Vendors have struggled for years to sell thin-client, interactive user interface (UI) technology. These rich Internet applications (RIA) solutions rarely caught on with organizations despite the drawbacks of standard Web interfaces and client-server solutions, such as constant page loads and the high cost of deploying and maintaining thick client applications.Even though RIA offerings appeared compelling in terms of increased interactivity and lower costs, organizations largely ignored them. Why? Because the RIA market was a confusing...

Continue reading "With AJAX and SOA, RIA is even more compelling and less risky" »

Posted by TomR at 08:11 AM | Permalink

To realize the business and IT benefits of XML, Web services, and service-oriented architecture (SOA), organizations will inevitably have to invest in SOA infrastructure. This infrastructure – lightweight, distributed, and rolled out incrementally – performs tasks like routing messages; enforcing security, privacy, and other policies; and orchestrating multiservice solutions. The challenge for organizations will be to: 1) realize that they need SOA infrastructure; 2) choose the best solution from two SOA infrastructure designs; and 3)...

Continue reading " New Rowley Report: The need for SOA infrastructure" »

Posted by TomR at 01:27 AM | Permalink

An article on Pamela Jones, the founder of the blog-turned-Web site Groklaw (a site devoted to analyzing the legal aspects of the various SCO-related lawsuits involving vendors IBM and Red Hat and, now, user companies AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler), drove home the point that the foes of open source software (OSS) and the related GPL (anti-OSS/GPL for short) are fighting a battle that they can't win.To understand why OSS won't be defeated, let's first look at...

Continue reading " Open source's unfair advantage: Vendors, volunteers, and happy users" »

Posted by TomR at 01:33 AM | Permalink

Whether your organization is a die-hard Microsoft shop or is looking for the first opportunity to ditch the Microsoft Windows operating systems and Office productivity suite – or anywhere in between – there is no good reason why someone in your organization should not be keeping an eye on the free and easily downloadable OpenOffice.org productivity suite. The OpenOffice.org offering OpenOffice.org software is a productivity suite that includes a word processor, along with a spreadsheet,...

Continue reading "What’s your excuse for not trying OpenOffice.org?" »

Posted by TomR at 10:39 AM | Permalink