InfoWorld Daily | Tom Sullivan

SOA vendors don't understand the value

Tom Sullivan — 2008-05-13T10:24:30-08:00

David Linthicum boils it down to this: SOA vendors focus too much on integration and not enough on architecture. "Most SOA vendors out there don't understand the value of SOA, nor how to approach SOA," Linthicum explains. Dozens of vendors, for instance, built integration tools back when integration was hot. Recently they've re-labeled those tools for SOA and done so without tailoring them accordingly. "When selling into the SOA market, they are driving integration and not architecture, focusing more on the tactical, and not the strategic," Linthicum adds in this Real World SOA poststrong>. "Not as much value to the... READ MORE

Daily news beat for May 13, 2008

Tom Sullivan — 2008-05-13T09:21:01-08:00

What was rumor and speculation yesterday became truth today as Hewlett-Packard bought EDS for $13.9 billion in a move HP CEO Mark Hurd described as being "about us putting our outsourcing business into EDS." Analysts, meanwhile, are saying that HP and EDS make for a high-risk merger because even though the combined entity will be strong on infrastructure-related services it will be weak, relative to IBM, on business-level dialogue with customers. Related analysis: Why HP wants EDS. In a rather bold proclamation a company executive said Tuesday that Microsoft hopes to capture 40 percent of the smartphone market by 2012... READ MORE

SaaS to fill void left by app vendors

Tom Sullivan — 2008-05-13T07:58:13-08:00

IT benefits from big vendor's slow on-demand plays. Indeed, in Ephraim Schwartz's words, "hesitations and nascent efforts from the big players open the floodgates for a deluge of even more vendors." By "big players" Schwartz means the likes of SAP and Microsoft, while a host of startups is emerging to offer what the old guard cannot. Take PivotLink. This SaaS BI vendor makes it easier than, say, SAP because PivotLink customers can send a simple flat file which PivotLink then analyzes and processes in memory for a real-time response. "What might be bad news for SAP is good news for... READ MORE

When bean counters don't know what IT does

Tom Sullivan — 2008-05-13T07:31:44-08:00

It's a common story in IT, I'm afraid, though one fraught with many twists and turns. This time, the bare-bones IT department comprised folks who wore many hats, a reality that confused one VP of Finance enough to ask why some of the IT staff was still employed. What is it you do again? This week's Off the Record author faced that question on multiple occasions, despite several instances in which he saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. "When I handed in my letter of resignation to the CIO on Thursday, I learned that the VP of Finance... READ MORE

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Tom Sullivan — 2008-05-13T07:15:02-08:00

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Hyper-V's whole new failure vector

Tom Sullivan — 2008-05-13T07:02:17-08:00

Microsoft's Hyper-V has an Achilles heel. "In a nutshell, one of Hyper-V's advertised strengths -- the host partition's ability to work with generic Windows device drivers -- is also its greatest weakness," Kennedy explains in this Enterprise Desktop post. Kennedy, you see, found that out that the hard way while experimenting with the release candidate, in which he made the mistake of trying to install the latest ATI Catalyst (8.4) software for the system's X1300 display adapter, a move that yielded a Blue Screen of Death both alarming and puzzling. More troublesome is the fact that Microsoft advertises Hyper-V's ability... READ MORE

Don't encourage hands-free use of cell phones

Caroline Craig — 2008-05-12T10:19:12-08:00

San Francisco just passed a law requiring hands-free use of mobile devices for drivers and InfoWorld's Ephraim Schwartz is ready to take shelter in a hummer as a result. "Watching a driver blithely drive down the wrong way on a one-way street while said driver was also talking on the phone, leads me to believe people aren’t as multifunctional as they would like to believe," Schwartz writes in today's blog. "The question is, I suppose, does this law make it safer to use a cell phone while driving, or will it encourage those who may have been reluctant to use... READ MORE

Daily News beat for May 12, 2008

Caroline Craig — 2008-05-12T08:50:27-08:00

A Microsoft document claims the fault for endless reboots lies in the Windows XP image originally installed on the PC by the computer manufacturers. The FBI is worried that by tampering with Cisco networking equipment, spies could open up a back door to sensitive military systems using counterfeit gear. Sun Microsystems is trying to rejuvenate Java, using the JavaOne conference to position the platform as a foundation for next-generation technologies in such spaces as rich Internet applications and cloud-based services. Research in Motion introduced the well-connected BlackBerry Bold, which beats Apple's iPhone to the 3G punch. Database maker Vertica is... READ MORE

InfoWorld Daily Podcast

Caroline Craig — 2008-05-12T08:19:08-08:00

Google's high-flying cloud for Python code

Caroline Craig — 2008-05-12T07:31:05-08:00

Attention all you readers dreaming of building the next brilliant Web application: Google App Engine is designed to simplify the problem of deploying and scaling Web applications. Contributing editor Peter Wayner provides insight into Google's game-changing app dev platform in the cloud in his first look at the Google App Engine, currently in beta. Wayner's bottom line: "Google App Engine hides the grime of deploying a scalable application to a number of servers. The limitations on the sandbox make this 'cloud' best for dynamic Web sites that act as a relatively thin layer of business logic sitting on top of... READ MORE