Oracle OpenWorld 2006: The Tech Conference that Ate San Francisco

”This movement toward application modernization has a lot of legs,” says Ron Schmelzer, senior analyst and founder of ZapThink. ”A lot of companies are still using client-server applications and mainframe applications that never made the transition to the Web. Some of these applications command a high cost of ownership, because they lack flexibility and they use proprietary technologies. Now is the right time [to transition those apps], and SOA is the right strategy.”

Read more at: Application Development Trends

New Orbits For Mercury’s SOA?

ZapThink analyst Jason Bloomberg, who followed Systinet closely when the company was a standalone competing with the likes of SOA Software, Actional and others, applauded Mercury’s integration of the governance software maker.

“Mercury now has a deep, comprehensive toolset for the entire service lifecycle, from design time through deployment to runtime management and dynamic service change and reconfiguration,” Bloomberg said.

Read more at: InternetNews

Mercury a Measure For HP Software Position

“Whereas before they primarily had capabilities once applications were deployed, with Mercury and Systinet under their belt they can credibly approach the design, test, and deployment phases of the lifecycle and not just deployment and management,” said ZapThink analyst Ronald Schmelzer.

“HP is really ready to tackle the whole picture of the service lifecycle.”

Read more at: InternetNews

IBM buys bolster net mgmt. offerings

DataPower’s XML processing technology will help IBM fill gaps in its broad SOA platform, according to Jason Bloomberg, a senior analyst at ZapThink. DataPower’s XML products – the XI50 Integration Device, which streamlines SOA infrastructures; the XA35 XML Accelerator, which offloads XML processing; and the XS40 XML Security Gateway, which helps provide message-level Web-services security – will be added to IBM’s WebSphere brand and could help it compete with similar offerings from Cisco Application-Oriented Networking initiative.

Read more at: NetworkWorld

IT companies are hooking up like divorcees at a Vegas wedding chapel

The ZapThink guys have it right that this is only the second inning (given the weather, it can’t be too soon for baseball metaphors) of a nine-inning outing of SOA components and supplier consolidation.

Read more at: ZDnet

Mercury to buy SOA registry vendor Systinet

Given its recent difficulties, Mercury “had guts to make the acquisition,” said Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink LLC, in Waltham, Mass. “Mercury has been looking at the SOA management space for a while. With the combination of Mercury and Systinet, Mercury will be a strong company.”

The biggest question is the cloud over Mercury, Bloomberg said. “Once Mercury gets out of the problems it’s in now, it will be a stronger company,” he said. “We saw CA [Computer Associates] go through the same thing and come out a better company.”

The acquisition also marks the beginning of consolidation in the SOA governance and lifecycle space, according to Bloomberg. “We always figured Systinet would be the first to go. They have quite a bit of traction, and great relationships with BEA, HP and Oracle. [Mercury] got their money’s worth.”

Read more at: SearchWebServices

Layer7′s customer base, technology of interest, CEO says

Layer7 has good technology, and will likely attract interest as the XML security market undergoes further consolidation, said Ron Schmelzer, an analyst with ZapThink.

Read more at: Merger Market

Business in the driver’s seat

“It is an emerging market, and vendors approach it from different angles,” says Jason Bloomberg, an analyst at ZapThink LLC, an IT research and consulting firm in Waltham, Mass. An effective, full-fledged IT governance product must perform four functions, he says. “It must provide a way for management to communicate its policies. It must give rank-and-file employees a way to implement the policies. It must give management visibility into whether the policies are being followed. And it should include mitigation techniques, so if there is a problem, there is a way to fix it,” he says.

Read more at: IDG.se

Microsoft, Dell, Intel Submit Network Management Spec

WSDM, however, does not compete because it’s primarily used in managing applications that communicate using web services-based interfaces, Ronald Schmelzer, analyst for market researcher ZapThink LLC, said.

Together, the specifications could simplify management of software, computer systems and devices within a service-oriented architecture, an evolution in distributed computing based on web services standards.

“Having two languages is better than having 500,” Schmelzer said of WS-M and WSDM.

Read more at: InfortmationWeek

Web services chugging along

An analyst put the onus on improving the user understanding of Web services.

“The main advantages of Web services are in easing the loose coupling between service providers and consumers within SOA implementations,” said Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink, in an e-mail response to questions. “Among the problems that Web services still face, I’d put at the top of my list a still-prevalent lack of understanding of what they’re for and how to use them. Think [of] a 6-year-old with a circular saw.”

Read more at: InfoWorld