Monday, January 29, 2007 12:31 PM EST
It's not secret that IBM and Sun have been feuding off and on over the control and direction of Java, but for the first time in recent memorysomebody in some official capacity acknowledging the limitations of the Java model.
In this post, Jim Knutson is IBM's Websphere J2EE architect concedes that the J2EE specification has some significant limitations that need to be addressed, but at the same time makes a case for J2EE as being the best hope we have for simplifying enterprise computing going forward. Included in his requiremnts for an improved J2EE are a standarized process model and better support for asynchronous workloads and more integration with open source technologies.
Now the question is whether or not anybody at Sun is actually listening to anybody outside of Sun about what to do next with J2EE. As Knutson notes in his post, Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0 was a great improvement, but we have a long way to go before the dream is anywhere near realized -- Michael Vizard
Monday, January 29, 2007 12:49 PM EST
Although this version of events hs yet to be officially sanctioned by the Wikipedia crowd, a program manager in Microsoft's Office group has attempted to create an official timeline showing the development of Office XML.
The timeline from Brian Jones makes a well timely appearance in the wake of a controversy erupting after Microsoft reportedly made some offers to pay people to change the Wikipedia entries as it relates to the debate between Office XML and the OpenDocument format being pushed heavily by the likes of IBM.
This may not seem like a big thing in the grand scheme of things, but we all know that it's the victors that get to write the history books and for now it would seem that Microsoft is determined to hold on to that privelige until somebody can prove otherwise. -- Michael Vizard
Monday, January 29, 2007 1:16 PM EST
Microsoft has apparently withdrawn a patent claim for something known as an Object Test Bench that apparently describes a way for dealing with instantiated objects that has the community that helped develop a similar facility for the Java community in an uproar.
In this post, Michael Kolling describes at great lenght the similarlity between the two approaches and subsequent to this post Microsoft executives from the Visual Studio team posted an item admitting that the patent applications was just one big mistake that shoudl never have happened and that Microsoft was with draing the application.
It would seem the peer review process is alive and well after all.-- Michael Vizard
Friday, February 16, 2007 1:41 PM EST
Google has apparently agreed to buy video game advertising firm Adscape for $23 million, Red Herring reports. News of the on again off again deal broke last month.
The Red Herring article notes industry speculation that Google won't get much for its money except for a few patents.
In acquiring Adscape, Google will be entering a market expected to expand to $1 to $3 billion by 2010. (Perspective: the TV ad market is currently $60 billion.) Also in the market: Microsoft, which purchased in-game advertising firm Massive last year for an undisclosed amount.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007 3:26 PM EST
Only seven weeks after it launched, the "social network for families" site Geni has raised $100 million in financing from Charles River Ventures.
Friday, April 20, 2007 2:22 PM EST
In a reaction to customer demand, Dell has restarted selling PCs with Windows XP installed. The change came after Dell's feedback site was swamped with calls for the return of the venerable software. Now customers can opt for the Home or Professional version of XP on six models of Dell machines.
