David on Enterprise Software - Podcast/Audioblog: [urls] Build a Better Enterprise Application

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Dateline: China

The following is a sampling of my top ten "urls" for the past week or so. By signing up with Furl (it's free), anyone can subscribe to an e-mail feed of ALL my urls (about 100-250 per week) -- AND limit by subject (e.g., ITO) and/or rating (e.g., articles rated "Very Good" or "Excellent"). It's also possible to receive new urls as an RSS feed. However, if you'd like to receive a daily feed of my urls but do NOT want to sign up with Furl, I can manually add your name to my daily Furl distribution list. (And if you want off, I'll promptly remove your e-mail address.)

Top Honors:

* Build a Better Enterprise Application (on Web services and SOA; great review of all the pertinent issues)

Other best new selections (in no particular order):

* Adaptive Document Layout via Manifold Content (PDF) (another hit for Microsoft, this article proposes a user interface for authoring and editing Web content for different form factors; think formatting for ubiquitous devices and pervasive computing)

* A New View on Intelligence (on XML & EII, et al) (thoroughly enjoyable -- so good, I almost blogged it; insightful perspective)

* InfoWorld Special Report: Has desktop Linux come of age? (IMHO, a resounding "No!!" But there are other perspectives worth considering. I still think it's a lot of wishful thinking.)

* Negotiating in Service-Oriented Environments (PDF) (A slightly annotated excerpt: "The concept of delivering software as a service is relatively simply: 'do not buy software, simply use it as and when you need it'. Putting such a concept into practice, however, is far more complex and involves many issues. In this article, we address the question: What are the characteristics of a market for software services?" Hot topic, good paper.)

* Real Time Means Real Change (so much talk about the so-called "Real Time Enterprise"; this article takes a look at the realities behind the hype of the "RTE")

* Information Scent on the Web (PDF) (Courtesy of PARC, you need to read this for yourself; Google as The Matrix idea -- worse yet, The Time Machine Reloaded

In reality, useful perspectives for Web designers.)

* Offshoring/Outsourcing: Fragile - Handle With Care (a brief but rather comprehensive overview; points to the various aspects of ITO and BPO along the IT value chain)

* IT Spending For Comprehensive Compliance (original article linked; good review of the various opportunities "thanks" mostly to SOX)

* The Executive's Guide to Utility Computing - ROI of Utility Computing (a broad perspective on utility computing, different from what is usually published)

Examples of urls that didn't make my "Top Ten List":

> Benchmarking Study Shows 75 Percent of Enterprises Deploying Web Services (need I say more?; includes stats on ebXML and grid computing, too)

> Probabilistic Model for Contextual Retrieval (PDF) (a sneak peek at Microsoft's emerging search technology?) See also Block-based Web Search, courtesy of Microsoft Research Asia (Beijing) and Tsinghua University, arguably China's best (the latter article is not urled; from the recent SIGIR conference). If you think Google is the last word in search, think again.

> Where To Find New Growth Prospects And What Challenges Need To Be Overcome (necessary action items and preferred geographic regions; China <not Russia, Brazil or the Czech Republic> comes in the number two slot after North America)

> CIO Magazine: Are We Happy Yet? (on ITO and BPO) (dumb article title, but smart content; good metrics to consider, including a take on SLAs)

> Developing Killer Apps for Industrial Augmented Reality (restricted access) (this page provides some complimentary information to the restricted access selection, although it's not urled). I just noticed something: The apps section of IEEE CG&A is edited by two mil guys, one from the (U.S.) Office of Naval Research and the other from the U.S. Army simulation and training office. Hey, who says all the good engineering jobs are outsourced!?

Frankly, I believe that the best American engineers can always find jobs within DoD or the intelligence community. Besides, they do all the truly fun computing stuff!! Trust me, there isn't so much fun stuff done at Oracle.