James Governor's MonkChips

Links for 2006-06-01 [del.icio.us]

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:00:00 -0500

David Van Couvering 's Blog: The Synchronized Web
"So, it sounds like another lightbulb moment, this time with the folks at RedMonk."
Irreversibility breeds complexity - Column 2 - ebizQ
lovely stuff from sandy kemsley - good catch! on the role of architects: agility in reduciing complexity.... and there was me thinking it was the other way around... ;-)
alphaWorks : Starter Toolkit for DB2 on Rails : Overview
"Starter Toolkit for DB2 on Rails A set of tools that enables rapid building of Web applications with Ruby on Rails and DB2." RedMonk is proud to have influenced IBM information management's move to RoR. and a GREAT name for a developer: Kellen Bombardier

On Shared Services and SOA: SAP and IBM stuff, where Ginni Gets It

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 17:46:49 -0500

I came to IBM Software Group's latest analyst SOA shinding, held in New York city at the W on Lexington, with an agenda- trying to persuade IBM to decouple some of its SOA messaging. The problem basically is that IBM has it in its DNA to try and have one conversation with the market, rather than many. IBM loves umbrellas.

But SAP seemed to be quietly building a lead in shared services discussions with business executives… shared services is the business instantiation of similar thoughts to SOA in technology terms. SAP has some people that talk very effectively to shared services at the C level- people like Thomas Otter. At SAP SOA can almost be viewed a symptom of shared services, rather than a cause. SAP has always been about business process change, and shared services… When a Nestle buys SAP HR Software its in context of a shared service process change.

I was therefore impressed, or depressed, or whatever it is when you see the first person on stage putting your insight forward first session of the day… Ginni Rometty, senior vice president, Global Business Services - good job and nice analysis. Oh well I will have to think of something else to nail.

Basically IBM has just analysed the results of its CEO research stufy for 2006.

It turns out that Shared Services is squarely on IBM's radar.

RedMonk identified this tendency early on in our work on compliance. It was clear that organisations needed to set up Compliance Services organisations, in order to be able to move from silos to continuous compliance.

The poster organisation in our COA model was Geisinger Healthcare, which set up a content imaging and archiving organisation to store and manage medical information across the organisation. This was a significant process change, and underpinned a service oriented business approach to compliance.

Perhaps its finally becoming clear where Software as a Service is going meet SOA. Shared services and business process outsourcing are converging. Its not about cheaper services provided in another geography but the best most effective services provided by specialists, firms like Fedex, say, or ADP, or Amazon.

A governance board is required, and centers of excellence within clients are emerging according to Ginni Rometti. I suppose its no surprise given Ginni's role she'd be looking at shared services, but its a powerful insight nonetheless.

This is all goodness. IIBM has evidently identified this crucial element in the SOA mix. All it needs to do now is realise it has just identifed two distinct ways to talk to two distinct communities. Shared services is something business execs understand, and it ties into IBM's Collaborative Innovation message. Meanwhile the geeks can talk to SOA and metadata and web services and all that gorpy stuff.

On a completely different note- Steve Mills, SWG general manager, has referred to mashups twice today... how about that.

I just discovered tonight's dinner has a wine-tasting element. IBM must be reading my blog...

Links for 2006-05-30 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 31 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Peter Elst » Blog Archive » Adobe Live 2006 London
"my blog attracted enough interest to get invited by James to join him and several other movers an shakers from a wide range of different background on an Adobe sponsored wine tasting geek fest. One of the best nights I’ve had over in London for a long
Bare Naked App » Blog Archive » Dave’s (my) environment
carson stuff- lets share our working environments
Enterprise Architecture: Thought Leadership: Enterprise Architecture: Pay attention to these web 2.0 sites
nice pointers James
DOM Scripting: Hijax
hijax. maybe we could acronym Hijinx too!
Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing: Microsoft is making news this week
Office Ultimate Edition for the consumer market- $679.... not sure how this sticker will affect piracy - but thats a lot of money for "consumer" product.
michaelzimmer.org » Archives » Google to Make Ads look More like Organic Results
in which Google finds ever more inventive ways to squeeze out the extra odd few million click throughs... but without borders how are people supposed to know they are ads? oh - i geddit
St. JOHN | St. JOHN Restaurant Smithfield | St. JOHN Bread and Wine Spitialfields | London Dining | Nose to Tail Eating | London Restaurant
my favourite London restaurant. Great simple food, with fantastically sourced ingredients - creates something quite new: Great British Food
ongoing · anne 2.0
woohoo- Anne 2.0 gets props from Tim Bray. fully deserved. Anne is on my top list.
GeekPress
best ever example of unintended consequences. use high pitched tones to keep teens at bay, and they will use those "ultrasonic" notes as ring tones adults can't hear. pig latin for the 21st century
IBM Eye » This Blog Needs a Writer!
writer required to keep an eye on IBM and blog it.
People Over Process: Arguing the Semantics of "Open Source," or, Friends for Hire
"open source machismo is irrelevant". amen brother.
People Over Process: RedMonk Radio Episode 10 - Adobe Live, DRM, Freemium, JavaOne, Predictions
RedMonk Radio Episode 10 - Adobe Live, DRM, Freemium, JavaOne, Predictions
The Enron model of irresponsible capitalism - News & Features - International Herald Tribune
"The new American economic and corporate model grotesquely departs from such a moral foundation, doing so in a way that suggests damaging ultimate consequences for society."
I’ll think of something better to call this soon » Blog Archive » the other Sapphire and back to the future
SAP back to the future

Enterprise Trumps Social. Why choose IBM SOA over the lightweight conference... reboot

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Tue, 30 May 2006 11:40:46 -0500

There has been a bit of talk lately about how SAP invited bloggers to its recent Sapphire show in the US. Step forward Mr Nolan. Vinnie went along and had plenty to say. Shame the Europeans didn't invite bloggers too, for their event.. I believe this is the future: more and more bloggers are going to storm the gates of Big Vendors and the Big Analyst Firms that cover them. There is so much talent out there.

But what about the other side of the coin? Its one thing for Big Vendor Conferences to invite bloggers but what about a blogger's choice of conference? Why should I go to traditional enterprise events, rather than more lightweight networking oriented shows? It is a good question, I think. Cash cows versus new growth, signal vs noise, revenues now vs future opportunities, one foot in the muck, one foot in utopia.

When I met Sig and Hugh they absolutely raved about reboot. Absolutely. raved. about. it. If you go, they said, prepare to really extend the depth of your relationships with people in the blogosphere you probably already like and respect. Prepare for a lot more link love, and richer interactions with all kinds of absurdly bright people that get things done. People like Rick are excited about the event, and I was looking forward to meeting Shel. reboot, held this week in Denmark, is a great chance to meet European innovators; its so hot that a lot of US A-listers are making the trip.

So what am I doing instead of taking up my registration, for an event I was prepared to pay for? Flying out to New York to learn more about IBM's SOA strategy, a subject I already know pretty well.

Why am I going? Because Sandy Carter, who I work well with and have known for years and consider a friend, asked me, (well she said "you have to come") and because IBM is one of RedMonk's biggest clients. I will get a chance to catch up with some good people (IBM is full of them) and perhaps find some more business opportunities, and so on. But its not the new new thing, like reboot.

I am of course an industry analyst, but I am also a blogger. RedMonk doesn't just work on enterprise issues though- we're working at the intersection of enterprise and lightweight, trying to understand business and IT agility. Sometimes we talk about Rails, sometimes about CICS. We do things differently at RedMonk and blogging is an integral part of our success.

We have credibility in many communities and of that I am very proud. We're not specialists in one subject. We go fairly deep in many.

I guess that finally the answer is that as founder of a company I should usually go where the money is, not where the buzz is. That's why I am going to IBM's SOA event this Thursday and Friday, even though it means missing a Friday with my family, something my wife hates.

The simple truth is that in the current renaissance, IBM is a RedMonk patron, a position that has some significant privileges. We watch the market for IBM, to contextualise trends before they emerge, and to help hook up IBM with innovators. We also do good enterprisey work.

And no... patronage doesn't mean we're always positive about IBM.

Which brings us back to major vendors, who should think about the the conferences they run, especiallty when they consider cutting T&E, or plan to keep you couped up with Powerpoint all day, every day, yet again. We make choices, whether bloggers or industry analysts, to spend time with you, and that should count for something. Time is money, and these events take a great deal of time. Fun is something else entirely.

The fact is traditional conferences will increasingly have competition from a newer, more socially oriented set of "unconferences" - whether we look at Barcamp, FOO, Web 2.0 (ouch), or mashupcamp, these are great places for independents to hook up. Are these different markets? They used to be but they are convergent- just look at RedMonk's latest round of internal IT decisions.

Its not not just the analysts that are going to look different in future, but the shows they attend.

Can someone please do an event where we sit outside for once, and get some fresh air (who knows, it might lead to fresh ideas).

How about IBM sponsoring a fishing event for Eclipse bloggers?

A word of advice: at the lightweight conferences they always have wi-fi and power cables. These facilities are not optional any more, for people that cover technology industries, they are essential. Live-blogging about mainframes - why not? Its pathetic that a Big Vendor runs an event where they don't have wireless set up. Then they blame the "conference organisers".

Frankly I think both communities can learn from each other.

I look forward to seeing you Sandy- the agenda looks solid. Shame to miss you Shel. Enjoy reboot!

disclaimer: IBM is a client, obviously

Tags: Sapphire, Jeff Nolan, Vinnie Mirchandani, tecosystems, ZDNet, David Berlind, Sig, Thingamy, Hugh McLeod, link love, Shel Israel, IBM, SOA, Sandy Carter, Rails, Cics, RedMonk, enterprisey

Links for 2006-05-26 [del.icio.us]

Sat, 27 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Blair and Bush Are Duo Even in Descent
i hadn't seen this one before - the "Axis of Feeble" - Bush and Blair. funny. you know what I would like to see- a nice period of conservatism with a small c. Cut the radicalism, rein in the adventures, concentrate on self-sufficiency, and make a contribu
Google: Business software 'bereft of soul' - silicon.com
you have to admit David Girourard has a point
Mozilla CEO: 'Why we're still shunned in the enterprise' - Applications - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com
strange comments from mitchell. sure IE has an incredibly strong position. but why not point to enterprise vendor support, and accentuate organisations that *do* deploy Firefox as an enterprise standard. As I understand it, Intel is a Firefox shop, althou
erp4it: Re-thinking some things: Microsoft and Semantic Web alternatives
Model driven CMDB? Exciting! One for Cote for sure...
Jared's Weblog
RoR driver for Ingres... and someone quitting big software co in order to play with Rails...
Den’s Enterprisey Foghorn
howlett is a freak of nature. *another* blog> that makes like 5. great to see a blog called enterprisey
Adobe Live Panel at Aral Balkan
beautiful dissection on DRM: If this were the case with pencils, for example, you wouldn’t be able to sketch out a rendition of your favorite Marvel character because the pencil wouldn’t let you.
SoftwareTV
holy cow - IBM TV, en francais - this is definitely the future.
Sadagopan's weblog on Emerging Technologies,Thoughts, Ideas,Trends and Cyberworld
I agree with James governor's views that the old-school model for research and advice isn't necessarily broken, but it would be better served by more visibility into how information is gathered and conclusions are derived and that success and credibility
AccMan Pro - Dennis Howlett on innovation for professional accountants » Lay/Skilling - GUILTY - the impact
nice hat tip to Compliance Oriented Architecture
Tim Anderson's ITWriting
another mention of my new meme - the synchronised web. could this be a snowball?
eightbar » Blog Archive » James Governor’s Web 2.0 and Wine Meetup
props from eight bar. it was a good night out
FireBug - JoeHewitt.com
ajax debugger
IBM developerWorks : Blogs : chmod 777 web
open source atom implementation
The Ponderings of Woodrow: Duet: Captain and Tennille for Enterprise Computing?
a successful duet?
O'Reilly Radar > A Glance at ProgrammableWeb
john musser - is geting hotter. here his data is used to track mashup API adoption
IBM developerWorks: Wikis - Bobby Woolf: WebSphere SOA and J2EE in Practice - Eclipse Equinox
an important step towards what Ian Skerrett calls microplatforms
The Post Money Value: Banff Venture Forum 2006
"Prizes will include Web 2.0 Conferences for Dummies books signed by new Dummies author Tim “Vacation? Never again” O’Reilly. "

Last night's wine meetup and the future of Adobe

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:46:22 -0500

Last night went really well. A nice little group of folks with a variety of backgrounds, enjoying wine and geeking out just a little bit.

The event was held at Adobe's behest and on its dollar. Thanks Tim Brook, European AR guru! Last night was a very good engagement platform.

Ben Watson, Group Manager for Enterprise Developer Relations at Adobe, really gets it. I am happy because I am pretty sure the Adobe RedMonk relationship is now set for lift off. We can definitely help with developer community issues. Ben hasn't even met our smart people yet. Ben is the future of Adobe, because developer community outreach is the single most important task for the merged Adobe Macromedia company. Ben used to be at Microsoft and his take on developers and APIs shows deep experience. Most importantly Ben reall understands the importance of wicked demos.

It was great to meet Tink and Roo and Pieter and Derek and Rob, and hook up with Microsoft's Peter Bell in a less corporate environment than usual. Darren of eightbar wrote the evening up here. Lets not forget Richard Veryard, another man with more blogs you can shake a stick at.

The eightbar chaps are from Hursley's emerging technologies group. They get to do weird stuff like automate lego and program to second life APIs.

As usual Bedales was good value and Emily looked after us very well. The thing about Bedales is you can choose any wine, whether its seven quid or 500 quid, and just pay a fiver corkage. I am going to have to set set Emily up a blog though, because the Spitalfields Bedales really needs it own web presence. The leathery 1982 Chateneuf de Pape was definitely a highlight.

The evening may lead to interesting outcomes - such as, potentially some new directions and opportunities for the IBM Adobe relationship.

Reactions were so positive from everyone I am thinking about making the meetup a regular event. Any vendors interested in sponsoring a really good night out should let me know... will organise cool people for wine.

Peace out- have a great long weekend.

Tags: Adobe, Microsoft, Bedales, eightbar, IBM, Hursley, Arena, Tim Brook, Ben Watson

I can't even be bothered to diss Gartner: SOA 2.0

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:19:49 -0500

Duane makes the necessary points well, and points to others doing the same. Joe weighs in.

Event-driven? Is that like Symposium? Maybe Gartner is looking for a new revenue stream, suing people that use their new version number once it becomes established... Ok maybe a small diss... ;-)

Tags: Gartner, SOA2.0, Duane Nickull, Joe McKendrick, Symposium

Note to Vendors: Don't talk about Java vs. .NET in briefings

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Fri, 26 May 2006 08:33:48 -0500

Or you will lose credibility with an audience that knows anything about developer communities and how they are evolving.

If you are still pitching Java vs .NET your marketing is at least three years out of date.

The world has moved on.

Don't talk about Java vs. .NET and then claim Eclipse and MySQL are not relevant because they are just departmental, or you will really embarrass yourself.

The worst parties in repeating the mantra of Java vs .NET are Microsoft and Sun. Please cut the guff, and think about what you're pitching and who you're talking to.

Java vs .NET? According to internal Microsoft research, helpfully surfaced by John Montgomery, C++ rules.

I am not saying that Java is dead or anything daft like that (in fact Java One was buzzing), but the instruments are just too blunt to be useful.

disclaimer: Sun is a subscription client, Microsoft is an occasional client.

Links for 2006-05-25 [del.icio.us]

Fri, 26 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500

alphaWorks : IBM Generic Web Services Client Tool : Overview
this is funny. IBM PHP code to test Web Service. lesscode meets morecode in IBM's Israel development lab
Come On, Oracle, Open Up
go Josh... brave enough to call out Oracle for circling the wagons, making it hard for analysts to talk to.

SAP on Rails: pretty freaky... A Shadow over Innsmouth

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Thu, 25 May 2006 10:35:25 -0500

The idea of using the Ruby On Rails framework to extend SAP apps and give them some prettiness potentially makes a lot of sense.

Step forward SAP4Rails, as put forward by Piers.

Culturally however the combination is very odd. Odd to the point of spooky.

SAP is the ultimate configurable enterprise system. R/3 is surely the most enterprisey system ever designed.

Ruby On Rails on the other hand is supposed to be the ultimate triumph of convention over configuration, beauty through simplicity and constraints.

I can easily imagine David Heinemeier Hannson in Walldorf telling a group of SAP engineers that BAPI is just too ugly to live. If PHP is the devil, then what the hell order of darkness is BAPI? We'd need to approach Cthulhu to get close to that level of evil. SAP is surely one of the great old ones.

Tags: DHH, David Heinemeier Hannson, SAP, Ruby on Rails, RoR, SAP4Rails, enterprisey, PHH, Walldorf, Adobe

Why Celebrity Blog Readers are like Scripting Language Users: what big vendors need to know

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Thu, 25 May 2006 06:04:22 -0500

What he said.

Classic RedMonk. Yuh!

Links for 2006-05-24 [del.icio.us]

Thu, 25 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Dixie Chicks Leave Their Old Country
In US hotels I stick MTV on in the morning. I was horrified by most of the dirge last week...but "Not Ready to Make Nice" by the Dixie Chicks made me sit up and say wow. You go girls! Not ready to make nice? I should think not. This is real anger. Unlike
Richard Brandt on Google: Google and child pornography
"There are plenty of real issues to criticize Google for. Let's skip the child pron stuff and and tackle some of the real issues. What's your favorite? And let's force Google to open up and defend itself more." Amen Richard
Ian Murdock’s Weblog » Nat Friedman, CFO
like bill gates problem with IRS and MS Money software.... you need 64 bits for that much wealth. how about transferring a million bucks by ATM... a la Miguel

Links for 2006-05-23 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 24 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500

InformationWeek | IT Analysis | Know Your Analysts' Biases | May 22, 2006
biases can be mitigated by transparency. are analysts biased in some cases? you bet.
Digital Incompetence
when are we going to start getting our act together on privacy> never I guess. come on litigious american society- do your thing. where are the class action suits?
links for 2006-05-23 - Business-Driven Architect - ebizQ
nice link to the information week story from friend of redmonk brenda michelson. hey Cote: check out this new tracking agility thing... InfoQ...
Webswell Enters European Market With its Open-Source ebXML B2B Solutions @ ENTERPRISE OPEN SOURCE MAGAZINE
open source ebXML comes to Europe. interesting.
Naked Conversations: Around the World in 23 Days
if my damned MT host ever gets its act together. so much for german efficiency.

On four days on downtime, firing 1&1, three redmonkers in one place, media friendzy, and the latest RedMonk Radio episode

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Tue, 23 May 2006 11:12:19 -0500

Ah yes its wonderful to lose a primary communications channel for four days. We're now going to fire 1&1. Massive apologies to anyone that has tried to leave a comment... no MySQL no interactivity.

Sod's law I guess. Businessweek online and InformationWeek both run stories about you, and so your server of course crashes immediately. Still at least we could still serve HTML. That's a very small silver lining.

Have you seen all the RedMonky's together before? Here we are.

And if you missed us here is the latest issue of RedMonk Radio: Debian in Mexico, UK Innovation, Debian, WS-Kool-Aid, Bears with Pants... we talk about "Debian, Web Service Kool-aid, toads driving cars, and other exciting topics".

Welcome to any new readers, and I hope our intermittency didn't put you off. I guess we need to be more enterprisey...

Tags: Debian, InformationWeek, 1&1, WS-*, WS-Kool Aid, Bears, InformationWeek, BusinessWeek online, MySQL

Links for 2006-05-22 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 23 May 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Have A Business Get A Blog
in which i recommend using Technorati to drive traffic. interesting this - i talked to businessweek recently and now a spate of how to blog content (that will hopefully drive a little attention )
eventsites: making organising easier
pure AJAX UK event building site. pas mal
Sun promises to open source Java - IT Week
I *said* I *wasn't* going to comment on open source java stories any more... FWIW Tom evidently didn't understand my point about JEE moving fast enough that all vendors, not just Sun, should be happier with it.
InformationWeek | IT Analysis | Blog-Based Analysts Shake Up IT Research | May 22, 2006
What can I say? Great piece. Nice to see this followup to the analysing the analysts piece. Also super to see InformationWeek looking closely at smaller alternative suppliers in a market-industry analysis- that needs to be shaken harder. Two RedMonk analy
Events and conferences - JigsawUK
what is coming up in innovative technology? here is a wiki to tell you:
Schneier on Security: The Value of Privacy
Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."
HOW TO: Get Through Having Your Identity Stolen - Consumerist
important stuff
Ross Mayfield's Weblog: Shai Agassi on Community Value
SAP developer networking - take note about the Indian companies paying employees to contribute!

Tasty Free Wine for UK Web 2.0 People

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Thu, 18 May 2006 12:48:47 -0500

Next Thursday I am going to be running a little event in Liverpool Street in the evening. Basically we'll be drinking some really good wine and talking about european innovation and Web 2.0 stuff.

Actually who the hell knows what we'll talk about - its an un-event... ;-)

Its a chance to meet Ben Watson - Adobe Flex Product Manager, and some other cool folks.

If you're interested in coming along let me know... I have some people coming along, but can manage some more. First come first served.

Come along to Rich Internet Adobe Event Next Week

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Thu, 18 May 2006 12:37:11 -0500

Now Adobe has acquired Macromedia its becoming increasingly developer-friendly. Its not just about documents and processes any more. Adobe Flex is going to be an important AJAX building mechanism, and the product manager Ben Watson will be moderating a panel next week. I will be on the panel.

It should be fun I hope. Details for registration are here, if you're interested.

Its in London next Wednesday...

The Emergence of Java Linux

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Wed, 17 May 2006 12:57:15 -0500

Over the last five years it has often seemed like strongest link between Java and Linux was on vendor slide decks, notably IBM's.

The architecture charts look elegant and simple but the communities are often orthogonal. JBoss' claim that 50% of implementations are on Windows is a pretty clear indicator that Java and Linux are not joined at the hand let alone the hip.

So what is the theme of Java One this year? How about - the emergence of Java Linux?

In the Monday keynote kickoff Ed Zander, Motorola CEO and former president of Sun, spoke to "Java Linux". In the past Motorola has been conflicted about the OS. While it has sold some really cool phones in the Asian market that run Linux, the wireless service providers in Europe and the US have been more interested in Symbian and Windows mobile. Ed was very clear however that he sees the Java Linux combo as one his company should push more agressively.

So what about Ubuntu-which Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz described as "the most important Linux distribution"? (Mr Schwartz really does think like a developer, as apparently does Stephen...)

Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, Inc, the company responsible for the Ubuntu version of the Debian Linux distribution was on stage to announce that the Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE) will now be easily installed alongside Debian packages using apt-get. The news may sounds arcane, but this is a very significant news, as explained by Stephen here, here and here.

Ian Murdock, Debian founder, spoke to the news thusly:

We’re one step closer to a Java/Linux combo that’s more than just Java bolted onto the side of Linux (admittedly, there’s still a bit of that here, though at least it’s attached with standard componentry now rather than the old bubble gum and bailing wire).

Why is tighter integration important? Because the alternative, namely Windows and .NET, offers a tightly integrated combo that “just works”. The more a developer has to do (like, say, ship a bundled runtime because that runtime isn’t guaranteed to be available on a key platform), the more attractive the alternative looks.

The real question is: Will this be enough? I’ve long contended that open-source Java is a red herring—the real challenge for Java on Linux is ubiquity, not licensing, and licensing is really only an issue because it gets in the way of ubiquity.

Well said sir! But what about the "production distros", SuSE and Red Hat? No news to report on JRE.

But JBoss supremo Marc Fleury was on stage to endorse Sun's Netbeans platform, which was a bit of a surprise. While we're talking about Netbeans, it was also interesting to see Cap Gemini CTO Steve Jones formally endorse Sun's open source development environment. Ed Zander had also endorsed Netbeans, so top down momentum seems to be picking up. But back to Java Linux and questions of governance.

One of the main reasons Java and Linux have been somewhat at arms length outside vendor slide decks, above and beyond the packaging issues talked to at extreme length by my esteemed colleague in the links above, is that Java is not open source. OSS bigots therefore won't use it. That is why the "will Sun open source Java question" keeps coming up. Sun confirmed yesterday open source Java is a How Not If question. But of course Jonathan said something very very similar last year... please stop ooching it out Sun, I really don't want to have to answer reporter or client queries on the issue any more. I can't face another Java One press conference where 60% of the questions are about Sun open sourcing Java.

Which brings us to Eclipse and Java governance.

One reporter asked during the press conference whether Sun shouldn't spin off Java to an independent organisation, "like Eclipse". In context of the question the reporter put forward a very interesting oxymoron - "you could then get that level of hands off control.."

"Hands off control?" the mind boggles. military intelligence, fresh frozen, and hands off control...

Without rehashing my Eclipse momentum and enterprise mandate mantra, its worth noting Eclipse increasingly has its own governance issues to deal with. Like the JCP - there are many different constituencies pulling in different directions, as with the Java Community Process.

Independence doesn't eliminate complexity…

Finally i just want to posit that its probably the broad resurgence of Solaris, through the Open Solaris program, that makes Sun so comfortable about partnering with Linux distros now. Solaris is confident. Sun is confident. And now Java Linux can begin to kick in.

The industry hasn't gotten boring yet, and Sun is at the heart of some intriguing structural changes. The buzz on the floor here at Java One is palpable. And now the Java and Linux communities can start to create some interesting mashups because religion is being taken out of the equation.

More maturity?

Sun as a Grown up Company

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Tue, 16 May 2006 20:19:16 -0500

I am at Java One and just had a discussion with Sun president and CEO Jonathan Schwartz and a few other analysts. It was a knockabout session, as we had a chance to chat to Jonathan in his new role as CEO.

I asked Jonathan what I thought was a softball question with a somewhat obvious response

"How much are you enjoying Dell's current misfortune, and why aren't you doing more to kick the firm while its down?"

Jonathan looked me in the eye and expressed exactly how Sun will be different under his stewardship.

"We don’t need to be anti-anyone. Why does the story always have to be Sun slaps somebody?"

That is a big change. Scott McNealy was always trying to "kill" somebody, and seemingly came from the Everybody Else Miust Fail school of management.

Jonathan on the other hand, pointed out that Dell is a potential partner, and generates a lot of Solaris installs…

One customer running Solaris on Dell hardware is Wells Fargo.... that has to be a nice opportunity.

Jonathan said that when he became CEO the first thing he did was call the likes of Matthew Szulik (RedHat), Marc Fleury (JBoss), and Kevin Rollins (Dell).

Take note - Jonathan didn't call customers straightaway, as per the new tech CEO playbook - he called the people that Sun couldn't have a sensible conversation with while Scott was still in charge…

Most other industry players have long responded to coopetition, both competing and cooperating with other major firms, and changed their business models accordingly.

Sun on the other hand often looked somewhat isolated. Vertically integrated yes, but isolated also.

It seems like Sun is now finally making that transition. Take note…. Sun working closely with AMD was a big wake up call for the firm. We may well see more deals like that...

Jonathan is evidently about value creation, rather than negativity, and it’s a good look.

Sun - participation requires partners, some of which are not best of friends. It will be interesting to see whether the non confrontational approach to Dell bears fruit. Solaris pre-installed on Dell? Stranger things have happened, especially when customers ask for it.

Sun App Server Rebounds Significantly

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Fri, 12 May 2006 10:50:00 -0500

Go buy some stock? The evidence is coming together in some interesting ways.... and if Sun's Java Enterprise System app server has momentum, anything can happen.

Richard Monson-Haefel points to BZ Research market share numbers.

37.2% - IBM Web Sphere
37.0% - JBoss Application Server
27/2% - BEA WebLogic
27.2% - Oracle 8iAS, 9iAS, 10gAS
19.7% - Sun Java Enterprise System

Very nice data point for Sun to use in pointing to uptick at Java One next week. +6% in a year is none too shabby for an "also ran" app server. All that said, the Oracle numbers confuse me a bit - why are they munged together like that?

Oh yeah - I will be at Java One in San Francisco next week

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Fri, 12 May 2006 10:34:53 -0500

I will have very little free time but I will be in the city all week.

I am staying at the Argent.

Why industry analysts, more than most, should beware leaky abstractions

noemail@noemail.org (jgovernor) — Fri, 12 May 2006 08:43:47 -0500

Proud new dad Bill de hO'ra was talking about programming languages on his blog and it got me to thinking about what worried me when I read that Burton Group's Anne Thomas Manes is proud of mixing the enterprisey coolaid we know as WS-*.

People accuse WS-* of being too complex. (Somewhat remarkable when you think back to 2000 when everyone was extolling SOAP's simplicity.) Well -- if, as a developer, you need to understand the details of all 60+ WS-* specs, then, yes, WS-* is way too complex. But that's a symptom of WS-*'s immaturity. If we had proper tooling, the only folks that would need to be concerned with all the 60+ specifications are the folks implementing the WS-* toolkits. Developers should really only need to be concerned with a handful of the specs: SOAP, WSDL, and XML Schema--maybe WS-MetadataExchange. Everything else should be handled transparently by the toolkits. I think we'll get there. Microsoft's WCF ("Indigo") demonstrates how easy it can be to use WS-Addressing, WS-ReliableMessaging, WS-Security, WS-Trust, and WS-SecureConversation. All you have to do is specify an annotation, and everything is automatically implemented behind the scenes. I expect the other vendors to deliver better tooling at some point. Now that WS-Policy has finally moved into the standards track, we should start getting much better configuration tools. [italics mine]

I know too many great developers, people like Bill, who shudder at these kinds of sentiment - "everything else should be handled" transparently... or opaquely? Cote, say, is an industry analyst now, but was an ISV developer just a few months ago. His teeth start hurting when people talk about auto-generating code and "hiding complexity".

As I see it, is that you probably really need to understand something of both the abstraction and the internals to really get things done. Otherwise you end up handing off potential problems to people that actually do know what they are doing when they have to debug your code. I have seen too many JEE apps that performed like dogs because the developer didn't understand how databases work, to believe that abstraction solves IT problems. Smoothsurface this, and the complexity will almost certainly pop out elsewhere. A jumbo jet looks pretty straightforward, but I wouldn't want to try and maintain or build one, even if someone handed me all the parts and blueprints and a bunch of engineering apprentices to put it all together. Yet that kinf of approach is supposed to work in the enterprise?

Which brings me back to Bill, as he points out:.

When Joel Spolsky talks about Leaky Abstractions, he's talking about the situation where an underlying machine, one which you should ideally pay no attention to, pops through your present machine into your coding reality, Lovecraftian style. The word we use to describe this hiding of machines is "transparency", which is one of those technical terms that is correct, but bone-headed. Most people see the word "transparent" as allowing you to see through to something, not hide it. What we really mean here is "opacity", the ability of one machine to hide the fact that it is implemented in terms of another machine. It's when the underlying machine (or machines) seep through that there *is* transparency.That's when the leaky abstraction occurs and problems begin.

While I have respect for Anne I do wonder, and perhaps worry, about industry analysts and our love for abstractions. I am one of the most abstract thinkers I know, everything fits into patterns, what is systems management but business intelligence and workflow for IT, and on, and on? But I am not a coder. Not even close. I am just a guy that would like to have one tenth of Tim O'Reilly's unerring pattern recognition radar.

Industry analysts are not practioners - which is why we need to be more wary than most about drinking the coolaid, let alone mixing it, and having a vested interest in it. At RedMonk we talk to a lot of developers because we believe they often have insights and experience that architects, CIOs and vendors don't. Stephen says its signal to noise. Its why I think SCA has a lot to prove.

I am not saying that RedMonkers don't have prejudices (anyone for DRM?), and I strongly approve of Anne's examplary declarative living approach: we now know what her prejudices, or what she calls "vested interests", are. When an enterprise or vendor talks to Anne about web services and SOA, they should know what they are getting. That is goodness. They can tweak the semantic volume dial accordingly.

I do believe that analysts, people like me or Anne or Daryl Plummer need to keep listening to that little voice in the back of the head saying "come on - give me something more concrete to work with." People out there, our customers, and our customers' customers, need to get things done... how can we best help them? With taxonomies and wordgames, or advice based on what the practitioner state of the art is? I am an abstract thinker but that doesn't mean I have to, or should, trust abstractions. To be fair to Anne the blog entry I link to is generally well thought out, and makes the right noises about plain old XML (POX), Representational State Transfer (REST) and so on.

But I am identifying a pattern... something industry analysts, and consultants too, need to be careful of. Our models of the world suffer from leaky abstractions, just like technical architectures do. The question is do we then delve into understanding why, or do we sweep the exceptions under the carpet? Good analysts will go for the former, hacks will choose the latter. We must beware falling in love with our own oh so elegant models of the world. Real life is messy and sloppy and all the better and more interesting for it.

Life is loosely-coupled. Our models need to be.

Tags: industry analysts, Burton Group, Anne Thomas Manes, WS-I, Cote, RedMonk, declarative living, Leaky Abstractions, Bill de hO'ra