Creative cybercriminals will thrive in 2011

Cyberwarfare seems to be coming of age sooner than most experts expected.

The Impact of a Googless JavaOne

The Jason Bloomberg quote on IBM’s relationship to Sun and Java could almost be applied to what many of us hope happens today with Oracle, Google, and Java.

Microsoft details Windows Azure on-demand pricing

“Microsoft’s pricing for Azure is competitive without being predatory, at least for now,” said Jason Bloomberg, a managing partner at ZapThink. “As competition in any market heats up, you’d expect prices to drop. Whether Microsoft, Google and/or Amazon will enter a price war with the intent of driving each other or smaller players out of the business remains to be seen.”

Microsoft’s key challenge will be building trust around Azure, Bloomberg said. “There are already serious questions about the reliability and confidentiality of cloud computing in general, but add that to the general mistrust of Microsoft we saw with .NET My Services, and later with the Connected Systems Framework [now Connected Services Framework], and they already have two strikes against them.”

Read more at: SD Times

Who’s Architecting the Cloud?

As the hype cycle for the cloud computing continues to gather steam, an increasing number of end users are starting to see the silver lining, while others are simply lost in the fog. It is clear that the debate over the definition, business model, and benefits of …

Evolution of the Rich Internet Application Market

As the Internet continues to penetrate every aspect of our lives, both business and personal, the distinction between “Internet application” and “application” increasingly fades from view. Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) operate in the sweet spot among richness of Internet capability, richness of user interactivity, and richness of client-side computing capability. RIAs act as Service consumers as part of Service-Oriented Architecture implementations and enable Enterprise Mashups.

Since ZapThink first covered the space in 2002, the RIA market has matured considerably, establishing two core submarkets: RIA environments and RIA components. Adobe Systems emerging as a leader in the RIA environments submarket with their Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and Flex products. Microsoft is a strong contender with their newer Silverlight technology. Open source vendors have emerged as significant players, and form a large portion of the RIA components submarket.

While the RIA market should continue to grow for the next few years, it will most likely merge with other markets long term and be indifferentiable from a market sizing perspective as the RIA category increasingly overlaps with other existing desktop and Internet application categories.

Does Cloud Computing Hold Water?

One of ZapThink’s favorite roles is that of iconoclast. When we see a growing hype bubble, we love being the ones to pop it. We relished dispelling the confusion over the SOA is dead meme, and now it’s time to let a little air out of the latest gas bag: …

Does Enterprise 2.0 Need to be ‘Governed’?

Ron Schmelzer added that “we’re moving towards an environment where computing is being highly decentralized, where we’re not relying IT to be a sole providers of capabilities, but rather were relying more on the audience to create the value of that content.” But governance is paramount at the service provider level, he continued. “Organizations like Google and Amazon and YouTube simply can’t manage that environment where they have millions of people…making millions of contributions on a daily basis, without having some sort of environment where they can have control at the design at the change time and the runtime stage.”

Google Maps is a classic example, he continued. “There are thousands of applications now that are dependent on Google Maps API… Google cant version that interface. They can’t just decide to up and change the way that the function works. If they do, they could be breaking some highly critical application that’s dependent on it.”

Such services require governance – “there’s really no choice,” Ron said. “It’s a matter of how they enable… Web 2.0 to continue to grow and provide value without making it brittle.”

Read more at: Fast Forward

Google Chrome shifts architects’ equations as V8 powers the browser

Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst with ZapThink LLC., is skeptical that JavaScript will diminish the role of Adobe Flash technology for RIA development, which is one of Zoho’s Vembu’s predictions. Bloomberg said it is a case of the right tool for the job and doubts Flash will lose its status as a tool for applications incorporating video and animation.

“In many ways, JavaScript is already the premier language for client-side development, because of its broad acceptance, versatility, and maturity,” Bloomberg said. “Flash, however, has its strengths as well, and even though Chrome will likely encourage better video support in JavaScript, Flash is good at many things JavaScript isn’t good at, and vice versa.”

Read more at: SearchSOA

Google open-sources XML alternative

But industry watchers aren’t walking away from XML. “Protocol Buffers provides a more lightweight approach to serializing data than XML provides and also resolves some of the more niggling issues with XML,” acknowledged Jason Bloomberg, who is one of two managing partners at ZapThink. “But on the other hand, they are not as powerful as XML and are not as yet nearly as widely adopted,” he added.

XML’s text-based nature is bound to make it verbose and prone to overhead, remarked Forrester’s Hammond.

Bloomberg observed that Google’s sheer size might encourage widespread adoption of Protocol Buffers, where earlier approaches may have languished due to lack of interest.

The fact “that Google is championing Protocol Buffers may be sufficient to establish [it] as a viable alternative to XML,” he said.

Read more at: SD Times

Microsoft tries to open much-needed second act

“The real technology isn’t on the computer, it’s on the Net” adds Ron Schmelzer, an analyst at Zapthink. “In that area, Microsoft hasn’t been firing on all cylinders.”

Now Microsoft is relying on its unfriendly bid for Yahoo to help regain badly needed luster. But some analysts say buying a struggling Internet portal company might not be the best way to achieve the transformation that Microsoft needs.

“Microsoft is seeking a transformative effect in the market,” says Schmelzer. But Yahoo, he adds has been “suffering rather than leading” and might not be the most attractive prey.

He suggests Microsoft might do better by plowing its billions into a social networking site like Facebook that can build buzz instead. Microsoft last year paid $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook, a deal that valued the young company at $15 billion.

“Microsoft’s paradigm was good for the ’80s and ’90s, but it’s a different marketplace now,” Schmelzer says.

“Microsoft is going to have to be rethought,” says Schmelzer. “At Apple, it took a complete culture change to become a multi-technology company. Once the genetics changed, the company started innovating.”

Read more at: MSNBC