XML Web Services: Means to an End

Don Box on end to the Web services era, at least on a standards level:

Don Box, an architect in Microsoft Corp.'s developer division told an audience of Web services conference attendees Wednesday: "The end of the XML Web services era is near. I predict two years from now we won't have this conference."

Box said XML Web services are a means to an end. "We have to get the plumbing sorted out," he said. "We have a couple more years of plumbing work, but after that we move on to applications," he said. Box said the "protocol work is starting to wind down, the infrastructure is catching up with protocols and it's time to start thinking about applications."
Very well said.

Don't stop Blogging, Sam

Sam says that he's got kind of bored right now with the blogging and that he would like his blog to morph into something else which he has not decided yet. Well, Sam yours is one blog we goto for .Net related stuff. Your blog has become a huge knowledgebase of .Net news and articles. So keep the ball rolling while you try to find what you need to do with your blog. Cheers !!

Web Services' True Promise

This time Informationweek reports on Web services hype and reality:

"With Web services, as with any software project, your chances of success hinge on basic but essential steps such as performing a thorough needs assessment, gaining a good understanding of the technology and the vendor landscape, and using a pilot program before undertaking large implementations. Once those fundamentals are covered, chances are that Web services will result in greater efficiencies for your business. And that's what will transform the technology from today's hype to tomorrow's reality."

Another interesting paragraph from the same article.

"The fact is that the Internet never made anyone rich, never increased a company's bottom line, never made anyone's life easier. What the Internet does do is provide a valuable tool that lets businesses and individuals benefit from squeezing inefficiencies out of their processes. Just as a Steinway piano won't turn an ordinary person into a virtuoso, new technology won't let an IT department with a lackluster plan achieve significant benefits."

Going overboard on open source?

In an editorial on ZDNet:
"Open source is supposed to be about freedom. Unfortunately, certain advocates have lost sight of that goal. People should be free to use software which best fits their needs, whether or not it adheres to a particular programming philosophy. I suggest that open source proponents spend their time crafting interoperability guidelines rather than creating a protected environment, which artificially boosts open-source adoption while hiding it from the full rigors of competition."

Miscellaneous: Web Services and Few Good Blogs

Microsoft today released Web Services Development Kit for building ASP.NET Web Services that use WS-Security, WS-Routing, WS-Attachments and DIME.

Gordon Van Huizen writes about enthusiasm and skepticism involved with Web services. [via Emergic.org]

Here are some good blogs that we have come across recently:
JK's Observations - About India, Kerala, Technology, Books, Movies
Sanjay's Journal of Coding Tips - Writes mostly about Technology
AnitraPavka.com - Accessible Usable Design - On Usability and Accessibility
Sanjiva Weerawarana's Radio Weblog - Author/Co-author of WSDL, WSFL specifications.

Push-Button Innovation

Technology Review reports on innovation in US Telecom business :

"Innovation isn’t what companies do; it’s what customers adopt. In fact, the telecom sector remains a fabulous market for innovative uses of bandwidth. But innovation shouldn’t mean getting people to use more bandwidth; it should be about getting people to change their bandwidth behaviors...."

"...Push-button innovation doesn’t ask customers to buy new equipment or learn how to program; it treats them as people who might be prepared to tap a few extra keys to get a little extra value for a small additional fee. Telephone companies need only get a certain small percentage of callers to push a few more buttons to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in cash flow...."

Mark my words

Mark my words, better still write them on a piece of paper and store them in a safe place. Rajesh Jain, Managing Director of NetCore details his vision of a new software platform which will bring computing to the masses in the developing word, what he calls the emerging markets. Rajesh could very well be the first MD (equivalent of CEO/CIO?) to come up and discuss his visions so openely in a weblog. I have seen CEO's discuss about a particular product or some new technology(although how many CEO's do we know,have blogs) but not complete vision of a new software platform in such details. But will he be the last one. No, this is just the beginning. Blogs have the potential of becoming the central mouthpiece of organizations around the globe. What better place to talk about your organizations mission, vision and values then in your blog. "Very soon every CEO will blog". Congrats Rajesh.

An Awkward Triangle

OK. A detour from the usual blogs. The Economist reports:

"So it is something of an embarrassment to America that General Musharraf is a military dictator and self-appointed president. This week, he has moved to tighten his grip, expressing the sentiment, dubious to democrats, that, “if you want to keep the army out, you have to bring it in.” He was speaking at a televised press conference on August 21st, at which he announced his own coronation as president, army chief and chairman of a powerful new National Security Council (NSC) for the next five years."

Ever heard of dictatorship.

The Waking Giant

In an article on Line56:

"If there is a dark horse coming up on the outer rail, it's Web services and their associated uptake. Twenty-one percent of companies are currently in enterprise-wide or multi-enterprise integrations of one kind or another; 8 percent are in business unit-wide implementations; and another 41 percent are in incremental rollouts or pilots. Though 20 percent of companies are still thinking about Web services, just 10 percent show no interest.

While many had predicted that Web services would remain mostly within the four walls initially, the fastest adoption will take place with business customers, followed in order by internal operations; suppliers and trading partners; and consumer customers.

A clear majority of companies say Web services will be used to complement current infrastructure, while 6 percent say it will be used separately, and 12 percent will use services to replace previous integrations. Companies have a variety of plans for Web services, but most (69 percent) say "existing Web-based applications" have the highest appeal.

25 Ideas for a Changing World

Businessweek writes: "In this era of change--in government, the markets, corporate behavior, and the management of information--here are 25 ideas to help set us on the right path."

Ultra-Liberal RSS Parser and a RSS Finder App

Mark Pilgrim has written a RSS Parser and he defends himself as to why he made it so liberal by comparing it to the internet browsers: "Look at it this way: imagine you made a browser that only rendered sites authored in valid HTML or XHTML. How much of the web would your users be able to see? 1%? 0.1%? Less?" Agreed.

bstpierre.org extended the same script and made it web accessible as RSS Finder. Cool. But why does it return two possible feeds for our site. Hmmm.

Target aims at ECommerce via Amazon

Information Week writes:
"Target Corp. last week unveiled a new Web site--yet another case study in how Amazon.com Inc. has become a provider of E-business services. The new site, built on Amazon's technology and hosted by the online retailer, is the first end-to-end E-business deployment Amazon has done for another company, but it may not be the last."

The way they have transformed themselves from just being an Online Book shop to being a E-Business service provider is amazing. What do they get back by hosting the Target site and giving them their technology? Three things - "Amazon gets an undisclosed percentage of all sales from Target's retail sites, as well as annual fixed fees", Amazon's merchandise also available at the Target site, so another channel opened up and the third benefit is that now the world knows Amazon provides E Business services also. I love Amazon.

Are you ready for the Magic of Web Services?

Are you and your organization ready for web services ? Ready or not, here come Web Services, screams the title of this article on ZDNet. As suggested by this article, we think that its time the organizations who want to to be leaders in their streams start working towards developing Web Services and then deploying these. Yeah, we know the security is a big concern, but we can always start with giving just the read access to the users and then when the security standards are ripe, just plug these in. Till that time, SSL and certificates should suffice. What do you think, Let us know at webjives@webjives.com. We will expand upon this topic of Web Services readiness in a following article, so keep checking.

Update: On a related note, Read this report at CRMdaily, How To Prioritize Web Services Development.
"Mission-critical apps should be upgraded first. The goal of this step is to create a single front-end interface to enterprise systems for multiple end-users inside the organization. - We are not very sure if we should start with Mission critical apps as this report suggests. It has to be internal applications as reported, maybe intranet based or applications feeding to different business groups within the enterprise but certainly not mission critical apps.

NYT: The Rich Get Rich and Poor Get Poorer. Or Do They?

Virginia Postrel quotes work of Sala-i-Martin, an economist at Columbia in this article on New York Times:

"Over the last three decades, and especially since the 1980's, the world's two largest countries, China and India, have raced ahead economically. So have other Asian countries with relatively large populations.

The result is that 2.5 billion people have seen their standards of living rise toward those of the billion people in the already developed countries — decreasing global poverty and increasing global equality. From the point of view of individuals, economic liberalization has been a huge success."

I am no economist, so can't comment much, but I found one thing disturbing. This article would not have materialised if not for research by Sala-i-Martin and other people and still we don't find links to Sala-I-Martin's website (Wow, What a site he has ?). Also, Check out the following article from Robert Barro in Business Week Online published on 6th May 2002. Doesn't these two articles look similar. And while Robert Barro remained unnoticed, Virginia Postrel got a whole lot of not so deserving appreciation because of huge readership of NYT and also by the fact that her article got talked about in the blog circles and that she herself maintains a blog.

Related Links:
http://www.financialexpress.com/columnists/full_column.php?content_id=9012
http://www.columbia.edu/~xs23/papers/GlobalIncomeInequality.htm

Economist: Swearing by the Numbers

This article by Economist talks of Corporate cleaning in the aftermaths of Enron, WorldCom bankruptcies:

"...there have been a raft of measures to clean-up corporate America. One of the most high-profile of these is a new requirement that chief executives and chief financial officers of America’s biggest companies confirm, with their own signatures, that their financial report “fairly presents” the condition of their companies. Most will have to do this by Wednesday, August 14th. Few are opposed to this measure, but sceptics wonder whether it will have much effect...."

I wonder, how many CEO's, CFO's will actually end up in prison. The same article presents instances where CEO's and CFO's have asked their Juniors to sign off on such a declaration. Now what would you call that. Isn't that fraud ?

Number 600 for Bonds

Barry Bonds hits his 600th home run to join the elite gang of Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays. Cheers !!!

"With a 421-foot, solo shot to center field in the sixth inning, the San Francisco slugger joined Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays -- Bonds' godfather and idol -- in the exclusive club. No player had crossed the threshold since Aaron did it in April 1971."

Tech giants back new Web services

"Microsoft, IBM and BEA Systems plan to announce new specifications Monday that the companies hope will help drive adoption of Web services.

The first specification--called Business Process Execution Language for Web Services--is a programming language for defining how to combine Web services to accomplish a particular task. Web services are emerging methods of writing software that allows businesses to interact via the Internet.

The second, WS-Coordination, describes how individual Web services within that task interact. A software programmer, for example, can stitch together Web services into a sequence of operations to accomplish a particular task. The third specification, called WS-Transaction, is used to ensure that transactions all complete successfully or fail as a group."

Good. But where is the Locomotive of this train. InfoWorld seems to have the answer.

Where will Web Services be deployed?

John Hagel writes in this two part article on his blog :
"Confusion reigns supreme in the Web services world....Technologists unwittingly contribute to this confusion. Let's take two examples. Read the technology press and you hear two themes. First, Web services are about the dynamic composition of applications from many micro-services. Second, Web services will be deployed first within the enterprise and then migrate beyond the firewall."

And then goes on clearing this confusion. I am not sure if I understood the "dynamic composition of applications from micro-services". What are micro services? Is it the components of a huge legacy (need not be mainframe, and generally a mixture of Mainframe and Open systems) application because that's what will drive the push to web services. These components, credit card processing, order tracking etc would be the first to be turned into web services and when you have opened the doors with these small small web services, these will operate not just within an enterprise, inside the firewalls but will reach out to the partners (or anyone else) of the enterprise who want to consume the services offered.
All in all, I really enjoyed reading John's articles and his blog.

Windows XP: What's the Business Verdict?

Newsfactor reports on adoption of Windows XP by home and corporate users:

"Greg Sullivan, Microsoft's lead Windows XP product manager, told NewsFactor that XP's overall adoption rate is higher than for any other Windows product.
"Windows XP continues to be the fastest-selling version of Windows in history, with over 46 million copies sold through OEMs and retail outlets since its launch last October," Sullivan said.
That number includes both home and corporate users; Microsoft has declined to release a breakdown of home version versus professional version sales.
John Meyer, senior industry analyst at Giga Information Group, told NewsFactor: "Our belief is that the majority of that 46 million is people upgrading home PCs. For right now, companies are definitely upgrading, but there's not a huge wave of them...."
"There are leading-edge firms, like financial companies, that tend to be early adopters," he said. "They're the ones that have already upgraded -- the large enterprises."

True, This is the case. Almost all our friends including us have XP now and the financial company we are currently working at is going for XP in a big way.

What's New at WebJives.com

Atlast, We have our own RSS feed. It's at http://www.webjives.com/rss.php. Also, We have a BlogRoll (Look at the Sidebar). These are few blogs we read almost daily. There are many other blogs also which we read frequently, we will add these to our blogroll at a later date. There are few more blog links in our Elsewhere page.

Why SOAP Sucks and Why SOAP Rocks

The best part of this presentation is the conclusion derived by Matt Sergeant. In short, SOAP sucks but SOAP implementations rocks, REST is better only if you can use it (difficult to use with no tools support).

BlogStreet [via Scripting.com]

Check out BlogStreet, a Blog Neighbourhood Analysis tool. You just give it a blog URL and it returns the related blogs based on its blogroll. Cool.

Also, Check out Emergic.org, blog by Rajesh Jain. His is the company behind BlogStreet and also he is the one behind IndiaWorld (with websites as khel.com, khoj.com, samachar.com and bawarchi.com) which was acquired by Sify for $115 million. How could we miss out his blog? It's our kind of blog..:)

Deceptive Marketing [Via Sathish - Random Thoughts]

Sony Ericsson is embarking on a new $5 million campaign which will use actors to market their new mobile phone, T68i which can double up as a digital camera. "In one initiative, dubbed Fake Tourist, 60 trained actors and actresses will haunt tourist attractions such as the Empire State Building in New York and the Space Needle in Seattle. Working in teams of two or three and behaving as if they were actual tourists, the actors and actresses will ask unsuspecting passersby to take their pictures."

Yes, Its unethical and very deceptive and I certainly don't approve of such kind of marketing. But is it going to benefit Sony-Ericsson. In my opinion it's going to hurt Sony-Ericsson themselves. How? Let's see. Today we all resist marketing which is thrust upon us. These companies must realize that to successfully market their products, they need to create an environment where consumers will market to each other (mostly through word of mouth, through internet, telephones etc). As Seth Godin writes in his book, Unleashing the Ideavirus, All of us are sneezers to some degree, maybe not powerful sneezers but to some degree promiscous sneezers. So when we sneeze good about a product we liked, it will be the best marketing the product can have. But if consumers come to know of something so unethical and deceptive as this campaign, they will still sneeze but this time sneeze will contain bad words about the product and the company.

Now that I know, If I happen to be at any of these places and someone comes to me and asks me to take their snap, I am going to think twice and chances are if they forward me their T68i, I may not even look at them.

Indian Blog Portal

Vikas is talking of building a Blog Portal for Indian Blogs and has even gone and published a table design as a starter. Here are our few suggestions, though. The table can have another field which will store the number of hits for blogs. Also, Most of the blogs have a small description for them, so we can include this information also. As for the location of this directory, we can register a new domain name and the site can be hosted anywhere (?? Kamat.org's web server, if Vikas has some bandwidth). To start with Vikas can be the editor and then later few more people can be inducted as editors for the Portal. Indeed this is an ambitious idea, but achievable. Our 2 cents.