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suave  | NOW Solutions Users Conference 2007 May 29 - June 1, 2007 Loews Coronado Bay Resort, San Diego, CA |
Learn about emPath and you will know where Microsoft should have been by now.
accident proneYeah. THAT's rich.
Worthwhile? 
Jeff Sandquist of Microsoft set up a lunch for a few of us with Scott Guthrie and Ray Ozzie here at Mix07. It was a great group of people including Richard MacManus (his thoughts on the lunch are up here), Walt Ritscher, Lee Brimelow, Evan Williams, Linda Weinman, and a couple of other people. Overall it was a great session, we started off on some developer-centric conversation and then went into strategy with Ray.
I asked about the inclusion of the Dynamic Language Runtime, something Scott announced during his part of the keynote and something that garnered a bit of attention. I asked Scott what strategic point of it was and whether or not their developer base had been clamoring for the ability to write Ruby against the CLR. The answer to the second was 'not really'. It's compelling for them, but wasn't a huge draw. The answer to the first was that Microsoft wants to bring as many people as possible into the CLR and give them the freedom to choose what language they want. That's a good story, and I'm curious to see what the end result. Evan Williams, the creator of Twitter, one of the most popular Ruby applications out there said it was going to be great for his team because they could build a Silverlight application on top of Twitter using the same skillset they used to build Twitter itself.
The strategy questions were more interesting. In particular when Lee Brimelow asked Scott whether or not we could see an Apollo-type desktop client for Silverlight now that the CLR runs on Mac. Scott said no, but that precipitated a conversation about "in browser" experiences and "out of browser" experiences (I'm not sure Ray or Scott totally get Apollo). Ray said there is a lot of discussion within Microsoft about what applications should run in the browser and how important close ties to the operating system were for big applications. His insight here was excellent, as the founder of Lotus Notes, he talked about how they tried to create an "abstraction layer" so that they could be cross platform. He said focusing on that abstraction layer made them mediocre on all platforms. With WPF Microsoft gives developers a sandbox with all the trappings of a full desktop application, something users know and understand. With browser applications, he said that the model was a bit restrictive for full applications and said Silverlight will focus on enhancing the web experience and not trying to replicate the desktop. There was some talk of Apollo, but as I said, Ray didn't quite seem to grasp that Apollo applications are really desktop experiences with the ties that he mentioned being important. It will be interesting to see how that plays out between Adobe and Microsoft.
This was my first chance to actually chat and listen to Ray in a closer setting. I was really impressed. I think he really believes in the Rich Internet Application space, even if the implementation of the applications differs. I think it's going to be a good contrast for developers who are looking at the various RIA offerings. Flash and Silverlight aren't clones of each other. In many ways, they differ in their approach to enhancing the web.
Maybe, but I doubt it. Ray Ozzie is a smart and savvy guy. You can see it in the way he combs his hair. He gets Apollo alright. He has to or he wouldn't be Ray Ozzie. Any kid with a deterministic little heart and access to a whiteboard can get Apollo. What Ray doesn't get is that it doesn't belong to the company he threw in with. We all done it, doc. We all step in the doo. Try our best, we do. Do be do be do. That's the cycles and circles of friends and acquaintences that lure us in further and further where our egos should never go. Like slime on a pipe, ego is. As long as you see it from a distance... maybe a passing car, it's nothing innocuous. Just some gui green. But when you have to 'walk' across that pipe, Maw Dee make dee bed because you gonna be lying in that stuff undernearth the green pipe. And THEN where's your ego?
Uh...Better check with a patent attorney first, Mister Williams. A good one. Oh... and, better make it a good one and not your niece's nephew on your uncle's father's side.Or... you COULD inquire as to the standing of that November 2004 promise by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to hold their product clients and customers harmless from any patent lawsuits they might bring upon them due to infringement by MSFT.
You might just want to check the fine print, mon sewer. I do remember it weren't exactly everybody. Skate, dude. The trick is to not walk but skaaaaattteee.
a-okWhile Microsoft putters around in the corral, IBM is riding Pegasus to Orion's prey where Rigel will scout the skies.
James Webb Space Telescope - 2013 The future belongs to the new technologies.
a-okFYI - Niro Scavone Haller & Niro is the lawfirm representing Vertical Computer Systems (VCSY) in a lawsuit against Microsoft for infringement of patent #6,826,744. Troll? No. More like Trawler. BIG net on dotNet and the fishes are scurrying to get out of reach of that big mouth. The net... that's what I'm talking about. Shouldn't be swimming in illegal waters.
From VCSY, A Laughing Place, Part 3
Great find from Benjy
Timothy J Haller and Sally Wiggins, Niro Scavone Haller & Niro
Trolls are mythological figures in folklore – so where do so-called ‘patent trolls’ come from? The term was first used in July 2001 when Brenda Sandburg wrote an article for American Lawyer publication The Recorder entitled “Trolling for dollars”. On page one of the article there was a picture of Intel’s then Assistant General Counsel Peter Detkin holding a troll doll. The second page showed attorney Raymond P Niro, of Chicago firm Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro, with the caption “Patent power”. The accompanying article began with the storybook ‘once upon a time’ claim that: “In the sleepy village of Santa Clara, there lived a very wealthy but very frightened giant named Intel. Intel was plagued by a fearsome band of evil trolls – patent trolls to be exact – who wanted a glittering pot of gold in exchange for doing absolutely nothing. They were very powerful because they said they owned the patent on some of the magic Intel used to become rich.”
hug me
Now that Microsoft has elected to ignore the cease and desist on patent 6,826,744 served February 7, 2007, I suppose they've decided to lure all the developers out there into further infringement against the patent and other property Vertical owns.
"The biggest Mix '07 announcement made on opening day of this week's show was one that Microsoft didn't call out in any of its own press releases: Microsoft is making a version of its Common Language Runtime (CLR) available cross-platform."
Uhhh... You'll need 7,076,521 also, Mister Oz, in order to pull off an arbitrary version of what you're doing. Are you saying you're infringing against this patent ALSO? tsk tsk tsk You would think smart people would act smarter by design.
I agree with my ZDNet blogging colleague Ryan Stewart. The biggest Mix '07 announcement made on opening day of this week's show was one that Microsoft didn't call out in any of its own press releases: Microsoft is making a version of its Common Language Runtime (CLR) available cross-platform.
The CLR is the heart of Microsoft's .Net Framework programming model. So, by association, the .Net Framework isn't just for Windows any more.
Silverlight 1.1, an alpha version of which Microsoft has made available for download, includes a very slimmed down version of the CLR, plus the newly announced Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR). Silverlight will plug into Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Safari browsers, meaning the slimmed-down CLR will run on these platforms, as well.
Microsoft calls the streamlined CLR the "Core CLR." (The Core CLR's codename was Tolesto, which happens to be one of the moons revolving around Saturn, according to the Softies.) The Core CLR will include the garbbage collection, type system, generics and many of the other key features that are part of the CLR on the desktop. It won't include COM interop support and other features "that you don't need inside a browser," the Microsoft execs say.
Microsoft is not opening up the source code to the Core CLR. It is opening the code to the DLR by posting it to the Microsoft CodePlex source-code repository under a Shared Source Permissive license.
Any non-Microsoft developers out there keen on seeing the CLR go cross-platform?
celebratorySome acronyms:
Blogs / Tim Ewald
Yeah, I'm alive. And I remember the password to my blog. I've been away for a bit, working on something very cool involving the TV. If all goes well, you'll hear about it in a big way. Anyway, I'm still having a ball out here in reality. Building something real has a way of focusing your decisions about technology.
...REMAINING BODY OF ARTICLE AT URL
Comments: (excerpted)
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intervening article with example further detailing Mr. Ewald's assertions not shown here.
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Ittay commented on my REST post:
the thing is, when you write software, you use an RPC model. what bothers me about REST is that it is not only an API. it enforces you to change your programming model.
that is not to say i don't like it. i do, for its simplicity and self documentation (e.g., provide all moves as links), but there is a price you pay.
When you write software, you use a programming model that works. And sometimes you have to change models. We changed them for the Web: we moved to the notion of pages. It wasn't RPC, it wasn't even objects (at least from most developers perspectives originally). But it was simple and did what it was supposed to do. I've done RPC, CORBA, DCOM, Remoting, RMI, and Web services. All of those technologies have their place. But they all struggle in a loosely-coupled, massively distributed world. I'll happily change my programming model to solve that.
I've gotten several comments saying that, at the end of the day, REST is just RPC. That's wrong, for at least 3 very (good) reasons:
A MUST read for anyone still struggling and afraid to drop the SOAP.
One reason this discussion is important is because a machine's 'state' determines whether the machine (at the one specific point in time and at the one particular selected entry in the record of all states experienced by the machine from start to present) is in a proper state or has gotten lost. Thus, 'state' is used to examine and determine whether a software/hardware operation is in synch with all its various members and methods against some measure (here be dragons) what reality as the computer designer says it should be.
Thus, 'determinism' decides whether a computer is an experimental toy or a robust framework. That is why determining, tracking and auditing system state is essential... especially in an application comprised of web elements as any networked applications must be able to recover nicely after a connection is interrupted. Thus, state on a multi-platform web-based computer is much more critical than on a single-platform operating system. Windows NT was Microsoft's first fully deterministic operating system as it was able to maintain state information across all threads.
Now. Take SiteFlash and Emily and you can build a deterministic finite state machine (aka computer) using web elements and virtualized proprietary elements.
That's what all the hoorah is about Vertical Computer Systems intellectual property.
Notice Brother Tim left off this nasty habit of blogging last year, Here was the last post he made until Thursday April 26, 2007:
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Fight the power
Are Excel Services the way to bring developers and business people together?
I heard about Excel Services a while ago, but hadn't had any time to look at them even briefly until now. Basically, it's a server-side system that lets you access data and calculations in Excel spreadsheets via Web services. Think about how much business data and calculation is done with Excel. Now imagine being able to leverage the directly. Want to change the algorithm you use to compute some key financial data? Let the analyst modify the spreadsheet and copy the update to your server and you're done. Now *this* is the way to align technology and business. Of course, that assumes it all actually works well - I haven't done anything yet. But still, it has *tons* of potential. Very cool idea, definitely something to spend more time with.
..........
Coincidentally, THIS happened June 14, 2006 (the date of Tim Ewald's last blog entry before he left for his REST hiatus):
The W3C XML Query and XSL Working Groups have updated the Candidate Recommendations for XQuery, XSLT 2 and XPath 2. The major change in these drafts is that several data types have migrated from the xdt, http://www.w3.org/2005/xpath-datatypes namespace to the W3C XML Schema xs, http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema namespace. There are numerous small bug fixes and clarifications as well. Updated drafts include:
........
Here's an interesting historical background (updated link 13Feb2010 - I find it troubling the archives for 2002 thru 2007 are missing) on Google and Amazon to name a few and their XML approaches back in April 2002. All the while VCSY was under seige by Ross Systems/Arglen. They seemed hella confident. All of them.
not sureYou should know the meaning of these acronyms if you want to talk to XML techies:
accident proneThanks to mm-buster for this observation. Odd. Very odd.
IBM is shutting down a slew of software and services for their legacy AS/400 software stable on April 30, 2007 with no obvious indication as to what software will be taking its place to bring the legacy systems up to iSeries. This could be nothing although it has the feel of a major shift. I notice some servers of note are down tonight for maintenance and I can't help but wonder and wait.
Of Interest: IBM: Software withdrawal and service discontinuances for April 30, 2007
If you've a mind to poke, here's also a Microsoft anchorage to compare against. Includes discussion on Mono.
Microsoft with Mono
Crossing the Divide
Open source interoperability tools extend .NET applications to other platforms.
by Kathleen Richards
April 2007
One Excerpt Of Interest: Windows World Many corporations use Mono, asserts de Icaza, but have policies against "endorsements" so the information is not available publicly. A notable exception is financial services powerhouse Fiducial, which is running its trading system on Mono. If you're committed to .NET and a Microsoft approach to application development, and you have Linux in your environment, "you should be all over Mono," advises Forrester's Goulde. "Even if you're not using Mono, you should be intimately familiar with it and should have someone in your organization on the mailing lists, as well as the discussions."
Cross-platform development technology has been around for a while, and most corporate environments use multiple platforms, so why isn't it more mainstream? In the .NET world, the short answer is Microsoft.
However, the early innovators all the way to the early majority are willing to take more aggressive risk management positions on these technologies. "The technology itself is very impressive, but the better mousetrap doesn't always win," says Gartner's Driver. "It has got to be delivered to the market in a context that provides low enough business risk to justify how sexy the technology is, and right now the perception of Mono is that it is not quite there yet." He adds that if Mono takes off, the real loser long-term is Java, not Microsoft.
Uhhhh... what if you're hooked through the nose to Microsoft .Net and you DON'T have Linux. Sounds like tough toenails. The clear indications to me are that IBM is retooling their mainframe packages and Microsoft is supposed to introduce some Live offerings, which, according to the nice lady writing the above Microsoft article, .Net works fine with other platforms as long as it's a Linux license from Novell. But, if you do not have Linux, your Microsoft SOA is SOL. Nuff said.
Like I've said elsewhere... there's a large gap in Microsoft's capability portfolio when it comes to actual interconnection and interoperation outside their own intellectual property range.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. - Attributed to the Man Behind the Curtain
hungryI AGREE
By: arthurarnsley
28 Apr 2007, 01:29 PM EDT
Msg. 183748 of 183749
(This msg. is a reply to 183736 by phil_a_buster12.)
phil_a_buster12 - After reading again all you've written in both of your posts it looks like MSFT's push for open source XML may be backfiring on them. People are saying, if open source is good for XML then it should be good for all Microsoft products; that a generic version of any Microsoft product should be available as open source.
More later, must go to work.
Arthur
(Voluntary Disclosure: Position- Long; ST Rating- Hold; LT Rating- Hold)
special The above is my response to anyone who wants to take a shot at Vertical Computer Systems lawsuit against Microsoft. It's a long article so bring your spectacles.
You should take this seriously and I'll tell you why. Push the little blue title up top there and it will magically take you through the accumulated magic of SGML to VCSY, A Laughing Place, Part 3
where you will find a few of the following pieces of knowledge:
...........
Don't think Microsoft is hypervigilent to protect their interests? And why have they not addressed the Vertical interest? It only promises to get more and more vertical. KWIM?
By: mm-buster
27 Apr 2007, 07:22 PM EDT
Msg. 183726 of 183730
THIS SAYS- microsofts has mounted an intensive campaign for Open XML?
care to comment?
State by state, Microsoft responds to creeping threat
Software empire faces a new front in the assault on its products' dominance
By John Letzing, MarketWatch
Last Update: 6:34 PM ET Apr 27, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Ed Homan, an orthopedic surgeon representing a central Florida district in the state legislature, thought an amendment touting open-source document formats he tucked into a 38-page bill wouldn't draw much attention.
But within an hour of the proposed bill's reading in late March, Homan said, he was greeted in his office by three lobbyists representing Microsoft Corp. (MSFT : Microsoft Corporation
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"They were here lickety-split," Homan said. "I had no idea it was going to get that kind of reaction."
State-by-state skirmishes over open-source document formats represent the latest showdown in a long-running, and so far unsuccessful, campaign to topple Microsoft's sheer dominance of the desktop software application market. Outside of Florida, four other states since January have seen language similar to Homan's included in proposed bills.
Document formats serve as an underlying digital container, controlling access to files like spreadsheets and the ability to share them. Efforts like Homan's could lead to broader use by states of OpenDocument Format, or ODF, an open-source technology promoted by Microsoft's competitors. ODF, analysts say, could undercut one of Microsoft's most essential businesses, by opening the door to alternatives to Excel and Word and other popular productivity applications owned by the world's biggest software company.
Characteristically, as lawmakers like Homan have learned, Microsoft's hardly taking a passive position.
The Redmond, Wash.-based company has mounted an intensive campaign for Open XML, an open format designed to counter ODF. Microsoft argues ODF is a limited technology that can't read Microsoft files very well, and says that Open XML ensures compatibility with Microsoft's full Office suite of products.
'We knew we'd be up against a tough battle, because of who they are and the lobbyist they hired.'
— Texas Rep. Marc Veasey
According to Homan, his open-source amendment has been pulled from the Florida bill, because other legislators "didn't want to go to the mat on one paragraph." But if similar bills are passed elsewhere, a spreading ODF format could prove a gateway to its compatible open-source applications -- whereas bureaucracies, and most computer users, have relied to date on Microsoft Office suite products such as Word.
"File formats for years have been what's really locked people into Microsoft Office," said Michael Silver, an industry analyst with Gartner Inc. Office, in turn, has thrived. Microsoft's business division, over 90% of which is made up of Office products, contributed one-third of the company's $14.4 billion in sales from January through March.
Sensitive issue
Soon after introducing an open document format bill in the Texas state legislature in February, Rep. Marc Veasey said it was clear Microsoft was going to commit considerable time and effort to influencing the outcome.
"Immediately we heard from Microsoft and their lobbyist here in Austin, and we knew we'd be up against a tough battle, because of who they are and the lobbyist they hired," Veasey said.
Veasey is co-sponsoring the open document format bill, which is now being read by committees in both chambers of the legislature.
Other states recently weighing calls to adopt open-document formats are California, Minnesota and Oregon.
Massachusetts was an early adherent of open-document format technology. It began moving certain state agencies to the use of ODF earlier this year, based on a 2005 mandate.
'Microsoft sees what's coming. Things like Word and Excel are sort of like a drug now getting ready to go generic.'
— Florida Rep. Ed Homan
Lawmakers in other states haven't necessarily recommended ODF over Open XML. But Microsoft clearly sees the spread of ODF as a potential, threatening result of their proposals.
In a document Microsoft lobbyists left with Homan, the company downplayed the "minority of voices" arguing specifically for ODF. Open XML, it argued, is a "more robust" option.
According to Veasey, in the proposed Texas bill, "We really wanted to stay away from choosing one format over the other."
"We went out of the way to bring Microsoft in to seek their input in drafting this legislation," Veasey said. Ultimately, however, "they said they thought it was favoring ODF," Veasey said, and declined to lend their support.
Veasey said he would gladly support the adoption of Microsoft's Open XML, if the Texas department of information resources decides that it meets his bill's definition of "open."
The impetus for the Texas bill was similar to that in other states -- a desire to ensure access to archived and current documents regardless of which company's application is used to open them, and lower costs.
Related Blog Posts & Articles
Continued on page 2
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(Voluntary Disclosure: Position- Long; ST Rating- Strong Buy; LT Rating- Strong Buy)
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Read this and think through how many IT managers there are who know what XML predicts but have never had the pleasure of working with it on Microsoft products.
By: explore98
27 Apr 2007, 06:30 PM EDT
Msg. 183722 of 183731
(This msg. is a reply to 183721 by morrie33.)
The only thing that will legitamize VCSY at this point in the eyes of the bashers will be a hugh contract . Why haven t they made any money on this new type of technology,XML. My answer is IBM . When it s ready to be announced watch out .. I was talking to one of the IT managers I deal with about VCSY . I told her that they have a patent on an this xml enabler . She didn t know vcsy but her eyes lit up as she went on telling me all about xml . Boys and Girls , well and bashers too , mark my words ....THIS WILL BE HUGH .....IMO.... EXPLORE�
Folks, if you know what XML can do you know you learned it from reading Bill Gates and OzRay. You know what XML can do and you've wondered for years what's been up with it. Well, friends and neighbors, it's been under cover at IBM, Microsoft and VCSY until more recently as IBM has openly embraced XML and Microsoft has avoided XML like it was black death and VCSY has said 'mmmfffppphh...' while the critics and bashers maintained their self-righteous ignorance and refusal to debate.
One can only wonder what the topic of conversations will be at MiX07. Should be an interesting week ahead. (That's 'ajead' in SPanish)
And when this guy says 'Alarming'... I believe him especially for the 'countless' folks who've been experimenting in their labs coming up with what Microsoft should have sold them in a box years ago... if only they could have. If only they could have spent only a little money and bought a license back then. But, then Microsoft DID promise to endemnify users of Microsoft products from intellectual property suits in November 2004.
Do you remember that? We do.
A company named Vertical Computing Systems Inc. is suing Microsoft for a patent violation involving Microsoft’s .Net framework. The patent is for a “system and method for generating web sites in an arbitrary object framework.”
Let’s hope this patent doesn’t place countless other Web and application frameworks into Vertical Computing’s cross hairs.
Yep that is quite a worry. Maybe Microsoft will be able to give their assessment of their chances against this suit at MiX'07... I hope, for the sake of all the work you people have put out since... when?
Well, heck, they isn't anything to worry about, salamander. Microsoft has plenty of cash and I'm sure they'll make good on it. Might even let you bring your corporate image in for a makeover and paint job at the next developer's retreat.
What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. - Rumplestilsken, I think. Oh, no, that's not right. The google says Sir Walter Scott. Who the hell is that? Is he a venture capitalist with options? Sounds like it.
