Read JDJ's 2004 Predictions by i-Technology Leaders Feature Story Read The End of Middleware by Jonathan Schwartz Read From the Founding Editor by Steve Benfield In the world of IT, outsourcing is either the dirtiest word you can utter or a brilliant one; it's all about who says it to whom and where it is said. No matter who uses it, it is a word most often said in private. When corporate managers use the word, it is always mentioned in a most confidential fashion as a potential cost-cutting tactic, a magic bullet to increase margins. When technical people use the word in public it is always with a hushed tone, as if speaking it aloud would give management the idea. In private it is discussed as if it were the greatest evil ever to befall the world, a faceless monster from far away. The reality falls somewhere in the middle. Outsourcing can be an extremely complex a... (more)

i-Technology's All-Time Top 100?

Gene Amdahl: Implementer in the 60s of a milestone in computer technology: the concept of compatibility between systems Marc Andreessen: Pioneer of Mosaic, the first browser to navigate the WWW; co-founder of Netscape John Vincent Atanasoff: Inventor of an electronic computer in the late 1930s not for fun or glory, but because he had problems for it to solve Charles Babbage: Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge in 1828; inventor of the 'calculating machine' John Backus: Inventor (with IBM) of FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator) in 1956 Ralph Baer: "The man who invented video games" (Pong) Kent Beck: Creator of JUnit and pioneer of eXtreme Programming (XP) Bob Bemer: One of the developers of COBOL and the ASCII naming standard for IBM (1960s) Tim Berners-Lee: "Father of the World Wide Web" and expectant father of the Semantic Web D J Bernstein: Author of qmail Jos... (more)

i-Technology Viewpoint: Thoughts on the Java Community

Community was a recurring theme at JavaOne, this year, and indeed at many of the Java User Groups that I've participated in recently. The Java Community (with a big C): a global tribe converging on programming nirvana where all is open, free and yet somehow affords us all a decent living. The community vision itself is not something I have a beef with, indeed I like to belong, I like to contribute, and importantly I can afford to - so I do. The community raised me, so to speak, nurturing me through technology transitions, and delivering timely advice through the "Village Voice" of the search engines and forums. I feel obliged and happy to give a little back. But something is rotten in the state of Denmark. We are gnawed by the cancer of bigotry and opinion - by a simple lack of respect. Don't get me wrong, discussion, debate, opinion are all essential to a society. L... (more)

ClearNova Exec Defends Open Source AJAX Development vs Java

SYS-CON special correspondent and well-known author and teacher Yakov Fain recently took the emerging (or re-emerging) AJAX development world to task. Writing in his recent Java blog entry, Fain (pictured above) said, "The idea is noble: instead of rendering an entire HTML page on each little change on the page, it's much better to send an asynchronous request that will get the data for you and refresh only the relevant portion of the screen. (But) every author writing on AJAX is giving the same (the only?) examples where this technology is being used: Google maps and e-mail. (BTW, I'm a little sick of these examples). Since I'm not going to be helping Google in improving their maps, I'd like to see some real-world examples implementing this technology." ClearNova's Vice President of Strategy and Evangelism Steve Benfield, a leading proponent of AJAX development, took a... (more)

Is Your E-Mail System Broken?

“The e-mail system is in a complete heap.” Those are the words of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created a little something called the World Wide Web, in reference to e-mail’s shortcomings as a communications tool. His message is that although e-mail is effective for one-on-one dialogue, it has flaws that impede the kind of knowledge gained from true team collaboration. To promote collaboration for your teams and projects in ways that e-mail cannot, the answer lies in the corporate potential of “Web 2.0” tools, such as blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, chat, and instant messaging. The first problem with e-mail is the abysmal knowledge-to-junk ratio. Gartner Research estimates that 34 percent of your inbox is unnecessary chatter from your co-workers. For instance, you can only imagine how much server capacity in this country is dedicated to in... (more)

Sun Microsystems Extends Virtualization Leadership With New Open Source xVM VirtualBox

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) today announced a new version of Sun(TM) xVM VirtualBox(TM), its high performance, free and open source desktop Read more at VMblog.com. ... (more)

A Sixth Thing CIOs Should Know About Big Data

Amid the slew of articles offering advice on Big Data,  Joab Jackson's, Five Things CIOs Should Know About Big Data. stood out because of how absolutely spot on it was. The five points he makes nearly always come up in our conversations with customers and prospects: You will need to think about big data. What we're seeing now is that the price of entry to big data, at least from a CapEx standpoint, is pretty low. Open source tools like Hadoop, Cassandra, MongoDB, MapReduce and others, combined with the relatively low price of cloud computing, means organizations that may not have been inclined to collect, store and analyze their data volumes are now more willing and able to do so. Useful data can come from anywhere. Data that used to be "dropped on the floor" is one way to categorize big data. Gazzang CEO, Larry Warnock, likens to big data to a giant fishing net t... (more)

Sun Microsystems Chairman and CEO Outlines Developments to Increase Educational Participation and Economic Prosperity

NEW YORK, Worldwide Education and Research Conference, March 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In his keynote presentation today at the Worldwide Education and Research Conference (WWERC), Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems, Inc. , highlighted the importance of utilizing collaborative technologies to increase the development and reach of educational tools. McNealy introduced innovative technology advancements and alliances that deliver new platforms for research and implementation, enabling new communities, sharing and interaction to build skills for the next generation of technology development and economic prosperity. A strong advocate of educational development, Sun hosts WWERC annually, bringing together thought leaders from around the globe to address the future of education and the role of technology. "Students today are raised on technology, funda... (more)

SavaJe Unveils Most Sophisticated Java Powered Mobile Phone Allowing Developers to Create Advanced User Interfaces

CHELMSFORD, Mass., May 11 /PRNewswire/ -- SavaJe Technologies, developers of the most advanced, Java(TM) technology-based mobile operating platform, today announced it will unveil the SavaJe-based Jasper S20 mobile phone during the 2006 JavaOne Conference(SM), hosted by Sun Microsystems and slated for May 16-19 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The Jasper S20 is the first Java powered mobile phone to support an early access version of JSR- 209 specifications, providing Java Platform Micro Edition application developers with the ability to create advanced user interfaces for mobile phones and devices using Swing and Java2D. This extends the potential population of mobile application developers to more than four million. In related news, the SavaJe-based Jasper S20 has been named "Device of the Show" by JavaOne organizers, representing the importance of mobile Ja... (more)

MMAjunkie.com Teams with Handmark to Knock Out New Mobile Application for Mixed Martial Arts Fans

Handmark®, an emerging media company specializing in mobile solutions for publishers and media brands, and MMAjunkie.com, the 2008 and 2009 World Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) Awards “Best Media Coverage” winner, today announced the availability of a new free MMAjunkie.com mobile news application for the iPhone and BlackBerry smartphones. MMAjunkie.com is an independent news site devoted to the highly popular sport of MMA, a full-contact combat sport that combines a wide variety of fighting techniques, mixing classical martial arts with other styles of fighting as diverse as wrestling and Brazilian jiu jitsu. MMAjunkie.com has established itself as the premier go-to source for the latest news and information for millions of fans worldwide who avidly follow the sport. The new mobile application provides users with instant, real-time access to the latest MMAjunkie.com info... (more)

Apprion Names Warren Smith to Head Product Development

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 04/06/10 -- Apprion, the leading provider of industrial wireless application networks, today announced that Warren Smith has joined the team as Vice President of Products. With over thirty years experience in technology and networking, Smith brings extensive product development knowledge and engineering expertise to Apprion. Smith will be responsible for Apprion's entire ION product family, including hardware engineering, software engineering and product management. "We are very excited to have Warren on board at Apprion. Warren's extensive networking and engineering background and solid understanding of the product development process is critical to extending Apprion's reputation for best-in-class networking products and industrial wireless applications," said Apprion CEO Doug Donzelli. Smith began his networking career at Sun M... (more)