SOA filling the Gaps

Electronic Social Networking Services like Facebook are very popular.The distinction between Social  Networks services and similar Business services like Linkedin are not clear. Businesses use Facebook for commercial purposes and sometimes Linkedin users use it for social purposes. The identity of services such as Twitter is not clear as well: it is used for commercial and for social purposes.  Usage of Social Networking Services in an Enterprise context is not as simple as using it in a Consumer context.   Google's Steve Yege's post  published incidentally to an external Google+ circle instead of internal circle (including only Google's employees), is an illustration of issues facing an Enterprise using a Social Networking Service. The differences between Enterprise Social Networking Services are similar to the differences between SOA Services (Enterprise context) and Mashups (Consumer context): Management and Security are essential in the Enterprise cont...

On May 2010 SAP acquired Sybase . According to my post titled: Acq uisition is not simple: SAP-Sybase acquisition agreement , buying Sybase was not a great idea. If you would like to know why you can read my post. Today (December 3rd 2011), SAP buys Successful Factors the provider of Cloud-based human resource management software, for  $3.4bn in cash . This time I would not argue that it is not a good idea. Actually the last paragraph in my post about Sybase acquisition was titled: Which type of company I would acquire if I were Sap's CEO? Believe it or not, I recommended that "a successful SaaS applications company could be an adequate acquisition target".  According to Financial Times , SuccessFactors Human Resources (HR) SaaS applications provider has 5 millions subscriptions at more than 3,500 companies worldwide and it is believed to be the second largest Cloud-based  provider of  Enterprise software after Salesforce.com . Lars Daalgard, SuccessFactor...

In all Vendors Survival posts (e.g. Google , Apple , HP ) I argued that no company will surely survive for a decade. People may think that I am wrong as far as a giant market leaders are concerned. However, I recently read two interesting articles about  a leading Virtual World company almost vanishing 5 years  after  its peak . The article is titled: Why Second Life failed?    The second article is more surprising: it is about a giant company included in my Vendor Survival posts,  as well as in other posts. The company is: Microsoft . On June 8th I wrote the post: Will Microsoft Survive until 2021?  which discuss the possibility that Microsoft will not survive until 2021. Less than a month prior to this post I wrote a post titled: Microsoft's Skype acquisition: Warning Signs ahead . The title depict my message: probably, Skype acquisition will not solve Microsoft's Mobile market challenges.  The Business Insider 's article titled: Steve...

Searching the Web  Search Engine is Google 's most strategic product. Some of its other products are using it as component of the services they provide.  Limitation or failure of it, as described in  Why we desperately need a New (and Better) Google  cited in part1 of this post , could negatively affect Google's market position. This is a major challenge facing Google.  Google has no control of some of the factors limiting its effectiveness. Challenges in Searching the Web The following bullets describe major Web Data problems, which could affect Web Search: The data is growing exponentially The amount of data is growing fast.  A Search Engine should handle larger amounts of pages and probably will find more and more number of pages in each search operation results list.  Implications:  Users will not read all entries in search results list. They will focus in the first entries. Search Engines results order should be accurate so us...

I recently read Steve Yegge 's very interesting post cited by  Rip's Rowan . According to Rip it is "The best article I've ever read about architecture and the management of IT".  It is a very interesting post which was intended to be internal memoranda and accidently was published externally. I read it in the right time: just after publishing in my blog a post titled:  Will Google Survive until 2021? Revisited - part 1  and before publishing part 2.  You can read it here . I recommend reading it from start to end although it is a long post.  As a former Amazon employee and current Google employee he discusses the limitations and strengths of the two companies (more criticism than praise) and compares them to Apple , Facebook and Microsoft .  He discusses both technological aspects, focusing on what he calls Internal SOA and  on Organizational Culture.   Few Notes The notes do not support or dispute Steve's views. They just s...

Three years ago I wrote one of my Vendors Survival posts. The post was titled:  Vendors Survival: Will Google Survive until 2018? The Vendors Survival posts analyze the probability that vendors will survive for at least ten years. Most of them are about leading vendors such as Apple , Microsoft , HP , EMC etc. The previous post was on Zapthink, a small SOA and Cloud Analysts and Consultants company acquired by Dovel Systems. Ten years predictions are usually inaccurate. However, The only leading vendor I predicted that will not survive was SUN Microsystems , who was shortly afterwards an acquisition target for IBM and acquired by Oracle . I recently read Google's announcement about shutting down some of its products  and  a similar announcement  about other products . Shutting down products and services looks like a sign of weakening. Some people argue that Google Social Software initiatives like Buzz, Jaiko and Google+ fails to compete with Facebook ...

Dovel Technologies is buying Zapthink . It is the first time I read about Dovel.  Unlike Dovel, Zapthink is well known to me. As a SOA expert, I read Zapthink's analysis of SOA and other Architectural topics as well as short articles named ZapFlash .  SOA is Zapthink's major field of expertise. The small company headed by Ronald Schmelzer and Jason Bloomberg provides SOA training and certification, SOA Consulting Services and SOA Research. Schmelzer and Bloomberg's work reveals deep understanding and vast knowledge of SOA. The challenges facing small Analysts and Consultants are incomparable to challenges facing a lot larger company.  Like small software vendors many of the small Consulting and/or Market Analysis companies will not survive. The  circumstances are similar to the circumstances of smaller software vendors described in my post titled:  Vendors Survival Guide: Supermarket Grocery and Kiosk   as well as in other Vendors Sur...

In a previous post titled Hyped Cloud Technologies Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) tied in the fourth place in a ReadWrite Cloud survey of Hyped Cloud Technologies. Yesterday, I read a Forrester Research Note about PaaS, which may explain why it is rated as one of the most Hyped Cloud Technologies.    Simply, PaaS is immature technology.  Immature technologies related to in the spotlight topic such as Cloud Computing , are natural hype candidates.     PaaS and IaaS PaaS and IaaS are related concepts: both provide technology for development and deployment of applications in the Cloud. IaaS solutions such as Amazon EC2 or Amazon S3 provide basic platform for Application Development and Application Deployment.  It is only infrastructure. Unlike IaaS, PaaS provides a complete Application Platform which includes Development Tools (e.g     Integrated Development Environment ), Runtime Environmen...

What are the most Hyped Cloud Technologies? This was the question asked in a survey of ReadWrite Cloud readers.  As no details about the sample characteristics are disclosed the results couls be misleading. The results could be biased due to some of the following factors: 1. the number of people surveyed is unknown and could be too small for supporting any conclusion. 2. The sample could be biased. Do not forget that the site is sponsored by Intel and VMware and therefore you may find relatively more customers of these companies. 3. No sample characteristics were defined, so the people answering the survey questions voluntarily may not represent the whole population. The Results The most hyped Cloud technologies were in decending order: 1. NOSQL 2. Software as a Service (SaaS) 3. Private Clouds 4-5. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 4-5. Platform as a Service (PaaS) Least Hyped technologies were Infrastructure Apps and API and Data as a Service . Acco...