Google surprises again in this first week after Memorial Day. If you have not been paying attention or maybe are getting into the nice weather we have been having towards the end of May, Google has updates Google Maps with Street Views. Nothing really new since Microsoft has had this in Live for about a year now. The difference is that the Google Street Views actually works nicely, is intuitive, and does it all in all browsers.
I toured San Francisco and in the new Google Maps Street Views and I am totally impressed! It is really an immersive 3-D experience. Wow is all I can say.
And then there is Google Gears! This one is just as impressive. It is an offline web application framework that works in all web browsers and platforms since is based on Javascript and a local SQLite database. I installed it on my MacBook and on Windows XP in Firefox and had no issues at all. Google has made Google Reader a Gears enabled application and it works just as advertised offline. Cool stuff.
Now, they just need to get GMail, Docs and Spreadsheets working in a similar transparent fashion. If Google Reader is any indication of what the near future brings, then 2007 will turn out to be quite an innovative year for Google. The real killer is that Google Gears is released as open-source under a BSD style license.
I think Microsoft is going to be in trouble and losing ground on the web front. I plan to see how Google Gears works out for enabling custom web applications to enable offline browsing capabilities. Time will tell how successful Google Gears becomes.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Microsoft vs. FOSS
Well, I expected this was coming any day now and that day has arrived. Microsoft has initiated a new front against Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). The CNNMoney article is a good read, "Microsoft Takes On the Free World", about the front Microsoft intends to open concerning specific patents it says Linux and other open source software violates.
The next week and the future will be interesting. The article discusses a 'cold war' like scenario in software technology putting Microsoft and the FOSS in direct legal collision course. FOSS has powerful corporate patrons and allies. In 2005, six of them - IBM, Sony, Philips, Novell, Red Hat and NEC - set up the Open Invention Network to acquire a portfolio of patents that might pose problems for companies like Microsoft, which are known to pose a patent threat to Linux. There is speculation that the intent of this is to provide a 'mutually assured' litigation scenario similar to the cold war 'mutually assured destruction' scenario.
FOSS and others are on the opposing front with their own arsenal of patents ready for its use as a counter attack against Microsoft. Looks like the SCO law suit all over again but this time a more frontal assault. IBM won the SCO lawsuit. SCO was indirectly supported by Microsoft funds. An interesting fact to note is that IBM holds the most patents in the software industry and has not threatened anyone that I know about with its patents.
What is interesting is how the CNNMoney article states that half of the Fortune 500 use FOSS (Linux) and growing. The article alludes to Google which is widely known to be a large proponent of open source. One area that appears to be the real threat are online free web applications in which Google is moving towards very rapidly. Microsoft must really be hurting or at least is significantly threatened by Linux. Their fear of Google is well known.
It could be that the future trends with the migration towards open source and Linux will undermine future Microsoft business. I have read many blogs and analysis to this effect ("Microsoft is Dead", "Eight Signs Microsoft is Dead in t he Water" -John Dvorak) and the most recent actions by Microsoft appear to be supporting this theory. What is ironic is that Google never confirms or denies that it is competing with Microsoft. Microsoft appears to be obsessed with Google's success.
On yet another front, it was just recently reported that Apple's sales for MacBook accounted for near 10% of all notebooks in March 2007. Apple is also #4 on the notebook sales list. It looks like Microsoft is trying to open up too many fronts and maybe needs to review history and the art of war.
The next few years will be very interesting.
The next week and the future will be interesting. The article discusses a 'cold war' like scenario in software technology putting Microsoft and the FOSS in direct legal collision course. FOSS has powerful corporate patrons and allies. In 2005, six of them - IBM, Sony, Philips, Novell, Red Hat and NEC - set up the Open Invention Network to acquire a portfolio of patents that might pose problems for companies like Microsoft, which are known to pose a patent threat to Linux. There is speculation that the intent of this is to provide a 'mutually assured' litigation scenario similar to the cold war 'mutually assured destruction' scenario.
FOSS and others are on the opposing front with their own arsenal of patents ready for its use as a counter attack against Microsoft. Looks like the SCO law suit all over again but this time a more frontal assault. IBM won the SCO lawsuit. SCO was indirectly supported by Microsoft funds. An interesting fact to note is that IBM holds the most patents in the software industry and has not threatened anyone that I know about with its patents.
What is interesting is how the CNNMoney article states that half of the Fortune 500 use FOSS (Linux) and growing. The article alludes to Google which is widely known to be a large proponent of open source. One area that appears to be the real threat are online free web applications in which Google is moving towards very rapidly. Microsoft must really be hurting or at least is significantly threatened by Linux. Their fear of Google is well known.
It could be that the future trends with the migration towards open source and Linux will undermine future Microsoft business. I have read many blogs and analysis to this effect ("Microsoft is Dead", "Eight Signs Microsoft is Dead in t he Water" -John Dvorak) and the most recent actions by Microsoft appear to be supporting this theory. What is ironic is that Google never confirms or denies that it is competing with Microsoft. Microsoft appears to be obsessed with Google's success.
On yet another front, it was just recently reported that Apple's sales for MacBook accounted for near 10% of all notebooks in March 2007. Apple is also #4 on the notebook sales list. It looks like Microsoft is trying to open up too many fronts and maybe needs to review history and the art of war.
The next few years will be very interesting.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
MVC Frameworks Update
I have had the chance to take a look at the recently released Struts2 framework. It was made generally available in late February 2007. It is based on the WebWork2 framework which in itself has been in active development the last few years.
It appears that the Struts2 team has provided a nice update to Struts which has been showing its age and actually has lost a lot of its advantages due to advances in the Java world and the dynamic scripting language (i.e. Ruby, Perl, PHP). Here is a decent Struts2 history worth a read.
Some of the nice features of Struts2 are simplicity, plugins, Spring integration, AJAX support, and flexibility to use POJOs for form and action classes. The requirement for Action and ActionForm mappings no longer exist. It integrates with Freemarker, Velocity (no more VelocityStruts), and many other frameworks.
If you have been looking at MVC frameworks in Java lately, I think Struts2 is worth a look. If you have works with Struts in the past, the learning curve is minimal. It will interesting to see how much traction Struts2 gets this year in the Java web applications arena. There are many competing MVC frameworks and Struts is still widely used. I have been leaning towards simplicity lately and it looks like the Struts team has been spending the last year doing the same.
It is good to see that Ted Husted is involved. This adds a lot of confidence and credibility to the Struts2 project. In a addition to Struts2, I have been looking at Spring MVC and the Spring WebFlow frameworks. They do not appear to be getting as much attention this spring (no pun intended). Anyway, it's good to see some action in the Struts community. Since I have not been following the Struts development in the past year, it was a nice surprise to finally see a general availability release.
I guess I will be spending the next few months with Struts2 and see what it can do.
It appears that the Struts2 team has provided a nice update to Struts which has been showing its age and actually has lost a lot of its advantages due to advances in the Java world and the dynamic scripting language (i.e. Ruby, Perl, PHP). Here is a decent Struts2 history worth a read.
Some of the nice features of Struts2 are simplicity, plugins, Spring integration, AJAX support, and flexibility to use POJOs for form and action classes. The requirement for Action and ActionForm mappings no longer exist. It integrates with Freemarker, Velocity (no more VelocityStruts), and many other frameworks.
If you have been looking at MVC frameworks in Java lately, I think Struts2 is worth a look. If you have works with Struts in the past, the learning curve is minimal. It will interesting to see how much traction Struts2 gets this year in the Java web applications arena. There are many competing MVC frameworks and Struts is still widely used. I have been leaning towards simplicity lately and it looks like the Struts team has been spending the last year doing the same.
It is good to see that Ted Husted is involved. This adds a lot of confidence and credibility to the Struts2 project. In a addition to Struts2, I have been looking at Spring MVC and the Spring WebFlow frameworks. They do not appear to be getting as much attention this spring (no pun intended). Anyway, it's good to see some action in the Struts community. Since I have not been following the Struts development in the past year, it was a nice surprise to finally see a general availability release.
I guess I will be spending the next few months with Struts2 and see what it can do.
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