Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff | December 2007

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December 2007

December 21, 2007 | Comments: (0)

The first major upgrade to the Perl dynamic language in more than five years was released this week, the Perl Foundation said.

Version 5.10 of the open source language adds language features and improves the Perl interpreter itself. While used in Web application development, Perl also can be found in bioinformatics applications such as gene-sequencing, said Perl representative Andy Lester.

A key feature is a smart match operator, which will compare variables in an array and makes it easier for programmers to perform functions such as finding an element in an array or an element in a hash, Lester said. Also featured is a switch statement capability.

Regular expressions have been made more powerful and programmers can now use named captures in regular expressions rather than counting parentheses for positional captures. Recursive patterns are supported for making many useful constructs especially in parsing.

Also included in version 5.10 is state variables allowing variables to persist between calls to subroutines. User-defined pragmata allows users to write modules to influence the way way Perl behaves. Better error messages are highlighted as well.

The Perl interpreter is faster and has a smaller memory footprint. The installation of Perl can be relocated, which benefits systems administrators and operating system packagers, the foundation said. Source code is more portable as well.

Also featured are a defined-or operator, which relates to how Perl keeps track of true or false statements, and field hashes for inside-out objects, for implementing data-hiding in Perl. Data can be hidden so users cannot modify data in an object.

Perl 5.10 can be downloaded here.

Posted by Paul Krill on December 21, 2007 08:59 AM

December 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Scientists: 'Buzz' to break optical bottlenecks

That buzzing you hear in your paranoid ears may one day be augmented by a new technique aimed at eliminating bottlenecks in fiber-optic networks.

According to Scientific American, scientists from Duke University and the Institute of Optics at University of Rochester have demonstrated in Science that data encoded on a laser beam can be transferred to sound waves momentarily before returning back into light waves, potentially eliminating packet buffering bottleneck issues in optical networks.

Two laser beams of differing frequencies pointed at each other along a glass fiber create acoustic vibrations, the researchers found. These vibrations, aka phonons, can retain encoded information for 12 billionths of a second, after which a third laser transfers the data back into light.

The acoustic hitch will allow optical networks to temporarily store data in the event that two packets hit a router simultaneously.

Crackpot or not, the technology will not be ready commercially for years, as scientists experiment to elongate storage times and reduce the laser power necessary to produce the phonons and transfer encoded data back into light waves.

Experiments are likely to focus on the material makeup of communication fibers that could best capitalize on the research findings.

One possible solution would be to use chalcogenide, the stuff currently being put to use in the development of phase-change memory technologies.

The second, according to the Scientific American article, would be to fill hollow optical fibers with a gas such as Xenon, thereby reducing laser-power requirements and increasing phonon lifespan.

Additional resources
12 crackpot tech ideas that could transform the enterprise
These technologies straddle the divide between harebrained and brilliant as they promise to shake the pillars of tomorrow's enterprise

Posted by Jason Snyder on December 20, 2007 02:11 PM

December 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Nokia N96 pictures leaked to Net

Corporate ploy to steal iPhone pulpit thunder from Steve Jobs' pre-Macworld 2008 or some kind of Think Smart-esque Nokia lawsuit in the making, who cares?

I mean, is that a Carl Zeiss lens?

That's right, leaked photos of the forthcoming Nokia N96 smartphone are available for drooling over on the Net. And this, only a few days after the first Android prototype was spotted in the wild.

Of course, until fruition, such toys remain figments. In the meantime, there's always Tom Yager's comprehensive smartphone comparison to help you make the most practical tide-me-over choice.

As for the iPhone, which Yager declared the $1,975 iPod in his July InfoWorld Test Center review, the six-month mark has InfoWorld colleagues Kevin Railsback and Eric Hill waxing familiar on this year's gadget darling -- check out Two geeks and an iPhone Part 2 and Part 3 for their deep-dive video foray into the functionality of the iPhone six months since their first-look Two geeks and an iPhone Part 1.

Railsback, who has already MS Exchange-ified head honchos' iPhones, knows a thing or two about the impact of mobile devices worming their way into the enterprise. And with Avaya's announcement that it will bring its one-X Mobile platform to the iPhone early next year, the din from execs clamoring for IT iPhone support will only grow louder.

Whatever you do in 2008, don't step into the personal iPhone support jockey role at your enterprise uninformed. After all, mobile workers – and those bringing unsanctioned devices into the enterprise, in particular -- continue to be a top security concern.

Additional resources
Review: Supersmart phones for extreme mobility
We pick seven serious business phones with all the bells and whistles, plus the power and flexibility that real mobile professionals need
Review: iPhone: The $1,975 iPod
Apple's and AT&T's high-price gadget is a heartbreaking triumph of greed over genius
Video: Two Geeks and an iPhone: Part 2
Tips and tricks for e-mail, safari, and more
Video: Two Geeks and an iPhone: Part 3
How to add third-party apps to your iPhone

Posted by Jason Snyder on December 20, 2007 11:31 AM

December 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Drupal developer bags $7 million

Belgian developer Dries Buytaert is on the verge of putting open source CMS (content management system) Drupal officially into business.

Annoucing $7 million in first round founding from North Bridge Venture Partners, Sigma Partners, and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Buytaert and Jay Batson, former CEO and founder of Pingtel, hope to steer their Drupal spun startup Acquia deeper into the enterprise.

Drupal already counts SonyBMG, Warner Brothers Records, Forbes, and The Onion as proponents. The investment in Acquia will fuel a foray into value-added software and services for Drupal, which was recently part of a comprehensive InfoWorld Test Center comparison of five open source CMSes.

In the roundup, Drupal 5.2 squared off against DotNetNuke 4.4.5, Plone 3.0, Open Source Matters Joomla 1.0.13, and 2007 InfoWorld Bossie winner Alfresco Community Edition 2.1.

Additional resources
Open source CMSes prove well worth the price
We look at five free offerings boasting solid Web publishing features that challenge their commercial competitors
2007 InfoWorld Bossie Awards
InfoWorld editors and reviewers award the Best Open Source Software for the enterprise

Posted by Jason Snyder on December 19, 2007 03:22 PM

December 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Oracle: No friendly BEA deal seen

An Oracle executive said Wednesday that the company does not believe it can acquire BEA in a friendly manner, according to an Oracle representative.

During a conference call with analysts, Oracle CFO Safra Catz said the company concluded no friendly deal can be done with the current BEA board at a price and terms acceptable to Oracle, said the representative.

Oracle's representative declined to comment on whether Oracle might pursue an unfriendly acquisition. Oracle in October offered to acquire BEA for $17 per share; BEA countered with a $21 per share price.

During a meeting with analysts in November, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison expressed dismay with how the process had gone. If Oracle were to make another offer, it would be lower than the $17-per-share originally offered, he said. He also said it appeared no one would be acquiring BEA.

Posted by Paul Krill on December 19, 2007 03:15 PM

December 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Asterisk passes million download milestone

The open source VoIP tide keeps rolling, as InfoWorld Bossie winner Asterisk announced its millionth download in 2007 today.

Digium's open source VoIP platform continues to win over organizations on the smaller end of the spectrum, but widespread enterprise adoption remains elusive, despite Asterisk's business-worthy proposition, as noted by InfoWorld's Paul Venezia in Open source VoIP makes the business connection, a deep dive look at open source IP telephony in the enterprise.

Of course, enterprising business-class Asterisk deployments do exist. Summer Bay Resorts, winner of an InfoWorld 100 award winner, replaced its legacy PBX with a series of HP DL360 machines running CentOS and Asterisk at each of its call centers, logging more than 1 million voice minutes per month on a 13-server system, as Venezia found out in Case study: Asterisk proves its worth.

The cost benefit of going open source for IP telephony is compelling. And Asterisk offers a bevy of worthwhile business features, not to mention a deep development community. It should be interesting to see whether Asterisk can build on this momentum and push deeper into the enterprise in the year to come.

Additional resources
Open source VoIP makes the business connection
Thanks to worthwhile IP PBX alternatives such as Asterisk, open source VoIP is ready for targeted enterprise deployment
Case study: Asterisk proves its worth
Looking to expand its phone operations, Summer Bay Resorts called on Asterisk -- and the open source IP PBX delivered
Adventures in Asterisk deployment
Wherein the author rolls up his sleeves and embarks on his own open source VoIP odyssey
Interactive graphic: Anatomy of an Open Source VoIP Rollout
Screencast: Open source VoIP: Trixbox 2.0
2007 InfoWorld Bossie Awards
InfoWorld editors and reviewers award the Best Open Source Software for the enterprise
2007 InfoWorld 100 Awards
This year's recipients of InfoWorld's highest honor are shining examples of IT projects undertaken by tech leaders committed to pushing their organizations forward
Paul Venezia: The Deep End

Posted by Jason Snyder on December 19, 2007 02:41 PM

December 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Google security under fire

Betting on the Web as a platform may be the chief gamble of our current computing era, one that requires a significant amount of hedging, most notably in terms of security surrounding services offered as cloudware; but when you are Google, betting on the Web is more than a business strategy: It is a never-ending font for rhetorical marketing hype.

"When Zoho adopted Gears, we cheered," said Vic Gundotra -- vice president of engineering at Google, and former general manager of platform evangelism at Microsoft -- at a dinner preceding the company's Campfire One announcement of OpenSocial, an intriguing albeit hustled-into-the-headlines response to Microsoft's bet on Facebook's social networking platform and API.

Here was not a story of Zoho pitting Google's technology against the search giant's hope of diminishing the functionality gap between its Google Apps online productivity suite and Zoho Office. Here instead was a story of The Web Company generating worthwhile waves for the little guys to ride for a time.

But are such instances truly a matter of rising tides, or are they the tell-tale signs of a bloating multinational just now suffering the spoils of competing interdepartmental agendas and internal communication problems?

Externally, Google's message will be clear in 2008: When the Web wins, Google wins. And you, Web user, should feel good about it.

But if the Web as font of all-solving creativity can be claimed by one company, what of the nefarious underbelly growing unabated alongside?

That, of course, will be the task ahead for Google's newly assembled "advocacy" team, a grassroots-vibe spin on the previous pulpit-and-oracle "evangelism" mission of the 90s, one that incorporates -- or implicates -- you in the overall understanding that, without a resilient Web generations hence, how can our children possibly survive?

And the advocacy team has its work cut out for it, as malware exploits will surely continue to thrive.

Witness the minor storm accreting around Google security the past few days, as bugs, flaws, and worms have made headlines against Gmail, Google Toolbar, and Orkut -- Google's social networking site.

Of course, the Gmail snafu, which allows hackers to hijack and access Gmail accounts, finds its seeds in Internet Explorer, the latest patch of which has produced its share of unrelated headaches as of late.

And the potential for Google Toolbar becoming a bank-busting platform for phishing scams is low, given the elaborate hoops users must step through to fall for phishing scam Toolbar button installations.

And as for the Orkut scrapbook worm who outside of India and Brazil and the Web 2.0 crowd has even heard of Orkut anyway?

Press like this can't help assuage ongoing business fears regarding Google service adoption beyond the SMB, nonprofit, departmental level -- an aspiration Google remains cagey about, if only to side-step questions regarding its ability to deliver the kind of service large organizations expect from software and systems investments.

InfoWorld security reporter Matt Hines visited Google recently in an effort to ascertain Google's security designs. The upshot is that Postini and GreenBorder will provide the foundation, and though Google has stated that recent Postini layoffs are part of a reallocation of resources, whether that effort and reallocation will bear fruit remains to be seen.

In the meantime, Google's ability to get businesses to bite on its future foray into security services may hinge on more than just shoring up the security of its consumer plays. It may depend as much on rejiggering its message away from the Web as brand.

Additional resources
Google revs up security play
Search giant lays plans to extend Postini security service into a multifaceted filtering system built to lock down business data and help manage compliance requirements
Thin vs. Fat: Google’s plan to kill Microsoft Office
Is the Redmond juggernaut running out of steam, just as Google revs up its suite of thin-client apps?
Orkut worm demonstrates vulnerability of service
IE, Gmail bugs allow hijacking of accounts on public PCs
Google Toolbar flaw opens door for phishers

Posted by Jason Snyder on December 19, 2007 12:33 PM

December 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Nvidia opens developer site

Nvidia launched a community Web site Wednesday for HPC (High Performance Computing) developers working with the company's GPUs.

The CUDA Zone site is geared to developers using CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture). CUDA is a C language environment for CUDA-enabled GPUs. The environment has helped engineers, scientists and others find ways to process the vast amounts of data required by their work and boost speed, Nvidia said.

CUDA Zone will serve as a global meeting point for anyone wanting to know about CUDA and Nvidia's GPUs, including Tesla as well as Quadro models, according to a company represenative. Featured will be white papers on programming techniques, customer spotlights and forums. Users also will be able to download CUDA tools and code samples.

Posted by Paul Krill on December 19, 2007 11:28 AM

December 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Linux event planned for China

The growing prominence of Linux in China is resulting in an industry event to take place there in February, co-sponsored by the Linux Foundation and Chinese OSS Promotion Union, the foundation announced Monday.

The Linux Developer Symposium will be held in Beijing February 19-20. The event will address desktop, server and embedded Linux opportunities, the foundation said. Speakers include Andrew Morton, Linux kernel maintainer; Coly Li, Novell file system maintainer and Matt Mackall, embedded expert and kernel developer. Also scheduled to appear is Jim Zemlin, foundation executive director.

The event is intended to educate and promote collaboration among Linux kernel developers and local developers in the region. Attendees will include local developers and engineers from companies such as Google, IBM, Intel, Motorola, Novell, Oracle, Red Hat and Sun Microsystems.

The Chinese government is requiring use of China-produced software in government agencies, the foundation said. National government agencies using Linux include the National Ministry of Science, Ministry of Information Industry, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Statistics and the National Labor Unit, China Post, according to the foundation. The local government in Beijing also uses it on 2,000 Linux desktops, the foundation said.

Additionally, 140,000 Linux PCs are to be used in schools in the Jiangsu province, said the foundation.

Posted by Paul Krill on December 17, 2007 02:04 PM

December 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)

GPL lawsuit settled

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) said Monday it has settled a lawsuit filed against Xterasys pertaining to an alleged violation of the GNU General Public License.

The lawsuit was filed alleging that networking products maker Xterasys used BusyBox Unix utilities offered via the GPL but did not provide source code, as required under the GPL. SFLC filed the lawsuit on behalf of BusyBox developers Erik Andersen and Rob Landley.

Xterasys has agreed to cease all binary distribution of BusyBox until SFLC confirmation that complete corresponding source code has been s published, SFLC said. Once this is done, Xterasys's rights to distribute BusyBox under GPL will be reinstated.

Xterasys also has agreed to appoint an internal open source compliance officer to monitor GPL compliance and notify previous recipients of BusyBox from Xterasys of their rights to the software under the GPL, said SFLC. Xterasys also will pay an undisclosed amount of financial consideration to the plaintiffs, SFLC said.

A representative at Xterasys acknowledged Monday that the lawsuit had been settled. The lawsuit was filed in November.

Posted by Paul Krill on December 17, 2007 12:38 PM

December 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)

'FoolTube': Jackass to launch user video site

Smack in the middle of a strike over digital intellectual property rights, one Hollywood studio is taking a two-footed approach to kicking striking writers in the crotch, as Paramount Pictures will debut Jackass 2.5 online, the first online premiere of a studio feature film, according to a report in today's New York Times.

Reality TV and the Web -- two ongoing sore points for scriptwriters these days, here, rolled up into one.

The famed LCD (least common denominator) franchise -- built in the main on filming the largely unthinkable -- will take its hour-long masochistic filth fest to the Web beginning Dec. 19 via Blockbuster's Movielink.

"There's more vomiting, nudity and defection," an anonymous executive told the Times, proving once again that standards-bearing quality content is fast finding its first home on the Web.

[For the record,the release date for Jackass 2.5, an unscripted, non-WGA film, was set prior to the writer's strike, according to a company representative.]

But the opportunity to watch Johnny Knoxville and Co. explore the boundaries of the body's ability to withstand creatively induced pain is only the first stage of this potential Web phenom rocket.

Not deaf to the clamor for community, MTV will launch jackassworld.com [Not an IDG affiliate. --Ed.], a site devoted to your idiocratic 2.0 needs, including blogs, archived content, and -- you guessed it -- user-generated video.

That's right, you will no longer have to troll through "in-the-nuts" YouTube meta tags to fulfill your at-work cringing fix.

And whereas Netflix continues to pursue Web 2.0-minded approaches to increasing its online DVD rental lead, tapping crowdsourcing to improve its peer-based recommendation engine, Blockbuster is parrying here with an old-guard favorite: exclusive rights to air Jackass 2.5 online for a week, thanks to corporate-to-corporate dealings between it and Paramount.

And for those of you who don't get that Sun Microsystems Project Sun Spot Development Kit sensor and robotics kit off InfoWorld's "Must-have gadgets for the discerning geek" gift list, Jackass 2.5 will be available for download ownage on Dec. 26 via iTunes and Amazon.com, according to the Times.

We may have to wait impatiently for the continuations of Battlestar Galactica and The Office, but in the meantime, at least we know those Hollywood bigwigs have an eye on "[opening] up and [changing] the game about additional content studios can create," as Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment President Thomas Lesinski told the Times.

And that, of course, is a potential cash cow for them, based on your interest in taking a server blade to the crotch.

What sort of IT-related jackassworld.com contributions do you anticipate seeing?

Posted by Jason Snyder on December 13, 2007 10:59 AM

December 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)

BEA linking ERP, ESB

BEA Systems on Thursday is announcing BEA SmartConnect 3.0, which connects the BEA AquaLogic Service Bus ESB to ERP and packaged applications.

Service-enablement is key to the product.

SmartConnect 3.0 lets these applications be plugged into the ESB without having to write code. "That last mile, when you get to that ERP or packaged application, normally requires custom integration," said Paul Patrick, BEA vice president and chief architect. "We've now taken that need for you to do custom integration away through these smart connections."

Users can start small SOA-based integration or ERP connectivity and move to an enterprise-wide, multi-domain project, BEA said.

SmartConnect links to ERP packages in native mode; "smart" adapters offered as part of SmartConnect can be plugged in as SOAP-based services. There currently is no support for REST (Representational state Transfer) Web services but BEA is looking into adding that capability to the ESB itself, Patrick said.

Posted by Paul Krill on December 13, 2007 12:01 AM

December 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)

IBM mashup maker uses Ruby on Rails

IBM has released IBM Sharable Code, an online development platform for the Ruby on Rails Web framework, the company said on Wednesday.

Sharable Code and another new tool, Web Highlights, are free services for entry-level developers and users to utilize Web 2.0 resources, IBM said. Sharable Code is a mashup maker leveraging Ruby on Rails. Web Highlights, for highlighting content on the Web, was built with Sharable Code. Both Sharable Code and Web Highlights are available on IBM's alphaWorks site.

Geared toward Web application developers, Sharable Code offers scaffolding, or a skeleton framework, for building situational applications that can be quickly updated or changed, IBM said. These applications also can be downloaded onto a desktop or local database.

Situational applications such as one to manage calendars can be built, aggregating events from sources such as Facebook and RSS feeds. A news item aggregator also could be developed, with the gathered information presented on a single Web page.

With Sharable Code, a domain-specific language (DSL) is used to represent a mashup and its design. This DSL then is converted into a Ruby on Rails application. Sharable Code can be used with Ruby on Rails 1.4.5 or above, according to IBM. Ruby on Rails 2.0 was released last Friday.

Web Highlights, meanwhile, makes it easier to share relevant information. It simplifies the tasks of using Web 2.0 social tools, such as digg, IBM said. A user, for example, could post a news article to the Web Highlights Web page and highlight sections he wants everyone to read.

Posted by Paul Krill on December 12, 2007 03:14 PM

December 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Ruby on Rails 2.0 released

Ruby on Rails 2.0, an upgrade to the Web application framework, was released on Friday, said the developer of the framework, David Heinemeier Hansson.

Version 2.0 features an emphasis on REST (Representational State Transfer) Web services instead of SOAP Web services. Security enhancements also are featured. Ruby on Rails 2.0 is available for download here.

More information can be found here on InfoWorld.com

Posted by Paul Krill on December 7, 2007 02:55 PM

December 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Linux Foundation adds IBM official

The Linux Foundation announced this week that Ted Ts'o, maintainer of the Linux kernel file system, is joining the organization as a Fellow and chief platform strategist.

Ts'o will contribute to technical efforts including the Linux Standard Base. The foundation said Ts'o was the first North American kernel developer and has been a pioneer in Linux systems and an original organizer of the Linux Standard Base.

Ts'o has been a senior technical staff member at IBM since 2001, where he worked on an enterprise real-time Linux solution. After two years at the foundation, he will return to IBM.

Ts'o currently serves on the board of USENIX and is the founder and chair of the annual Linux Kernel Developers' Summit. He also has been a project leader for the Kerberos network authentication system used by Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Suse Linux and Windows.

Posted by Paul Krill on December 6, 2007 09:10 AM

December 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Google exec pans term, mashup

A Google official stressed Monday that Google is progressing with mashup technology, using it for more professional purposes than what has been the norm.

"I'm kind of anti-mashup, I don’t like the name, I don’t like what it stands for," said Mark Lucovsky, Google technical director of engineering, at the Web Builder 2.0 conference in Las Vegas.

Lucovsky said a lot of people when they hear the term, mashup, think of applications such as budget applications. But demonstrating how the New York Times uses Google technology to add news to its site, Lukovsky said this was a more professional use of mashup technology, even if the Times was indeed mashing multiple sources of data. Google AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) APIs were used in the Times application.

"So they're mashing up but it's not the kiddy kind of mashup that I think was associated with v1 mashups like housing maps," Lucovsky said.

Posted by Paul Krill on December 3, 2007 04:33 PM

December 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)

AJAX technologies advancing

The OpenAjax Alliance plans to vote on its OpenAjax Hub 1.0 in December and expects to release it shortly afterward, an official with the organization said Monday.

The alliance tackles issues with interoperability in the AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) market. Version 1.0 of the hub enables use of multiple AJAX toolkits on the same Web page.

Version 1.1 of the hub, due in 2008, adds capabilities for secure mashups.

"The OpenAjax Hub 1.1 will go beyond 1.0 because it will do publish/subscribe across browser frames and that will allow you to sandbox a third-party, untrusted component within a frame," said Jon Ferrraiolo, a Web architect at IBM who is in charge of operations for the alliance. Ferraiolo presented on OpenAjax Alliance at the Web Builder 2.0 conference in Las Vegas.

The alliance has not yet started any formal activity dedicated to offline AJAX yet, Ferraiolo said. There are Google APIs that enable this but some may be reluctant to adopt them; the alliance possibly could come up with a standard API for this, he said.

Posted by Paul Krill on December 3, 2007 04:01 PM

December 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Podcast: An identity layer for the Web

Digital identity is fast undergoing a quiet revolution, one that situates users at the center of identity transactions, granting them greater control over their credentials as they navigate the Web.

The movement, labeled "user-centric identity," is working to refigure identity relationships into a more intuitive structure, bringing, in some cases, the wallet and ID card metaphor to digital identity transactions and, in others, allowing URLs to vouch for user identities.

Kim Cameron, chief identity architect at Microsoft, is a central figure in this movement, for which his Seven Laws of Identity provide a foundation. So intriguing is the model that some see user-centric identity technologies such as OpenID and Microsoft's CardSpace figuring prominently in the enterprise's quest for federation.

InfoWorld Contributing Editor Phil Windley talks with Cameron about the advantages of placing the user at the center of enterprise identity systems via these burgeoning technologies.

listen LISTEN!

User-centric identity
Special report: Placing the user at the center of identity
Federating identity for the Web
Understanding OpenID and CardSpace
Podcast: User-centric identity in the enterprise

Posted by Jason Snyder on December 3, 2007 03:00 AM

December 03, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Podcast: User-centric identity in the enterprise

For most IT organizations, federated identity has proved a difficult dream. Not so much a technical nightmare, but a persistent policy and governance problem constantly pushing the promise of federation further out of reach.

Add to that the almost chaotic expansion of partnerships and interconnected services required to remain competitive thanks to the Web, and it becomes easy to see why some enterprises are already looking to user-centric identity -- technology born of the Web 2.0 era, placing users at the center of identity transactions -- to help realize their federation dreams.

InfoWorld Contributing Editor Phil Windley talks with Mike Neuenschwander, vice president and research director at Burton Group, about the state of federated identity in the enterprise, delving deep into the business proposition user-centric identity presents.

listen LISTEN to the Mike Neuenschwander interview

User-centric identity
Special report: Placing the user at the center of identity
Federating identity for the Web
Understanding OpenID and CardSpace
Podcast: An identity layer for the Web

Posted by Jason Snyder on December 3, 2007 03:00 AM

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