Industry experts have predicted that mobile computing is going to have a huge impact on the software industry. I agree. That’s why we asked ourselves if OSGi, RAP and Eclipse RT can help overcome some of the challenges in mobile app development.

Some of the most common problems involved in mobile development include dealing with multi-platform, security and maturity of the available platforms. But does multi-platform really matter with iOS breaking adoption records? I am sure that Google and Microsoft believe that their platforms will become breakthrough successes as well. While no one can make a definitive statement about their future success, I don’t think that anyone would bet a fortune on their failure either. This leaves us with three options for addressing multi-platform: HTML5, development for each platform or making a bet on which will be the most successful.

HTML5 is great technology – not only for mobile – but there is a growing body of lessons learned the hard way. Our own experience revealed that it is easy to get started with HTML5 and that the state-of-the-art JavaScript libraries look really great. But when it comes to running and using the apps the excitement mostly turned into disillusion. The other two options did not seem like good solutions for us, so we decided to add another option: RAP mobile.

RAP mobile gives us some key advantages over the alternatives. First, it allows multi-platform development in Java. It uses the iOS and Android native widget toolkits for rendering the user interface with optimal performance and native look and feel. And, it provides a mature and Open Source platform for writing and deploying business applications on standard JEE servers. It also provides a solution for common data security concerns with mobile devices.

Today we launched the RAP mobile developer preview program and the RAP mobile project site. If you are curious about how RAP mobile works and what it has to offer visit http://rapmobile.eclipsesource.com.

eclipsesource.com | 1/31/12 7:28 PM

HTC and IBM hooking up to charm commercial clients originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   Pocketnow  |  TechWeek europe  | Email this  | Comments www.engadget.com | 1/21/12 10:34 PM

Microsoft is swatting at VMware with its latest cloud initiative. The new private cloud solution aims to help businesses move faster, save money and compete better.

Dubbed Microsoft System Center 2012, the solution lets companies build and operate private clouds to deliver business applications across both private and public cloud platforms. The software is available in Release Candidate form.

"IT leaders tell me that private cloud computing promises to help them focus on innovation over maintenance, to streamline costs and to respond to the need for IT speed," said Satya Nadella, president of Microsoft Server and Tools Business. Nadella promised that System Center 2012 would pave the way for customers to "move beyond the industry hype and speculation" and move into private clouds.

Unlimited Virtual Machines

System Center 2012 integrates eight separate component products into one unified solution. That, Microsoft said, streamlines installation and reduces the time it takes to deploy from days down to hours.

Microsoft offers Standard and Datacenter editions of the product based on its virtualization requirements. System Center 2012 Datacenter edition licensing covers unlimited virtual machines, which means customers can continually grow private clouds without additional licensing costs for virtualizing their infrastructure and applications.

"Our private cloud will help us meet our goal of doubling Unilever's business without increasing our environmental footprint," said Mike Royle, enterprise services IT director at Unilever. "Working with Avanade, we are betting on System Center 2012 as the management platform to extend our investments in virtualization toward private cloud, to automate processes, and to ensure the reliability of our infrastructure and application services."

Targeting VMware

Microsoft has been aiming at VMware for a while. Late last year, Microsoft poked fun at VMware's pricing fiasco for vSphere 5. The pricing drew the ire of customers, and Microsoft went on the offensive against the market-dominant virtualization player.

"Microsoft and VMware...

www.cio-today.com | 1/18/12 7:44 PM

TrackVia, makers of a highly flexible platform that allows non-technical users to build their own business applications, today issued its list of "10 Most Intriguing Applications of 2011." The company also reported the five most common business applications created by citizen developers and front-line knowledge workers using TrackVia.

www.topix.net | 1/18/12 4:45 PM

Polycom (Nasdaq: PLCM) says it's rolling out a native integration of its RealPresence video solutions with the most recent version of IBM Sametime and IBM Connections, a move it says will help companies tap into the power of social and web platforms.

Social media increasingly is becoming a primary method of sharing content and staying connected. As IT becomes more consumerized, especially with the preponderance of demand for BYOD solutions, more flexible videoconferencing and collaboration tools are coming to market.

"The ways companies are using video is rapidly evolving," said Sue Hayden, executive vice president Strategic Alliances, Polycom. "Polycom is committed to developing integrated solutions with leading companies like IBM to power a social video experience that helps our customers realize and maximize the inherent business value of social."

The move to integrate the RealPresence platform with IBM's social business applications, makes it possible for users to make video calls from within Sametime or Connections from any location.

The company said it has had significant customer momentum with the Sametime integration. The collaboration enables users to make HD video and voice calls from within the email and social business interfaces they are familiar with.

Through Sametime, Polycom integrates with Connections to allow users to launch video directly from the social media portal. Sametime users can find contacts, check their presence status, and begin typing or click to directly connect via video or voice with the ease of sending an IM. The also can use a browser-based client to join a video meeting hosted by the Polycom RealPresence Platform from anywhere on any computer, even on those without the Sametime client installed.

 For more:
- see this release

Related articles:
Report: 'Healthy growth' expected in number of mobile workers
Motorola's newest tablet to ship with Polycom's RealPresence Mobile app
Polycom takes another step to drive video-conferencing interoperability
Polycom acquires ViVu, looks to expand into broader video-conferencing market
Polycom offers enterprise a full tablet video-conferencing solution

www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com | 1/17/12 6:19 AM

Microsoft is preparing to launch a new persistent virtual machine feature on its Azure cloud platform, enabling customers to host Linux, SharePoint and SQL Server there . . . To date, Microsoft has been balking at customer requests to add persistent VMs to Azure, hoping to get customers to develop Azure apps from scratch instead. But the lack of the ability to host apps like SharePoint and other third-party business applications with persistence was a deal breaker for a number of business users who were unwilling to consider Azure until Microsoft added this support, one of my contacts said. osnews.com | 1/4/12 6:19 PM

The company specializes in the areas of ERP, IT education and training, supply chain management solutions, legacy and client-server systems, e-business applications and customized software application development.

www.topix.net | 12/15/11 12:23 PM

Every time new smartphones or tablets come out, there are discussions about apps. That's especially true for devices targeting the enterprise market. Now IBM is offering a little help to tablet makers by rolling out seven new social networking and collaboration mobile apps that aim to address the needs of large companies.

Big Blue's goal is to take social networking, real-time collaboration and online meeting capabilities from behind the company firewall and put it directly into the hands of tablet users. IBM is making the apps available for Android, BlackBerry and iOS-powered devices.

"Millions of tablet and smart phone devices will be unwrapped this holiday season," said Alistair Rennie, general manager of social business at IBM. "The ability to play Angry Birds is fun, but being able to also securely access business applications, enterprise content and accelerate your organization will be the real gift that keeps on giving."

Businesses Adopting Tablets

The use of tablets in business is on the rise. According to IDC France, the tablet market is forecast to reach more than 4.1 million in 2012, representing a 48 percent growth over 2011. Increasingly, employees need enterprise connectivity from their personal smartphones and tablet devices, also known as the "Bring Your Own Device" to work trend.

A recent IBM study found that 73 percent of business leaders surveyed allow mobile devices or tablets to connect to their corporate networks. Of course, that's no guarantee that enterprises will encourage employees to adopt the mobile apps. But Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, expects a favorable response.

"The initiative assumes two things: that mobile-enabled collaboration is increasingly important for enterprises, and that companies are still struggling to ensure that employees are using tablets and smart phones that support requirements for security, regulatory compliance and data protection," King said. "IBM has deep experience and expertise in...

www.cio-today.com | 12/7/11 8:03 PM

SNP Schneider-Neureither & Partner AG (SNP AG), a software and consulting company specialising in business applications transformations, has founded one of its first distribution companies outside of Europe in South Africa, with a view to expanding its international marketing activities. allafrica.com | 11/24/11 3:20 PM

Data integration is critical for companies that need to combine systems and databases after a merger or acquisition, or need to link legacy systems to new business applications. This need is vast throughout commercial and public industries, and the task can be daunting, especially for CIOs and IT managers of small- to medium-sized businesses. www.technewsworld.com | 11/11/11 3:00 PM

Outages to RIM and Apple's Siri service are discouraging companies from migrating to cloud, according to reports, suggesting online-based services have room for improvement.

The Saugatuck research firm, in its report, "Cloud IT Services: Designed to Fail?" cites the Siri and BlackBerry failures as reasons why today's cloud technology is not yet "acceptable for business applications and operations management."

"We are likely to see more, and likely more significant, cloud service outages based on server failure, resulting in a slowing down of enterprise-level business application and management migration to the cloud," the firm stated.

Saugatuck's research follows the highly publicized RIM blackout that hit BlackBerry users for several days in October. Frustrated users vented their anger on social media sites while businesses in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa struggled to get back online.

Apple's cloud-based iPhone 4S voice-recognition system, Siri, experienced similar problems one month after the phone's October 4 debut. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company also faced difficulties during its iCloud launch one week later, with customers experiencing difficulty syncing their devices post-upgrade and were sometimes locked out of their accounts.

Saugatuck suggests Apple and RIM may need to expand their data centers to handle such outages if the glitches continue.

Cloud troubles are becoming routine for individual phone owners, but they may spell disaster for businesses looking to put sensitive information online.

The Pentagon has expressed concern that cloud-based systems may be more vulnerable to hacking, as they are accessible from anywhere in the world as opposed to traditional, in-company servers.

Accordingly, the Lookout Mobile security firm launched an iOS app that can back up cloud information as necessary, anticipating the possibility of attack.

Also, carriers are worried cloud storage may mean slower speeds on their networks, since it takes large amounts of bandwidth to retrieve online songs and videos. As companies like Amazon, Google and Apple tout their cloud-based media services, AT&T, Verizon and other carriers warn they may not be able to keep up with the high demand.

Despite the cloud's much-hyped benefits, like universal storage, multiple device compatibility and easy accessibility, its susceptibility to bugs and hackers may put off companies from embracing such services just yet.

RIM, Siri Outages Discourage Companies From Cloud originally appeared at Mobiledia on Thu Nov 10, 2011 2:43 pm.

www.mobiledia.com | 11/10/11 10:43 PM

JavaFX provides a powerful Java-based UI platform capable of handling large-scale data-driven business applications.

www.topix.net | 11/10/11 3:43 PM

The Constable Authorization Engine is a class library that allows you to implement most of the authorization logic required by your business applications.

www.topix.net | 11/9/11 2:26 AM

Unified communications provider Fonality today announced it is partnering with Fusion Communications to begin offering service to the Japanese market.

The deal with the Japanese carrier will give its customers a fully hosted, plug-and-play solution purpose-built for small and mid-size businesses.

The deal, said Fonality's COO Eric Borrman, kicks off what  the company hopes will be the first of multiple partnerships in the APAC region. Borrman said Fonality has worked with Fusion through a beta process and was "confident that our new customers in Japan will find our cloud-based platform to be easy to use, simple to manage and affordable to deploy."

The deal gives Fusion access to Fonality's Heads up Display product, a UC dashboard that connects phones, desktop and important business applications into a single, interface.

The interface can also access customer information in real-time through popular applications like SaloesForce, NetSuite, VanillaSoft, or any other Web-based CRM application.

The app, which was launched in August, provides VoIP, unified communications and contact center solutions for Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhones and Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android phones.

For more:
- see this release

Related articles:
Study: SMBs increasingly using the cloud, hosted UC
Fonality's HUD Mobile seeing rapid uptake
Fonality rolls out mobile iteration of HUD UC, call center suite

www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com | 10/27/11 1:09 AM

More capable smartphones and media tablets are now joining a variety of highly portable netbook computers that have already invaded the workplace. Many are being combined with mobile apps that tap into cloud-based productivity solutions. According to the latest market study by ABI Research, healthcare is one of the most dynamic sectors for mobile technologies, and manufacturing is now the largest sector for mobile enterprise applications worldwide. By 2016, manufacturing will generate approximately 23 percent of the nearly $5 billion in mobile enterprise application service revenues. Mobile enterprise applications, also called mobile B2E applications, include dashboard apps, work flow approval apps, and line-of-business applications for both the smartphone and tablet. ABI's mobile services practice director, Dan Shey, says, "Manufacturing beats healthcare for B2E app adoption and revenues because of its large employment worldwide and the breadth of occupations that can benefit from mobile apps."

read more

soa.sys-con.com | 10/25/11 6:00 PM

The tune about social business is slowly changing. A recent AIIM survey reveals that over half of user organisations consider social business applications to be significant, if not imperative, to their business goals. 

Read full story... www.cmswire.com | 10/21/11 10:20 PM

This year's cloud focus is on bolstering the infrastructure layer; next year will be all about business applications, says Ingram Micro executive.

www.crn.com | 10/19/11 5:19 PM

Telecom reseller and VoIP carrier TNCI, which filed for Chapter 11 this week, told its channel partners during an invitation-only teleconference Tuesday, that, despite the filing, it expects to restructure its finances and emerge from bankruptcy quickly. The Boston-based company also assured partners it would continue to make commission payments.

Mike Ketchum, Intelisys' finance VP, told CRN that TNCI assured partners that there would be no disruption in commission payouts. "TNCI has been a trusted partner for a long time, and we take them at their word."

TNCI's filing showed it owes more than $5 million to Sprint (NYSE: S), $1.9 million to CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL), $1.7 million to AT&T (NYSE: T), $1.2 million to Universal Service Administration of Atlanta and $1 million to Verizon (NYSE: VZ).

Under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a company is able to restructure its debt and finances under court supervision.

TNCI President Brian Twomey, in a statement Tuesday, said the company would use the filing to help it "regain our financial health and focus."

"We hope to emerge from Chapter 11 as quickly as possible," he said. "TNCI does fully recognize the importance of the Agent Channel to the future of our business, and every step we are making is to preserve these vital relationships, along with those we have with our customers and our employees."

For more:
- see this FierceTelecom article
- see this CRN article
- see this Telecom Ramblings article

Related articles:
RedSky leverages Java/Linux in latest E911 Manager release
Report: Microsoft deal for Skype expected to be approved
The case for VoIP in small business applications
Skype fires up GroupMe marketing push
Can VoIP providers maintain growth as they move to expand hosted offerings?

www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com | 10/13/11 12:19 AM

As mentioned in my summary of MySQL announcements at Oracle OpenWorld, we announced last Monday new MySQL Enterprise Certifications with Oracle Secure Backup and with a number of offerings within the Oracle Fusion Middleware product family. Many Oracle customers use MySQL for their web-based, departmental and embedded applications. The MySQL Enterprise Oracle certifications make it faster and easier for them to deploy and manage MySQL within their existing environment. Certified integrations between MySQL and other Oracle products include: Oracle Secure Backup: provides an integrated, easy-to-use centralized backup-to-tape management solution enabling users to secure their Oracle and MySQL database backup images across more than 200 tape devices from leading vendors. Oracle Fusion Middleware: delivers a comprehensive suite of products that help DBAs and Developers create, run and manage agile and intelligent business applications on their Oracle and MySQL databases using the same familiar tools and feature sets. MySQL is certified with a number of Oracle Fusion Middleware products including Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle Enterprise Performance Management. Oracle Golden Gate: enables real-time replication between MySQL and Oracle Database 11g. Web properties can, for example, transfer real-time data collected in MySQL into the Oracle Database or Oracle Exadata for high volume data mining. MyOracle Support: allows MySQL customers to benefit from Oracle’s world-class, 24x7 support infrastructure. The integration also allows existing Oracle Database customers that are using MySQL for Web and departmental applications to receive MySQL technical support via their existing My Oracle Support environment. The first Oracle VM Template for MySQL Enterprise Edition, helping customers eliminate manual configuration efforts and risks by providing a pre-installed, pre-configured and certified software stack that includes Oracle VM Server for x86, Oracle Linux with the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel and MySQL Enterprise Edition. In addition, Oracle is currently developing integrations between MySQL and Oracle Audit Vault, Oracle Clusterware, Oracle Database Firewall, and Oracle Enterprise Manager. Go ahead and try MySQL Enterprise Edition now! It also includes the recently announced new commercial extensions. blogs.oracle.com | 10/10/11 11:48 AM

Exclusive - Roughly 21 months after successfully launching its vendor-neutral online marketplace for SaaS and cloud-based business applications, GetApp.com has secured $1.1 million from Spanish-American investment firm Nauta Capital to invest in further growth. GetApp.com is essentially a hub for SMB owners to compare, select and purchase SaaS and Web-based applications that can help them manage and grow their business. techcrunch.com | 10/6/11 12:35 PM

Celebrating 10 Years of Eclipse

9 years ago I started with Eclipse and till today I’m using Eclipse daily:

• as Java IDE (on OSX for all my Runtime projects, on Windows 7 running inside Parallels VM on top of OSX for all my BlackBerry projects)
• as platform (for server projects based on Equinox – OSGi, Jetty, …)

current customer projects are mobile and enterprise business applications and I’m also just in the process of developing this years

BlackBerry Conference App

for EclipseCon Europe 2011:

Of course there will also be mobile conference apps for iOS and Android made by Peter Friese and an iPad app by Christian Campo.

meet me at EclipseCon Europe to discuss why I’m still developing business Apps for BlackBerry and why I believe that the platform has a great future.

The BlackBerry Conference App will be a good example to see what kind of applications are already possible with BlackBerry OS now and will even become better with QNX.

BlackBerry OS + BlackBerry Table OS == BBX ?

Next year BlackBerry Smartphones will be based on QNX and rumors say at upcoming DevCon it will be named BBX as a union of BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry Tablet OS.

I’ll report about the BlackBerry developer conference as soon as I’m back from  BlackBerry DevCON 2011 in San Francisco, where I’m speaking about a logging solution for BlackBerry (Session COM-26):

You can also read about this at BlackBerryDEV Blog.

I’ll demonstrate logging from Equinox OSGI Server and BlackBerry Clients, both monitored side-by-side by Lilith LogMonitor:

I’m curious to see what will happen at DevCon 2011 in San Francisco and I’m glad to meet Eduardo Pelegri face-to-face to discuss about Open Source at RIM (…and to drink some beers at Thirsty Bear

Mobile Day at W-JAX

Last conference for this year will be W-JAX in Munich:

I’ll talk about Push Services at Mobile Day.

————————————————-

Hope to meet you at ECE, DevCon or W-JAX. ….and yes, I’ll also attend / demo at some Eclipse DemoCamps this year.

In the meantime Florian is hard working on redVoodo (Vaadin – Equinox/OSGi – WebUI + TouchUI for Business Apps). I’m using redVoodo to admin PushServers and more  stay tuned….

There will also be new releases of redView for Eclipse 3.7 SR1. In the next months some of our Open Source projects will switch from HG to EGit. BitBucket is now supporting hg and Git, so it’s easy to switch under the same hood.
—————————————————————————————————————————

(c) 2011 Creative Commons License 3.0 (BY-NC-SA) by  ekkescorner 

Filed under: Blackberry , Eclipse , EclipseCon , Equinox ekkescorner.wordpress.com | 10/5/11 8:47 PM

Are traditional phone systems passé? The FCC last year said VoIP usage was up 21 percent, with adoption growing beyond 30 million seats. For SMBs, VoIP solutions offer a number of advantages over PSTN, including better remote support, more features, a lower cost per seat and a system that can be easier for employees to learn. Check out this Mashable post.

www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com | 10/3/11 6:57 PM

IT departments are increasingly struggling to support an array of mobile devices as the bring-your-own-device trend adds additional security and management concerns to their responsibilities.

Juniper Networks (Nasdaq: JNPR), hoping to capitalize on the increased number of BYOD tablets and smartphones in use by enterprises, is launching several new products in a networking portfolio dubbed "Simply Connected." The portfolio includes three new switching products, wireless LAN product innovations and a set of updated iOS and Android mobile device security capabilities. The initiative arrives just as Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) sets to launch the iPhone 5 Tuesday, likely to increase the demand for mobile solutions.

According to Nemertes Research, 86 percent of enterprises report an increase in the number of telecommuters. Additionally, while IT budgets remain flat or increase only marginally, more than 43 percent of organizations report a double-digit increase in mobility budgets.

Juniper said it believes legacy networks designed for wired PCs are ill-suited to meet the demands of new applications; the company hopes its new portfolio simplifies current network infrastructures.

"It should be simple for individuals to choose and change their devices, simple to securely access their business applications and easy for the IT department to provision one policy per user that works across multiple devices, from tablets to smart phones to PCs," said Alex Gray, senior vice president and general manager of the campus and branch business unit at Juniper Networks.

Juniper's Simply Connected portfolio includes two Ethernet switches available now, the EX2200 and EX3200, and the EX6200, which is set to ship in the fourth quarter. The EX6200 is designed to deliver a scalable, resilient, high-performance wiring closet solution and to provide extremely high port densities in a space-optimized form factor.

Also available this month is the WLC880 wireless LAN controller, which is supported by new system software capabilities, including Juniper Networks Spectrum Management, and ensures over the air reliability on mainstream 802.11n APs including the WLA-522 AP and advanced spectrum planning capability.

Juniper's Junos Pulse Mobile Security Suite has been updated to include the ability for enterprises and service providers with Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhones, iPod touch and iPads to remotely lock and wipe lost or stolen devices, set and enforce security and passcode policies, provision and remove Microsoft Exchange profiles, provision VPN and Wi-Fi settings, inventory device applications and restrict specific apps on iOS devices.

For more:
- see this release

Related articles:
HP, Cisco battle prompts drop in Ethernet switch revenues
Cisco goes on offensive against Juniper Networks; is HP next?
Mitel plays into BYOD trend with UC apps for Apple's iPhone, iPad

www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com | 10/3/11 6:48 PM

Last week, I had the pleasure of chatting with some senior technical people from Infor, the third largest ERP vendor.   The topic of the conversation was Infor’s use of Eclipse Virgo as the base technology for their next generation middleware platform, called ION.    ION is event-driven middleware that makes it easy for Infor’s customer to connect their business applications.   ION has already been rolled out to some of Infor’s customers and is an important technology platform going forward for the company.

This is a great case study for using Eclipse Virgo.  Infor started out using plain Equinox 3.5 but then migrated to the Virgo Kernel 2.1 when they realized the extra capabilities provided by Virgo.  They have added their own integrations to Virgo, including  JDBC, Web Services (SOAP, REST), JMS, JCA, XMPP and File system.   Below is their architecture diagram for ION:

This is also an other example of a company using EclipseRT technology, like Virgo, to create component-based architectures and platforms that are easy to integrate and extend.   In time, given the size of Infor’s customer based, it could become one of the largest deployments of Virgo.

Kudos, to Glyn and the Virgo project team.  Thank you to the Infor team for sharing what they have done.  Great to see!!

ianskerrett.wordpress.com | 10/3/11 4:44 PM

InfoQ recently published a Virtual Panel on "SOA and Cloud Computing" with five participating subject matter experts. While the term SOA may sound a bit out of fashion these days, it appears that there is consensus about the fact that it can help well-designed business applications move to the cloud.

In particular, Oracle's William Vambenepe considers that moving to the cloud without identifying application components, dependencies and interactions would only "really just be a move towards virtualization". The panel also discusses wether Cloud Fatigue will follow SOA Fatigue and if that is a bad thing. "Does WS-* have a future in cloud/IT management automation?" is another interesting question.

If you're interested in cloud computing and not following William on his blog or twitter account, you probably should (the latter has significantly more volume, consider yourself warned!).

I have to say I like short bio's. William's is nice but so is this one.

blogs.oracle.com | 9/29/11 10:00 AM

Red Hat revenue up 28% in Q2. Funding for NoSQL vendors. And more. # Red Hat reported net income of $40m in the second quarter on revenue up 28% to $281.3m. # 10gen raised $20m in funding, while DataStax closed an $11m series B round, while also releasing its DataStax Enterprise and Community products. Additionally Neo Technology raised $10.6m series A funding. # Oracle announced the addition of new extended capabilities in MySQL Enterprise Edition. The move confirmed the adoption of the open core licensing strategy, and was both welcomed and derided. # BonitaSoft announced an $11m series B funding round.\ # Platfora raised $5.7m in series A funding to accelerate development of its BI and analytics platform for data stored in Hadoop. # EMC launched its EMC Greenplum Modular Data Computing Appliance, which includes both the Greenplum Database and Greenplum HD (Hadoop), and introduced the Greenplum Analytics Workbench, a test bed cluster for integration testing Apache Hadoop. # Oracle acquired GoAhead Software, which offers a commercial distribution of OpenSAF. # Ingres changed its name to Actian and launched its Action Apps and Cloud Action Platform. # Richard Stallman asked ‘Is Android really free software?’. Predictably enough the answer is ‘no’. Carlo Daffara called FUD. # LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ HPCC Systems released the source code for its HPCC Systems platform, and introduced a covenant to keep contributed code open source for three years. # OpenStack released Diablo, the fourth version of its open source cloud software. # The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announced the release of PostgreSQL 9.1. # VoltDB announced the general availability of VoltDB version 2.0. # Samsung is reportedly planning to release its Bada mobile operating system under an open source license. # Karmasphere updated its Karmasphere Analyst Big Data analytics product with new workflow capabilities for Apache Hadoop. # The Open Virtualization Alliance now has more than 200 members. # The Outercurve Foundation announced the acceptance of the GADS open source project into its Data, Language and System Interoperability Gallery. # Openbravo announced that customer deployments of its ERP product on Amazon have increased over 187% in the last 12 months. # The Apache Software Foundation confirmed Apache Whirr as a top-level project. # Qt gained more independence from Nokia. # SUSE Linux Enterprise Server has been selected for Use with SAP HANA. # Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 was certified by SAP to run SAP business applications, as well as support for SAP running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Amazon EC2. # 10gen’s MongoDB was chosen by SAP as a core component of SAP’s platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering. # Puppet Labs announced Puppet Enterprise 2.0. # Microsoft added Casio to its list of Linux-related patent agreement signees. # Dries Buytaert explained why Acquia acquired Cyrve and GVS and addressed concern that Acquia is sucking up all the Drupal talent. # Medsphere Systems announced the generally availability of the enhanced OpenVista electronic health record (EHR) platform. # Stormy Peters asked whether open source is excluding high context cultures. # OpenIndiana’s fork of OpenSolaris added support for the Illumos kernel. # Cenatic released the results of its research into public administration involvement in open source communities. # Spring Roo is shifting to be 100% Apache licensed. # VLC developers are looking for anyone who has contributed to libVLC so that they can approve the change in licence from GPLv2 to LGPLv2. # Virtual Bridges joined OpenStack. # Github now has over one million users. # Splunk open sourced the code for docs.splunk.com. blogs.the451group.com | 9/23/11 2:40 PM

Stronger spending on business software helped Oracle Corp.'s quarterly profit jump 36 percent, but the company's server business further deteriorated, a decline Oracle attributed to its move to shed lower-margin deals.

The company said after the stock market closed Tuesday that its net income rose to $1.84 billion, or 36 cents per share, in the quarter that ended Aug. 31. That compared with $1.35 billion, or 27 cents per share, a year earlier.

Its adjusted net income for the latest quarter was 48 cents per share, a penny higher than the average forecast of analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue rose 12 percent to $8.37 billion, slightly exceeding the $8.36 billion that analysts expected.

Revenue from new software licenses rose 17 percent to $1.5 billion, which was the top end of the range Oracle had predicted. But revenue from servers fell 5 percent to $1 billion, which was at the bottom of the range Oracle had forecast for that category.

Those two figures in particular reflect the tension in Oracle's push to become a more well-rounded technology seller.

The Redwood Shores-based company is the world's leading seller of database software, which helps companies organize their information. It's also one of the leading sellers of business applications, which help companies do things with their data. The businesses are highly lucrative. Software maintenance fees make up nearly half of Oracle's overall revenue.

Oracle's attempt to resurrect Sun Microsystems, a former dot-com star that makes computer servers, hasn't gone as smoothly. After Oracle bought Sun for $7.3 billion last year, Oracle warned investors that it was going to shed unprofitable deals. It has indeed done that. But uncertainty about Oracle's plans for Sun has allowed rivals to pounce, raising fears that Oracle's market share losses in servers aren't entirely voluntary.

Mark Hurd, an Oracle co-president who was Hewlett-Packard Co.'s CEO until last...

www.cio-today.com | 9/22/11 5:20 PM

AG certification to run SAP business applications. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, which is now a SAP recommended enterprise operating system certified to run SAP applications, will extend the same level of reliability and performance demanded by enterprise clients to optimize the running of their extensive SAP workloads.

www.topix.net | 9/22/11 8:20 AM

SAP AG, the world’s top maker of business applications, will rely on software innovation rather than large acquisitions to vie with Oracle Corp. in the $2 trillion global corporate technology market. www.businessweek.com | 9/19/11 9:46 PM

It’s a scenario with which many Java developers are all too familiar – and one which many fear. You log on to the network or arrive at the office to discover your Chief Security or Compliance Officer, Application Manager or even a VP of Sales and Marketing in a state of panic. A commonly used open source component has a serious security vulnerability that may expose your client-facing applications to attack. Even worse, the flaw was identified a few weeks ago, but your organization has just heard about it. The questions and accusations fly: “Why are we using open source components for our critical business applications?!” “Why don’t we just rip out this component and replace it with something more secure?” “Do you have any idea what will happen if people discover that our applications have a security flaw?!” “This could negatively impact revenue and our reputation!” And, of course, “What are you going to do to fix this – and ensure it never happens again?!”

read more

java.sys-con.com | 9/19/11 8:54 PM

A new study says that as many as 50 percent of all SMB employees work outside the office at some point, with 25 percent being off-site at any give time.

The survey, commissioned by business communications solution provider Fonality and conducted by Webtorials, looked at companies with between 10 to 250 employees.

Among the findings:

• Forty-three percent of SMBs plan to deploy cloud-based or hosted mobile solutions to improve delivery to employees
• Real-time presence as well as corporate directory and calendar access are favored Unified Communications (UC) capabilities
• Contact center functionality, including customer escalation, skills-based routing and queue management are an increasingly high priority
• Wi-Fi connectivity is a preferred method to preserve mobile plan minutes
• Tablets are becoming the dominant mobile device and could be the standard mobile device within 18 months.

"The mobile workforces of today's growing businesses have been artificially inhibited by legacy technologies," said Wes Durow, chief marketing officer at Fonality. "SMBs now have access to cloud-based Unified Communications and contact center features that fully enable remote workers in a simple and affordable manner."

The study also contends that mobile employees can often experience difficulty accessing critical business applications, causing productivity losses of up to six hours per week per SMB employee. Providing consistent UC offerings outside the office can significantly reduce productivity losses.

For more:
- see this release
- see the Fonality report

Related articles:
Fonality's HUD Mobile seeing rapid uptake
Fonality rolls out mobile iteration of HUD UC, call center suite
Study: SMBs to spend $125 billion on advanced technology in 2011
Fonality launches trade in program for SMBs
Fonality adds 200+ tech firms to UC client roster in Q1 2011

www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com | 9/15/11 5:30 PM

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is an enterprise platform well-suited for a broad range of applications across the IT infrastructure.

www.topix.net | 9/15/11 12:59 PM

Sybase, Inc., on Monday announced the availability of Sybase PowerBuilder 12.5, the second .NET release of Sybase's award-winning rapid application development tool. PowerBuilder 12.5 empowers developers with the easiest, fastest and most cost-effective solution for creating modern and visually appealing business applications on the Microsoft Windows 32 ((Win32)and .NET Frameworks. Today's announcement was made at Sybase TechWave, collocated with SAP TechEd 2011 and being held in Las Vegas, Nevada, from September 12-16. "Sybase PowerBuilder has remained throughout the years a bastion of application development productivity for a wide class of enterprise applications that combine heavy database orientation with a highly productive graphical user interface (GUI)," said Al Hilwa, program director for IDC's Application Development Software research. "The direction that PowerBuilder has taken to become a seamless Windows .NET environment with the Visual Studio shell incorporated into its infrastructure has meant that the product can now be considered equally for evolving existing systems and for developing new ones for traditional Windows 32 environments and for .NET."

read more

pbdj.sys-con.com | 9/12/11 9:56 PM

Nuxeo, the provider of an Open Source Content Management Platform for Business Applications, today announced a technology alliance with Ephesoft, provider of an an intelligent document capture system.

www.topix.net | 9/8/11 8:17 PM

SAP AG, the largest maker of business applications software, plans to acquire Right Hemisphere, which makes three-dimensional diagrams of products and processes, for an undisclosed amount. www.businessweek.com | 9/7/11 10:42 AM

NEC just introduced two new monitors, with the ultra-slim, 20-inch MultiSync EX201W and 24-inch MultiSync P241W for professionals. The former is meant for home use or business applications and offers a 1600x900 resolution and a relatively slim 16.4mm thickness. It also has a 25,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and a 1,000:1 typical contrast ratio....

www.electronista.com | 9/7/11 1:15 AM

Is Dell (Nasdaq: Dell) the next big name to enter the cloud computing fray? The company's Force 10 Networks data center acquisition earlier this year hinted strongly at its interest. Now, the long-time PC retailer is following through on the product and service front, according to eWeek. The publication noted that Dell made new cloud-related announcements this week at both the Salesforce.com Dreamforce event and the VMworld 2011 conference, the latter of which the entire cloud sector appears to have attended.

Dell said at VMworld that it is hard at work on a public cloud offering with VMware that is set to debut sometime later this year, with Dell data centers hosting VMware's vCloud public cloud systems. One of those data centers already is open in Plano, Tex., and several others are in the works. This effort targets mostly the small and medium-sized business market, where Dell has built strong customer relationships.

Dell and VMware also plan to build private cloud infrastructures for other companies, according to the eWeek story. Dell systems already are in place as components of other companies' public cloud services, too, such as those operated by Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN).  In addition, Dell and VMware next year plan to offer Microsoft Azure and open-source public cloud offerings, and continue integrating more Dell software and applications into the cloud. Analysts have been largely supportive of Dell's cloud moves, eWeek reported.

At Salesforce.com's Dreamforce event, Dell and the event's host announced a partnership aimed at offering software as a service application under the brand of Dell Cloud Business Applications. The first of these applications, a new CRM app, became available at the conference from Dell cloud integrator partner Boomi.

For more:
-see this eWeek story

Related articles
Dell's Force 10 acquisition aided its cloud push

www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com | 9/1/11 4:58 PM

Dell's expanded strategic partnership with Salesforce.com includes an integrated CRM solution.

www.crn.com | 8/31/11 1:24 AM

Cisco to integrate social networking technologies within business applications, Cisco says. Cisco says there are 600 million users of Microsoft Office applications, which include popular programs ... story.venezuelastar.com | 8/29/11 11:02 PM

 I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Yammer is hell-bent on being the central hub of the enterprise. Today’s efforts come to us in the form of a collection of tools and social plug-ins. Officially deemed Yammer Connect, the bundle spreads social functionality across an organization’s entire ecosystem by injecting company intranets and business applications with Yammer feeds.

Read full story... www.cmswire.com | 8/24/11 10:45 PM

One of the big trends this year is spear phishing. These are phish attacks that are frequently (though not always) against high profile users. The purpose of these attacks is to steal sensitive data or get elevation of privilege inside the service by exploiting a software vulnerability within the user's computer that transmits usernames and passwords back to the phisher.

Because of the frequency that they have occurred this year, I am sometimes asked what we do to defend against them. I am repurposing some internal documentation that some folks inside of Microsoft have written and adding my own spin on it.

Spear phishes are more difficult to repel using spam filtering because they are not a large campaign aimed at many users (like most spam campaigns), but instead are targeted at you specifically, using information gathered from Facebook, LinkedIn and other places you have left personal information. They look like they come from a personal contact, friend or other trusted party. Because they are small, targeted attacks, they do not show up on the radar of spam filters; they don't come from compromised IPs (or if they do, they haven't been used to spam yet), they contain zero-day malware or zero-day links to malware, and the language is designed to evade a content filter.

While a filter does help, users need to recognize these because a filter must not be the only line of defense against a spear phish. Some warning signs in spear phishes:

• They directly ask you for data ("please send me your password") by impersonating an official such as your IT department.
• They trick you into clicking a link which compromises your machine ("It's your roommate, click here to look at these pictures I took this weekend").

What can you do to combat this? Here are some common sense things you can do to protect yourself and your company:

1. Never give credentials to anyone. Your IT department will never ask you for your username and password in an email (if they do, don't give it to them). Social networking sites and web mail services won't, either. In fact, the only ones who ever will ask you for your username and password in an email message are phishers.
2. Do not read confidential email from a machine that is not patched regularly. An unpatched vulnerability in the operating system or the browser could be exploited to steal your credentials.
3. Make sure that the software you are running on your system is up-to-date. While your IT department takes care of this for most organizations, make sure you do it at home. Are you still running Internet Explorer 6? Windows XP SP1? You shouldn't be, you should be running IE9 and Windows 7 (or whatever the most up-to-date browser and OS is that you are running).
4. Never execute scripts (or other executable content) on behalf of anyone unless you see independent evidence that the proper process (ops requests, approvals, etc.) has been followed. If you get a file from someone, did you expect to receive it? Is this normal?
5. Use widely different passwords for personal and business applications. That way, if your personal credentials are stolen, you will not put your business at risk at the same time.
6. Check your mail forwarding and delegation settings regularly to ensure your mailbox and its contents have nothing weird set up. For example, attackers could add forwarding rules to get your mail; your awesome ideas could all be sent to a hacker in China.
7. When sending sensitive information by email, check the SMTP addresses of who you are sending to, not just their display names. Sometimes the autocomplete sends mail to people with similar names if a hacker has uploaded content into your address book.
8. If in doubt, change your password.

No security system is perfect. But you should be making it as difficult as possible for anyone to attack you and your organization.

Written by Terry Zink, Program Manager

www.circleid.com | 8/24/11 10:36 PM

Reports say enterprise social network Yammer will soon integrate with popular CRM software Salesforce.com, taking another step deeper into intra-enterprise communications.

According to AllThingsD, the company today will announce users will be able to post sales leads, deals, marketing campaigns and more from Salesforce.com entries directly within a Yammer stream.

"A few months ago we released an activity stream API that lets any application push activity stories into Yammer, the same way that Zynga can push items like the latest Mafia Wars score into your Facebook stream," said Yammer CEO David Sacks.

Salesforce.com already has a its own social software, but the software's open API allowed Yammer to develop its own API to capture a salesforce.com activity stream. Yammer said Appirio, a cloud apps developer, helped it do the integration work.

Yammer works with a number of other business apps as well, pulling social data from different applications that might be used in different enterprise departments, and condensing it into a single stream.

"We're seeing a trend with all these various line-of-business applications to build their own social networks into what they do," he said. "And we're already seeing customers and potential customers complaining about this because they wind up with a dozen different social networks in their company and that defeats the whole purpose."

For more:
- see this AllThingsD article

Related articles:
Survey: Execs at Interop say more companies migrate to cloud
Salesforce.com acquires Dimdim for collaboration; aims to be Facebook for enterprise
Salesforce integrates Twitter in the cloud

www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com | 8/22/11 6:03 PM

Multi-master database systems that span sites are an increasingly common requirement in business applications.  Yet the way such applications work in practice is not quite what you would think from accounts of NoSQL systems like Cassandra or SQL-based systems like Oracle RAC.  In this article I would like to introduce a versatile design pattern for multi-master SQL applications in which individual schemas are updated in a single location only but may have many copies elsewhere both locally as well as on other sites.  This pattern is known as a system of record architecture.  You can build it with off-the-shelf MySQL and master/slave replication. Let's start by picking a representative software-as-a-service (SaaS) application:  call center automation.    Call center software integrates with a local PBX or VOIP to allow agents to answer and make phone calls for telemarketing campaigns in a systematic and automated way using standard procedures known as "agent scripts." Admins set up agent scripts and define lists of people to call as well as marketing campaigns.  Finally and perhaps most importantly, managers receive a wide variety of detailed reports that allow them to optimize current work, examine historical performance, and make predictions about the future for planning purposes.  Here is a typical application architecture. Figure 1:   Call Center Application Architecture Bear in mind that this is a greatly simplified view.  Like most business applications, call center automation systems may contain hundreds of database tables and many types of user services.  There are also practical complications that go beyond the application itself.    Call center automation is vital to the businesses that use it.  Customers want assurance they can continue processing on another site if a SaaS vendor site goes dark.  This means we have to think about maintaining applications and data on multiple sites.The ideal solution for most SaaS vendors would be to have call center data and applications for all customers live on multiple sites at all times.  Multiple live sites mean that failover is instantaneous since both applications and database servers are already up and running.  Constant update means there is little or no data loss on failure. Customers could connect to the nearest site.  Here is a picture of that dream that includes two sites and two customers, Acme Inc. and Pinnacle, Ltd. Figure 2:  Dream Architecture for Call Center Automation This solution has only one problem.  It is impossible to build.  Readers may nod wisely and say this is because of CAP Theorem limitations, but that somewhat misses the point.  Let's say we use a NoSQL DBMS like Cassandra that permits updates in multiple locations and reconciles the data using eventual consistency.   However, there's a catch:  as we saw above, much of the value of call center automation is in operational queries and reports.  That drives you back to an RDBMS with cross-table joins, aggregation functions, referential integrity, and convenient SQL-based report writing tools.  For this reason alone, Cassandra is a non-starter for call center automation. What about a SQL DBMS?  MySQL obviously has all the features you need for query-intensive solutions on smallish data sets (e.g. hundreds of millions of rows, not many billions or trillions).  The problem is multi-master replication.   Updating the same table from two or more places on a LAN is already quite difficult:  witness the complexity of Oracle RAC or MySQL Cluster.  The problem becomes intractable when you combine complex SQL transactions, referential integrity, and high-latency WAN connections.  If you want full SQL semantics you cannot have updates on multiple sites.   This is a serious dilemma and not just for call center automation.  The same problems or worse affect a multitude of valuable business applications including market automation, credit card processing, customer relationship management (CRM), time/expense tracking, accounting, and many others. Fortunately we are not really stuck.  If we give up some requirements customers do not really want anyway, there is a perfectly good solution that will work for a wide range of problems.  Data warehousing architects long ago developed the notion of a system of record.  Bill Inmon's classic Building the Data Warehouse defined system of record as follows:The definitive and singular source of operational data.  If data element abc has a value of 25 in a database record but a value of 45 in the system of record, by definition the first value is incorrect and must be reconciled.  System of record applies to multi-master systems in the form of a simple rule.  We just assert that every customer has master data in one and only one location and copies everywhere else.  When particular customers update information they do so on their own master.  Customers can have masters on different hosts or sites, but the system of record rule says that no customer has one in two places.  This eliminates conflicts between masters, and multi-master replication now works without a lot of difficulty.System of record thus meets the original requirement of having data on multiple sites, which was to handle a site failure.  We can store data economically using off-the-shelf MySQL.  We can update copies within and across sites using master/slave replication.  We can shard customer data into independent schemas. The result looks like the following.  Acme has a master in San Jose, whereas Pinnacle has its master in New York. System of Record Architecture for Call Center Automation Using the system of record approach simplifies other problems as well.  Standard backup and restore techniques still work.  If you mess up a customer copy, you re-provision from the master shard.  You can implement failover across sites and also fail over locally onto slave copies, which can be complete copies containing data for all customers.Meanwhile, most users are fine with a single site.  Pinnacle is close to New York, which is why the SaaS vendor puts Pinnacle's data there and gives them the New York site DNS for login.   It is also possible to run reports on the cross-site copies as well.  You can even run full applications provided you forward writes to the system of record, as shown above for Acme.The real issue in implementing system of record architectures is that existing replication and clustering tools are not quite up to the job of handling cross-site applications build on system of record.  We are extending Tungsten to handle some of the obvious problems in building these types of systems using MySQL. Locating the customer master and connecting applications to it.  Moving the customer master from one location to another.  This happens more often than you would think, for example to minimize multi-master replication which can introduce problems beyond conflicts.  Detecting accidental updates to copies and preventing them from either reaching the DBMS and/or preventing them from propagating to other locations.   Proving a clean failover model that works on both cross-site as well as local copies of data.   Recovering corrupted copies of customer data from the master.   I will discuss two of the upcoming Tungsten features in follow-up articles.  The first is assigning a shard master in the Tungsten Replicator using the new shard API.  The shard API enables multi-master but enforces system of record constraints to avoid messing up data should you accidentally update in the wrong location.  The second feature is cross-site management and connectivity using Tungsten Enterprise.  This handles failovers within and between sites and automatically connects applications to the active master regardless of which site or DBMS it lives on.The need for availability is pushing an increasing number of SaaS vendors and other application providers to operate systems across multiple sites.  Applications like call center automation depend on the features of SQL and cannot be implemented using NoSQL DBMS's like Cassandra.  The system of record architecture eliminates replication conflicts and enables multi-master updates to work on ordinary SQL databases between sites.  If you are building complex SQL applications and thinking about going multi-site, this design pattern should be in your toolbox.   scale-out-blog.blogspot.com | 8/19/11 10:51 PM

Visual WebGui makes an application accessible via the Web without altering its code.

A tool that lets developers turn existing software into fully functional browser-based applications is becoming an increasingly popular way to make business applications accessible via the Web.

www.technologyreview.com | 8/12/11 7:00 AM

Charlotte, NC, Aug 02, 2011 -- ORCS Web Inc., a hosting provider specializing in managed Microsoft Windows solutions, is pleased to announce their complete system support for Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch, a rapid application deployment tool enabling the simple creation of high-quality business applications.

www.topix.net | 8/3/11 6:39 AM

EMC Corporation today announced that UNIVE -VGZ-IZA-Trias group , an insurance company based in the Netherlands , is relying on EMC Documentum xCP, a composition platform for building dynamic business applications and an action engine for Big Data, to process millions of insurance claims.

www.topix.net | 7/30/11 9:46 PM

Canvas, which allows business to customize and publish data on mobile devices, has raised $1.2 million in Series B funding led by an investment from Motorola Solutions Venture Capital. This brings the company's total funding to $2.3 million. Canvas’ platform allows businesses to find, create, deploy and share mobile business applications. Businesses can allow employees to collect information using their mobile devices, analyze that data and share the analysis and data. Canvas subscribers can use their mobile devices to collect data in a simple form or via a survey. techcrunch.com | 7/25/11 2:00 PM

A Letter From The Outer Space – reactions

I never have thought that there was so much movement after publishing my blogpost

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(c) 2011 Creative Commons License 3.0 (BY-NC-SA) by  ekkescorner 

Filed under: Blackberry , Eclipse , EclipseCon , enMOcs , Equinox , mobile , OSGI , Push Services , RAP , redview , redVoodo , Riena , xtext ekkescorner.wordpress.com | 7/18/11 4:35 PM

For IT teams who need to understand data as a first step before they can figure out how to use it to create high impact business applications, data volumes and complexity are overwhelming. Old methods and manual techniques cannot keep pace. Data discovery tools can help. According to IDC's June 2011 report Extracting Value from Chaos, the amount of information currently stored is 1.8 zettabytes (1.8 trillion gigabytes). It has grown by a factor of nine in the past five years. How can anyone deal with the complexity associated with these volumes? For IT teams who need to understand this data as a first step before they can figure out how to use it to create high impact business applications, this complexity is overwhelming.

read more

soa.sys-con.com | 7/17/11 1:30 PM

Digital Trends - Apple is planning to take its App Store beyond the consumer marketplace to enterprises, announcing that U.S. business will soon be able to buy applications in volume for their employees and their Apple devices. And the applications won’t just be the hundreds of thousands of applications available for iPhone and iPad: it will also include custom business-to-business applications from third party developers that are specifically aimed at certain types of businesses. us.rd.yahoo.com | 7/14/11 8:17 PM