So here's what I've been able to take away as highlights from what I've read and seen: Notifications. Application code can be woken up when certain important events take place. This is something that I really liked about PalmOS in that it could wake your code up and do things necessary and then shu... (more)