ZapThink » SCO

Mobility and SOA – A Technology Perspective

Ronald Schmelzer — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 00:08:00 +0000

Mobility is the desire to both be able to access information and applications no matter the location and no matter the device or technology used to access that information. In the past, mobility represented yet another challenge for IT. However, in the Service-oriented context, Mobility is actually an aspect of how a proper SOA will work. Indeed, Mobility represents a new set of requirements for Service Consumption as well as a new class of Service providers.

This presentation outlines the technical considerations for what Mobility is and how it relates to SOA, and what the business needs to think about in linking these two concepts together. This includes a discussion of Ajax, Service Consumption approahces, and other key technology issues. This was presented at the SCO World conference in Las Vegas on August 8, 2006.Download File

Noted Wireless and Service Oriented Architechure Analysts to Address SCO Forum 2006 Atendees

admin — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 00:07:00 +0000

Bill Hughes, In-Stat, and Ronald Schmelzer, ZapThink, to Share Insights During Keynote and Breakout Sessions. SCO to Also Person

Ronald Schmelzer, founder and senior analyst for ZapThink, an IT advisory and analysis firm for XML, web services and service orientation, will also provide training and instruction around Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) and the mobile and wireless market during two special sessions at SCO Forum 2006. In addition, SCO has created a special tribute to Doug Michels, the “Father of Forum,” where he will be awarded the “UNIX Lifetime Achievement” award for his leadership and accomplishments with UNIX on Intel.

“We are pleased to have Mr. Hughes and Mr. Schmelzer keynote at our conference as they are both experts in their respective fields and can give helpful insight into these growing markets. We are also honored to have Doug Michels join us at this year’s SCO Forum. As the “Father of Forum,” he was instrumental in making UNIX widely adopted and successful on the Intel platform with SCO’s UNIX technology.”

The year ahead … in technology

admin — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 00:01:00 +0000

Professional services companies are gearing up for a significant year in Web services, said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst at ZapThink, a market research firm focusing on Web services. He said consultants and integrators are increasing their skills to build Web services and service-oriented architectures.

SCO Delivers SCOx Web Services Substrate (WSS) in New UnixWare 7.1.4

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2004 00:06:00 +0000

“Although the Web Services market is still emerging, many companies today
are finding substantial business value in their Web Services initiatives, both
in terms of reduced cost and increased agility,” said Jason Bloomberg, Senior
Analyst at ZapThink. “SCO understands the potential of this market and how
Web Services technologies can help companies solve a range of application and
legacy integration problems. The company is making solid moves to roll out
its innovative Web Services-based products like the SCOx Web Services
Substrate to its SCO UNIX customers and resellers.”

SCO’s Game Face

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2004 00:06:00 +0000

“Although the Web Services market is still emerging, many companies today are finding substantial business value in their Web Services initiatives, both in terms of reduced cost and increased agility,” said Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink, in a statement. “SCO understands the potential of this market and how Web Services technologies can help companies solve a range of application and legacy integration problems. The company is making solid moves to roll out its innovative Web Services-based products like the SCOx Web Services Substrate to its SCO UNIX customers and resellers.”

ZapThink: Client-side Web Technologies Inadequate to Meet Evolving Needs of Web Services

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 00:03:00 +0000

ZapThink: Client-side Web Technologies Inadequate to Meet Evolving Needs of Web Services
New Class of Rich and Smart Clients Evolving to Solve Next-Generation Computing Needs

WALTHAM, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–March 3, 2004–The Internet and Web have provided immense scalability and manageability benefits to computer users for a decade now, but at a price – poor support for rich interactivity. Now, companies are increasingly demanding a rich set user experience capabilities that include visual interactivity elements and instant access to information, interaction with distributed and remote applications, and integration with local desktop applications. ZapThink concludes in its report entitled “Rich and Smart Clients for Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs)” that today’s Web technologies are wholly inadequate to meet the needs of emerging standards-based, loosely coupled, distributed applications.

“Simply put, today’s corporate portals must move beyond Web-based thin client technologies,” said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst with ZapThink. “Rather, companies must leverage the power of Web Services and Service-Oriented Architectures to offer rich clients that provide deep interactivity, yet retain the scalability and manageability benefits that browsers provide.”

ZapThink’s report analyzes a new class of rich client vendor offering and several approaches to providing rich clients that in part rely upon SOAs to provide the optimal combination of rich user interaction and low cost of ownership through standards-based distributed computing. The report identifies the windows of opportunities as well as market growth predictions for new entrants and incumbent vendors.

Other key findings of the report include:

Rich clients will supplant portals as the primary interface to Web Services and Service-oriented functionality in the enterprise by the end of 2007.
The total opportunity for rich clients for SOAs is over $923 million by 2010.
The window of opportunity for new entrants in the rich client market will start to wane with the release of the Microsoft Longhorn update of windows in the 2006-2007 timeframe.
The increasing adoption of sometimes-connected devices, mobile computing, asynchronous computing, and e-Forms will mandate widespread and rapid adoption of rich clients.

The report, available on ZapThink’s website at www.zapthink.com, discusses several companies, including Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE), Altio, Apple, AT&T, Citrix, Curl, Cysive, DreamFactory, FileMaker, Focus Solutions, General Interface, Harmonia, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, JackBe, Kinitos, Laszlo Systems, Lucent, Macromedia (NASDAQ: MACR), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Motorola, Mozilla, Nexaweb, Novell (NASDAQ: NOVL), Oracle, Plumtree, RatchetSoft, SAP, SCO Group (NASDAQ: SCOX), Siebel, Softricity, TiVo, Vignette, and Vultus.

Rich and Smart Clients for Service-Oriented Architectures

Ronald Schmelzer — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 00:03:00 +0000

Key Points:

Rich clients will supplant portals as the primary interface to Web Services and Service-oriented functionality in the enterprise by the end of 2007.
The total opportunity for rich clients for SOAs is over $923 million by 2010 realized by new entrant and incumbent vendors.
The window of opportunity for new rich client entrants will start to wane when Microsoft makes the Longhorn wave of OS improvements generally available in 2006, at the earliest
The increasing adoption of devices, mobile computing, and sometimes-connected systems, movement to asynchronous computing, and adoption of e-Forms will mandate widespread and rapid adoption of rich clients.

Table of Contents:

I. Report Scope 4
II. The Evolution of the Presentation Layer 5
- 2.1. The Need for the Rich Client 6
- 2.2. Why the Portal is Not Enough 8
- 2.3. Will Applications Deliver their own UI in the future? 9
- 2.4. Understanding the Presentation Layer Requirements of SOAs 10
III. Implementing Rich User Interactivity on SOAs 11
- 3.1. The Evolving Desktop Operating System 11
- 3.2. Rich Client-focused Technologies 13
- 3.3. The Emerging Smart Client 21
- 3.4. Building More Robust Presentation Layers 22
- 3.5. Emerging Standards for Rich Clients 24
IV. Market Trends 27
- 4.1. Growth of the Rich Clients for SOAs Opportunity 27
- 4.2. Growth Drivers for Market Adoption of Rich Clients for SOAs 32
- 4.3. Potential Barriers to Adoption of Rich Clients for SOAs 33
V. Conclusions 33
- 5.1. Key Notes 34
- 5.2. Decision Points 35
- 5.3. Figures 35
- 5.4. Tables 35

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SCO Buys Web Services Tool Vendor

admin — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 00:07:00 +0000

Ronald Schmelzer, analyst for market research firm ZapThink LLC, said the acquisition was interesting because of Vultus’s focus on the presentation layer of web services applications. “It’s a bold move by SCO, since not even IBM or Microsoft have put a lot of thought or emphasis on the presentation layer of web services,” Schmelzer said. “It’s also necessary since SCO doesn’t have any strong presentation layer capabilities of their own.”

SCO Web Services Strategy Targets SMBs

admin — Wed, 30 Apr 2003 00:04:00 +0000

Jason Bloomberg, an analyst with ZapThink LLC, a Cambridge, Mass.-based market research firm, said the interesting part about SCO’s announcement “is that it is solidly aimed at the mid-market–a space that has been slow to adopt Web services, when compared to the enterprise segment.” One of the reasons for this is that integration at the mid-market level is external–with suppliers, partners and customers–rather than internal, so security concerns have hindered mid-market adoption of Web services, he said.

Bloomberg’s ZapThink partner, Ronald Schmelzer agreed, but said a market used to external integration and mostly homogeneous systems sets up Microsoft as to claim the spoils.

“However, Linux is increasingly gaining traction in the SMB markets, and it is clear that SCO realizes that there is a market opportunity here,” Schmelzer said.