litl_phil wrote: While it's nice that Google and Acer share the vision of cloud-based computing, it's also worth noting that we at litl already have a webbook on the market (available at litl.com) that runs our own cloud-based OS.
Unlike Chrome, litlOS is focused on creating a new and better web experience for the home, so we don't have the usual browser interface, we have our own innovative UI. In conjunction with easel mode (litl's inverted-V position) and our growing cohort of litl channels (special apps t...
“Enough with the new words already.” That was how Sean Voisen recently ended a discussion about the burgeoning technology lexicon, which he thinks can only be explained as “a ploy to keep Merriam-Webster in business.”
Voisen, who designs and builds Rich Internet Applications, web applications, data visualizations and what he calls “other fun pieces of Internet-enabled software” for a living, is not a fan of ‘RIA’ as a term.
“Marketing gurus create new terminology like ‘RIA’ and ‘Web 2.0’ in order to force people to engage in new conversations without them dragging along their baggage of ingrained prejudices about what something is or is not,” Voisen contends. “They also do it – I am convinced – to make themselves seem smart,” he adds. Voisen’s view is echoed by Ethan Eismann, the Senior Experience Design Lead of Adobe Thermo with Adobe’s XD team. He disagrees with ‘RIA’ as a term for two reasons: “First, because like all things techy, it’s already obsolete and second because it’s limiting.”
But Eismann admits that while he hates ‘RIA’ he also loves it:
“I love it because it’s now such a part of the common vernacular of web culture that when it’s used everyone immediately understands that you are talking about ‘something better than primitive HTML websites.’”
Its limiting factor as a term, according to Eismann, has to do with the two words “Internet” and “application.” Personally he prefers to use the acronym ‘RIE’ – for ‘Rich Interactive Experience.’
Front-end engineering experts like Voisen and Eismann remind us that the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies and the iPhone experience have shown that great user interface design makes a big difference, that the era of what Eismann calls primitive HTML websites is truly over, and that on the Web the new priority is innovation and optimizing the User eXperience (UX).
The tools and platforms that encourage and support superior UX are becoming the pre-eminent tools for business survival and success, and their numbers are growing all the time, as evidenced for example by the mushrooming success of the AJAXWorld Conference & Expo series, which in October takes place in San Jose, California. The 6th International AJAXWorld is attracting delegates from around the world, eager to benefit from 75+ technical sessions, demos, and discussion panels as well as keynote addresses by two major thought leaders of the New Web, the user-focused Web: Adobe's CTO Kevin Lynch and Microsoft's Silverlight boss, Corporate VP of the .NET Development Platform, Scott Guthrie.
AJAXWorld delegates once again will be attending from all over the world
User-centered design for the Web is just one of the countless topics explored at this particular AJAXWorld – which is now as much about Rich Internet Applications and Web Development Frameworks as about merely AJAX per se. No other RIA-focused conference slices and dices the Web development and application space as boldly or as comprehensively: for 3 action-packed days the focus at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose will be on 16 core topics: AIR & Flex, AJAX, ASP.NET, Business Case for RIAs, Cloud Computing, Comet, Google Web Toolkit (GWT), iPhone Development, JavaScript, Mashups, Mobile RIAs, Open APIs & Toolkits, SaaS, Security, Silverlight, Social Software, and User Interface & User eXperience Issues
After the resounding success of the first-ever iPhone technical sessions at AJAXWorld on the West coast in September ’07, a dedicated 2-day iPhone Developer Summit is in fact being held simultaneously with the 6th AJAXWorld in San Jose, CA – chaired by the editor-in-chief of iPhone Developer's Journal, Kevin Hoffman. Another indicator of the business and market-share power of superior user experience.
In the end – quite aside from whether you call them RIAs or RIEs – what matters is not words or terminology but business and the realities of enterprise computing. “RIAs are impacting the way that companies like eBay, Ford, Random House, Viacom, GE, Dow Jones, and NBC think about the Internet and desktop software, and are demonstrating how innovative thinking can completely change the way they do business,” says Anthony Franco, who joined the AJAXWorld speaker faculty earlier this year for the first time. As president of EffectiveUI, he enjoys unique opportunities to see close-up how Fortune 500 companies are beginning to harness RIAs and leverage them to improve the user experience and boost the bottom line.
Franco is typical of the caliber of speakers AJAXWorld RIA Conference & Expo attracts. In October the lineup includes:
The CTO of Adobe - Kevin Lynch (keynote)
Microsoft's Silverlight boss - Scott Guthrie (keynote)
The discoverer of JSON - Douglas Crockford
The creator of jQuery - John Resig
Senior Evangelist, Amazon - Jeff Barr
Principal Information Architect at Travelocity - Adam Polansky
Developer Advocate, Google - Chris Schalk
CTO for Emerging Internet Technologies, IBM - David Boloker
Group PM for the UI Framework and Services, Microsoft - Brad Abrams
Architect at eBay - Michael Galpin
Director, User Interface Engineering at Netflix - Bill Scott
VP of Engineering at TripIt.com - Andy Denmark
Lead JBoss Portal UI Engineer at JBoss/Red Hat - Wesley Hales
Operations Manager of the OpenAjaxAlliance - John Ferraiolo
Chief dragon-wrangler for Komodo - Shane Caraveo
UI Engineer & Architect at Orbitz Worldwide - Mike Meeker
Chairman & CEO of WaveMaker - Chris Keene
Chief Strategy Officer of Curl - Jnan Dash
CTO of Pathfinder Development - Dietrich Kappe
Founder & Chairman of Nexaweb - Coach Wei
Aptana's AJAX Architect - Greg Murray
Co-founder and CEO of Kaazing - Jonas Jacobi
Evangelist for Web Services and Web 2.0 Apps at Sun - Arun Gupta
Senior Engineer and Designer, Yahoo! - Nate Koechley
President and senior trainer at Object Training Group - James Harmon
Lead Developer of the Qcodo Framework for PHP - Michael Ho
Lead Software Architect for ILOG - Christophe Jolif
Front-end architect at Nethouse AB - Peter Svensson
VP of Business Development at CommuniGate Systems - Jon Doyle
Sr. Developer at Magnani Caruso Dutton - Mike Girouard
UI Architect at Edream Solutions - Sue Googe
System Operations Manager at EngineYard - Yehuda Katz
Co-Founder & COO of Bizwhazee - John Krahulec
Principal Engineer, VeriSign - Karthik Shyamsunder
Co-Founder & COO of Finicity - Nicholas Thomas
Principal Consultant, Experience Design at Molecular - Evan Gerber
Web Theorist, IBM - Andrew Donoho
President of IDC Consulting - John Fronckowiak
Tech Lead of the Spring Faces project - Jeremy Grelle
Senior Consultant at SpringSource - Rossen Stoyanchev
Editor-in-chief of iPhone Developer's Journal - Kevin Hoffman
Development Team Lead for the EGL Rich UI - Chris Laffra
Development Manager, UI Framework and Services, Microsoft - Matt Gibbs
Managing Partner of Catalyst Resources - Paul Giurata
Host of iPhoneWebDev.com - Christopher Allen
Co-founder of M/Gateway - Rob Tweed
Consultant, OneStopAppSecurity.com - Neil Smithline
Senior Research Analyst at Info-Tech - Howard Kiewe
Founder & CEO of OpenLink Software - Kingsley Idehen
Senior User Experience Designer at OneSpring - Laurie Gray
About Jeremy Geelan Jeremy Geelan is Sr. Vice-President of SYS-CON Media & Events. He is Conference Chair of the all-new International Cloud Computing Expo series, of the International Virtualization Expo series, of AJAXWorld RIA Conference & Expo series, and of the long-running SOAWorld Conference & Expo series. He's founder of Cloud Computing Journal, Web 2.0 Journal, AJAX & RIA Journal and other leading SYS-CON titles. From 2000-6, as first editorial director and then group publisher of SYS-CON Media, he was responsible for the development of all new titles and i-Technology portals for the firm, and regularly represents SYS-CON at conferences and trade shows, speaking to technology audiences both in North America and overseas. He is executive producer and presenter of "Power Panels with Jeremy Geelan" on SYS-CON.TV.
Kudos to the Cloud Crowd for Re-Inventing the Wheel!
One thing 30 years in the IT industry has taught me is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Another is that the only memory we seem to access is short-term. A third is that techno-marketeers rely on that, so they can put labels like "revolutionary" and "innovative" on platforms, products and services that are mere re-inventions of the wheel ... and often poor copies at that.
A good example is all the latest buzz about "Cloud Computing" in general and "SaaS" (software as a service) in particular:
Both terms are bogus. The only true cloud computing takes place in aircraft. What they're actually referring to by "the cloud" is a large-scale and often remotely and/or centrally managed hardware platform. We have had those since the dawn of automated IT. IBM calls them "mainframes":
The only innovation offered by today's cloud crowd is actually more of a speculation, i.e. that server farms can deliver the same solid performance as Big Iron. And even that's not original. Anyone remember Datapoint's ARCnet, or DEC's VAXclusters? Whatever happened to those guys, anyway...?
And as for SaaS, selling the sizzle while keeping the steak is a marketing ploy most rightfully accredited to society's oldest profession. Its first application in IT was (and for many still is) known as the "service bureau". And I don't mean the contemporary service bureau (mis)conception labelled "Service 2.0" by a Wikipedia contributor whose historical perspective is apparently constrained to four years:
Instead, I mean the computer service bureau industry that spawned ADAPSO (the Association of Data Processing Service Organizations) in 1960, and whose chronology comprises a notable part of the IEEE's "Annals of the History of Computing":
So ... for any of you slide rule-toting, pocket-protected keypunch-card cowboys who may be just coming out of a fifty-year coma, let me give you a quick IT update:
1. "Mainframe" is now "Cloud" (with concomitant ethereal substance).
2. "Terminal" is now "Web Browser" (with much cooler games, and infinitely more distractions).
3. "Service Bureau" is now "Saas" (but app upgrades are just as painful, and custom mods equally elusive).
4. Most IT buzzwords boil down to techno-hyped BS (just as they always have).
Bruce Arnold wrote: Kudos to the Cloud Crowd for Re-Inventing the Wheel!
One thing 30 years in the IT industry has taught me is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Another is that the only memory we seem to access is short-term. A third is that techno-marketeers rely on that, so they can put labels like "revolutionary" and "innovative" on platforms, products and services that are mere re-inventions of the wheel ... and often poor copies at that.
A good example is all the latest buzz about "Cloud Computing" in general and "SaaS" (software as a service) in particular:
http://tinyurl.com/6let8x
Both terms are bogus. The only true cloud computing takes place in aircraft. What they're actually referring to by "the cloud" is a large-scale and often remotely and/or centrally managed hardware platform. We have had those since the dawn of automated IT. IBM calls them "mainfram...
Oracle seems to have divided the open source ranks over the MySQL delay it’s having closing its acquisition of Sun. Eben Moglin, the GPL’s most ardent defender and delineator, the lawyer who has worked hand in glove for years with the Free Software Foundation’s founder Richard Stallman...
Cloud computing is a game changer. The cloud is disrupting traditional software and hardware business models by disrupting how IT service gets delivered. Entrepreneurial opportunities abound as this classic disruptive technology begins to proliferate, so it is no surprise that SYS-CON'...
The irony is that Oracle has advanced MySQL, lost money in the process, and helped its competitors - all at the same time. When Oracle buys Sun and controls MySQL the gift (other than to Microsoft SQL Server) keeps on giving as the existential threat to RDBs is managed by Redwood Shore...
WSO2, the open source SOA company, today announced the launch of the WSO2 Cloud Platform. Available today, the new WSO2 Cloud Platform features a family of WSO2 Cloud Virtual Machines; WSO2 Cloud Connectors for enabling fast, secure cloud services; and the multi-tenant WSO2 Governance-...
Now, the open source Mozilla Thunderbird client software can be used with Open-Xchange collaboration software. The "Community OXtender for Thunderbird" software connector gives users full access to appointments and contacts stored in the Open-Xchange Server and enables them to use Thun...
Morph Labs, a leading provider of enterprise cloud computing technology, today announced an introductory trial of the Morph CloudServer, an open, standards-based server IT organizations can use to rapidly model and evaluate their cloud implementations. A miniature "Cloud Environment in...
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Oracle seems to have divided the open source ranks over the MySQL delay it’s having closing its acquisition of Sun. Eben Moglin, the GPL’s most ardent defender and delineator, the lawyer who has worked hand in glove for years with the Free Software Foundation’s founder Richard Stallman...
Cloud computing is a game changer. The cloud is disrupting traditional software and hardware business models by disrupting how IT service gets delivered. Entrepreneurial opportunities abound as this classic disruptive technology begins to proliferate, so it is no surprise that SYS-CON'...
The irony is that Oracle has advanced MySQL, lost money in the process, and helped its competitors - all at the same time. When Oracle buys Sun and controls MySQL the gift (other than to Microsoft SQL Server) keeps on giving as the existential threat to RDBs is managed by Redwood Shore...
WSO2, the open source SOA company, today announced the launch of the WSO2 Cloud Platform. Available today, the new WSO2 Cloud Platform features a family of WSO2 Cloud Virtual Machines; WSO2 Cloud Connectors for enabling fast, secure cloud services; and the multi-tenant WSO2 Governance-...
Now, the open source Mozilla Thunderbird client software can be used with Open-Xchange collaboration software. The "Community OXtender for Thunderbird" software connector gives users full access to appointments and contacts stored in the Open-Xchange Server and enables them to use Thun...
Morph Labs, a leading provider of enterprise cloud computing technology, today announced an introductory trial of the Morph CloudServer, an open, standards-based server IT organizations can use to rapidly model and evaluate their cloud implementations. A miniature "Cloud Environment in...
