Articles by Dana Gardner

It seems that businesses, whether they're small or global 2000 concerns, are buying more supplies using search at some point in the B2B procurement process. Some people begin and end a procurement journey with search. They actually buy the products through a strictly search-dependent process Yet many still use a combination of word-of-mouth, search...

How good is the match between Software AG and its recent acquisition webMethods? Was is strictly a geographical sales force synergy? Or will webMethods become the de facto R&D (research and development) arm of Software AG while the parent firm's legacy cash flow sustains the movement toward SOA (service-oriented architecture)? Are the mutual product sets well aligned to provide a fuller SOA suite offering? All of the above?...

Take SOA (service-oriented architecture) and SaaS (Software as a Service) to their natural maturation and adding more interoperability and integration into the online services mix becomes inevitable. When standardized services come from a variety of sources, then a variety of means to connect them makes more sense too So when will we see the first ...

As wireless communications technology becomes embedded in the lifestyles of consumers -- led by the younger generations that have always known it -- small businesses are seeking ways to catch the mobile wave Gaining an advantage with younger shoppers online and off can be daunting to small businesses that would rather not manage technology -- but i...

WSO2 has entered the open source SOA (service-oriented architecture) field with a slate of veterans from Web services specifications, application server design and lightweight framework development. The company's latest offering to the market came June 11 with the arrival of WSO2 ESB 1.0, based on Apache Synapse and targeted at both developers who want to use enterprise service buses (ESBs) quickly, as well as operations architects seeking lightweight and high-performing components...

Bringing services-oriented architectures (SOAs) to life is a lot like delivering a baby -- it requires a copious nurturing, understanding, labor and ultimately ... pushing. So far, the job openings for SOA midwives outstrip the available pool of talent These are great jobs: transforming companies and industries, working at the highest levels of bus...

Before the end of the year, Sun Microsystems will follow the lead of Amazon and Microsoft in providing a "pay as you drink" applications hosting service that provides a lifecycle approach to new Web application development and deployment In addition to announcing JavaFX Script, a lightweight programming language for creating rich online and mobile ...

IBM helped the Eclipse Foundation score a huge hit with the Eclipse development framework and community. Now the software engineering target is even higher, but the methods and approaches are similar IBM in June will unveil details about its Jazz framework and community for automation and governance of complex, collaborative application development...

SCO failed, so now Microsoft has to do the heavy lifting itself to undermine open source software's legitimacy. Actually, Microsoft prefers to undermine Red Hat's legitimacy. Or Open-Xchange's. Or your company's The latest moves by Microsoft, however, give them away. Stripped of their proxies, their moves are now more clearly understood to be essen...

Analyst and fellow blogger Joe McKendrick beat me to the punch on the interesting findings from a recent Unisys-sponsored survey by Forrester Research on open source use in enterprises. The bits on SOA (service-oriented architecture) were particularly revealing, and add more grist to the mill of evidence building around the compelling economics that bind open source products and SOA activities...

Many people have defined software development as more art than science -- sometimes even a dark art. That's why the business side of an enterprise is often perplexed by the application lifecycle management (ALM) process. They see what goes in as requirements, and see what comes out as functionality -- but they often don't understand what takes place in between...

As Red Hat and its JBoss unit ramp up their SOA (service-oriented architectures) offerings and capabilities, they are re-emerging as a powerful mischief-maker to the established commercial vendors -- this time on the subject of data lifecycle in the age of SOA. However, there soon could be much more mischief from Raleigh, N.C Red Hat has announced ...

How do SOA (service-oriented architecture) and Web 2.0 services come together? Are we entering an era where a variety of business services from a spectrum of sources contribute to and perhaps dominate new business process aggregation?...

It's time to add another IT category to the official IT lexicon: software development and deployment as a service, or SDDS. This one's a keeper That's my conclusion after seeing a demonstration of Bungee Labs' new Bungee Connect offering, which combines the virtues of online Web application development with a near-real-time test and debug capabilit...

Iona Technologies' purchase on Tuesday ofLogicBlaze -- while directed at the open source development and business models for SOA (service-oriented architecture) -- also further demonstrates the prevailing diversity of SOA consolidation activities There seem to be as many variations on the SOA consolidation theme nowadays as there are vendors lining...

The role and importance of governance is growing. As enterprises embrace governance, risk and compliance (GRC) platforms, as well SOA (service-oriented architecture) governance approaches, are these capabilities headed for a mashup, if not technically than at least operationally? Do they lead to an uber-governance that eventually includes how the business itself is run?...

Follow service-oriented architecture (SOA) to its logical conclusions and you recognize that modern corporations will soon be operated on the equivalent of aviation's "fly by wire." The traditional governance and management means of running a business -- the levers, pulleys, cables and brute muscle -- will through SOA become more automated, rules- and event-driven, self-service, preprogrammed, policy-orchestrated ... agile...

Colleague and frequent SOA Insights Edition contributor Tony Baer at OnStrategies has a nice context analysis of recent Eclipse Foundation news, and he wonders if Eclipse may be extending itself too thinly. He says this would follow the mistakes of the waning role of the Java Community Process (JCP) I think Tony's analysis is spot-on, as usual, but...

The navel gazing and gnashing of teeth over the Web 2.0 category reminds me of a chat I had with Joe Firmage back in 1996 He was on the road in Silicon Valley chatting up all the media types and analysts on the extraordinary potential for USWeb, the Web site building and intranet services company he'd put together with Sheldon Laube, after both che...

I'm not sure I get the follow-through of Sun wooing mashup artist start-ups. If anything, by Sun trying to appeal to these types of low-capital spending firms shows Sun's latest quandary -- it waited too long to compete with its customers Microsoft has rarely passed up the opportunity to compete with its customers, yet another swell benefit of its...