OpSource, the SaaS delivery experts and Scio Consulting, a provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS)-related software development and consulting services, announced that the two firms have formed a partnership designed to accelerate the adoption of the on-demand delivery model by software companies. Many software and web companies that wish to enter the growing SaaS market lack the resources and/or knowledge necessary to develop, let alone deliver on-demand products and services. Under the terms of this non-exclusive agreement, Scio will provide the software development and consulting necessary to create on-demand products for companies and OpSource will deliver and manage those applications.

Industry blogger Alex Bunardzic writes in his 'Ethical Software by Alex Bunardzic' blog: 'Now that Microsoft has jumped onto the web 2.0 bandwagon, it is more than obvious that Web 2.0 is dead as a doornail. Everyone knows by now that anything Microsoft touches turns into this big slimy brown mush, so now's definitely the time to get out of that mess.'

A seasoned Java professional has to know more than just the syntax of the Java language. Java EE offers a set of standardized technologies for enterprise development. A number of open-source frameworks such as Spring or Hibernate are widely used in a variety of Java applications. Familiarity with new 'beyond-Java' languages and technologies will widen your horizons and make you a more valuable Java professional. Real-World Java Seminar is sponsored by CodeGear, Red Hat, Nexaweb, Farata Systems, and PushToTest.

In the past if you cannot access the Internet then you cannot use your Web 2.0 applications. This model is rapidly changing. New pogramming models are emerging that alllow Web 2.0 to be offline /online dependent on what is needed. The first of these is Adobe Apollo, which is a cross-platfrom technology that combined Flash, HTML, PDF and JavaScript into one universal application programming model / paradigm. What is unique is that id doesn't care if if it runs on its own or embedded in a webpage, the API calls remains the same.

Sun's CEO-who-blogs Jonathan Schwartz said on his blog Tuesday that when Sun reports its Q4 numbers on Monday the results are going to be released on Sun's web site and RSS feeds 10 minutes before they're released to the news wires. Schwartz, who's argued the point in open letters with SEC chairman Christopher Cox and complained the Reg FD doesn't recognize the Internet 'as the exclusive vehicle through the public can be fairly informed,' claims, 'This will place, for the first time, the general investing public - those with a web browser or a cell phone - on the same footing as those with access to private subscription services. In effect, driving an open dialog directly with investors, rather than routing information through proprietary sources. Open is as open does?.

Mike gets stories that CNet doesn't get, that no one else gets. Look at the piece he did on Mitch Kapor's product earlier today. Compare that against the nonsense that passes for tech news done by the pros. They put reporters on the stories who have no idea what they're writing about, and you can tell. Or old school guys who only quote their friends, and haven't found a new trend or product in years. All they know is that Apple, Google and Microsoft are important and that little companies are not. So it's a long time before a CNet hack gets to tell Mike how to do his job, even if he does act as a mouthpiece for a crappy Microsoft campaign (I wish he wouldn't do that).

The first principle is fairly obvious. The application has to be useful for someone to want to use it. Not only should it be useful, but it should be compelling, interesting, and it couldn't hurt to follow some of the new design styles and ideas floating around in the Web 2.0 space, including the use of dynamic, rich, interactive experiences on websites that might utilize technologies such as AJAX and Atlas.

Business managers of all kinds need to keep up with the fast pace of information transactions - and the financial services industry is certainly no exception. CIOs and innovation officers are faced with the task of making access to important enterprise application information faster and more secure, and making jobs easier and workers more productive.

This article covers the process of building a real working AJAX application on top of Oracle's free database software. The demonstration takes advantage of features integrated directly into Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (Oracle XE), the Embedded PL/SQL Gateway and Oracle XML DB, which let you serve XML content derived from SQL queries directly over HTTP protocol.

Saturday's post about Feedburner was much-discussed, and that's good. The most common rebuttal from people who didn't agree was the user's ability to opt out. If you don't like it you don't have to use Feedburner. But that's not any kind of a rebuttal at all. Let me illustrate. First, I don't use Feedburner, never have, never will. However, if Google, the new owner of Feedburner ties Feedburner to Google Reader, that still hurts people like me, because my feed, that isn't served through Feedburner, doesn't work as well with Google Reader.

Tools like Astoria are a fantastic tool by which we can expose data in a way that jives with the vision of the semantic web. The problem is that there are business concerns to exposing data on the web, not the least of which is of course -how do you charge people for that data? How do you make money off of exposing that data? The great thing about a semantic web and standardized data location and access methods is of course mashups. If anybody knows how to get at your data, and they know that your data is referenced in a way that is similar to the way in which Bob is exposing his data, etc - then everyone can consume everyone's data and the entire world enters a euphoric bliss of data consumption.

As a way of diversifying - this time exploiting its core competency - and bringing in still more money, Google wants to sell SMBs a way for visitors to search their sites. It calls the hosted, extranet service Custom Search Business Edition and is offering it for $100 a year for 5,000 pages and $500 a year for 50,000 pages. Google claims it can have a guy signed up online and running in 10 minutes and that appears to include refinements like sectional groupings.

So now someone at Google 'owns' Feedburner and all their feeds. And they could, if they wanted to, change the feeds to another format, overnight, without asking anyone. Reader software might have trouble working with it. They would say 'Oh but the new feeds work better with Google Reader, and that's the one most people use.' And by the way, more and more that's true these days. But what about other feed suppliers? Do they have to change to work with Google Reader? They will say no, but there may turn out to be practical reasons why they must.

After writing a recent post about thinking outside the (browser) box, I started thinking about the rapid rate by which things are changing. A year ago, most web developers had to think about Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, and perhaps WAP for mobile devices and widget development for one of more platforms. Today, we are afforded more possibility, but sometimes at the cost of more complexity, or at least more to learn and test:

Zoho, one of those off-brand online office applications wannabes that dreams of putting Microsoft out of business and heading off Google, has put some of its free widgetry on Facebook, the social networking site, via a Facebook-embedded widget, a move that might prove to be quite clever. Facebook users with Zoho accounts can use Zoho's word processor, spreadsheet and presentation code - Write, Sheet and Show - and share documents but - whoops - there's no link back to Facebook and sharing isn't exactly slick.

Facebook recently acquired Parakey. Congrats to Joe and Blake, two of the original co-conspirators behind the skunkworks project now known as Firefox. Joe is also known for Firebug, and for his recent work on iUI, a lightweight tool for building simple iPhone apps. While the Facebook platform has become wildly popular for launching web apps based on HTML and Flash, perhaps this announcement will lead to real JavaScript/Ajax support within the Facebook platform.

The Q2 profits that Yahoo reported Tuesday were shaky, down year-over-year from $164 million to $161 million, and its second-half forecasts were limp, which might explain why CEO Terry Semel bailed. Semel's replacement Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang promised a new strategic plan in a hundred days, but Wall Street wants things turned around faster than that. With Yahoo's shares down 18% or 19% in three months, Yang will likely be working under increasing pressure to sell, which of course reopens the question of Microsoft stepping into the breach.

'It takes a village,' said Cynergy vice president Dave Wolf (pictured) most recently at AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2007 East, 'to build an engineering team capable of writing world-class Rich Internet Applications.' You cannot create the right atmosphere in a 'cubicle farm,' he contends. And Cynergy walks the talk, and walks the walk, with no individual offices, large spacious office environments, and a commitment to keeping its staffers energized and creative, more like an ad agency than a development shop.

Ever since the term was first coined in 2004, Web 2.0 has generated an incredible amount of interest and momentum around Internet services. Web 2.0 services empower users to combine all relevant information into a single location so they can be more productive in their work environment. In addition, Web 2.0 enables users to form ad hoc associations with users inside and outside their organizations as part of a ?social network.? To do this, users need tools that allow them to quickly and easily assemble these services in a meaningful way.

The single-day, multi-track Real-World Java Seminar will be held at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York on August 13. Produced by SYS-CON Events, this is the largest Java developer event on the East Coast, and features a business track as well as two technical tracks. All attendees will have full access to all sessions at the event, so can either stay with one track or pick and choose specific sessions.

ICEsoft Technologies, a leading provider of enterprise AJAX solutions, announced the availability of ICEfaces 1.6.0, the newest release of ICEsoft's flagship AJAX development environment. Among its other improvements, ICEfaces 1.6.0 offers complete integration with JBoss Seam 1.2.1 GA, ensuring fast, efficient creation of Web 2.0 applications featuring the benefits of AJAX and other next-generation Web technologies.

Vertex Logic delivers Rich Internet Web 2.0 solutions that are especially targeted towards community-collaboration and rich user interfaces with images. The company has successfully delivered solutions such as 1) An online Design Tool for PsPrint.com. It is an example of our media rich solution. 2) A calendar and information sharing application for a niche community. It is an easy-to-use community application. 3) A rule-based system for access control in enterprises. It is a case for information sharing that is more sophisticated than an online community.

With the next major release of Eclipse, codenamed Europa, available on eclipse.org, Innoopract, an Eclipse specialist and provider of the Yoxos Eclipse Distribution, announced a new portal that simplifies the process for creating and downloading custom Eclipse downloads.

Can afford to take just one day off, get out of your cubicle and see what other people up to these days? Is J2EE still in favor? What's this ESB is about? Have you even heard of using Flex as a Web front end of your Java applications? Do not miss an event in NYC this Monday, that is created for people who think that they are way too busy to take several days off and spend them in the class. Just take one day off and attend the Real-World Java event. The discounted rate for this event is $395. To get this discount, enter the coupon code ?JUGgold' while registering

Nexaweb Technologies, Inc., a provider of a standards-based platform for building and deploying Enterprise Web 2.0 (EW2.0) applications, has announced that the SBE Group, a global electronics service and logistics management provider headquartered in France, has successfully deployed its new centralized IT system (Artemis) based on Nexaweb's Enterprise Web 2.0 Platform.

Compuware Corporation was recognized as a leader by Forrester Research in its June 21, 2007, Forrester Wave report titled: 'The Forrester Wave: Appliance-Based End User Experience Monitoring, Q2 2007.' Compuware Vantage received the highest current offering score and was described by Forrester as 'the most versatile end-user monitoring solution.'

Nexaweb Technologies, a provider of a standards-based platform for building and deploying Enterprise Web 2.0 (EW2.0) applications, has unveiled Web2SOA ? a newly formed Enterprise Web 2.0 & SOA Ecosystem Program designed to help customers capitalize on their SOA initiatives and deliver rich, reliable and governed Enterprise Web 2.0 (EW2.0) and Service-Oriented Business Applications (SOBA) to end-users via the Web.

Nexaweb Technologies, Inc., a provider of a standards-based platform for building and deploying Enterprise Web 2.0 (EW2.0) applications, has announced a number of strong supporters from its System Integrator, OEM, and ISV partner network for Nexaweb's new Web2SOA Program.

I-Pond, Web 2.0 initiative to be launched by BigPond, is a new way to access your world on the Web - quickly, easily and all from one page. I-Pond provides a new way to access your world on the Web quickly, easily and all from one page. Get your own personal page with quick access to the favorite stuff. Add the latest news headlines, sports results, blogs-almost any Website you like. Plus you'll find tools to organize your life, such as a calendar, to-do lists, sticky notes and much more. You can also make your page private, public or limited to a specific set of friends or colleagues (http://www .bigpond.com/ipond/).

'Apps on a Plane delivers what others are promising and then some,' Etelos President and CEO Danny Kolke said. 'This isn't just one Application that is built to synchronize. The true power of Apps on a Plane is that it enables any Web-based Application to perform without a live Internet connection.' The ability of a user to synchronize data is controllable by an easy-to-use interface. The administrator can create maps that determine the data that employees are able to synchronize. This keeps multiple users from updating the same data and also keeps sensitive information secure.

StrikeIron Inc., a provider of Data as a Service (DaaS), facilitating the consumption and distribution of live data over the Web, is co-sponsoring a Business Mashup Challenge for developers attending Mashup Camp 4. IBM is the main sponsor of the Challenge alongside secondary sponsors StrikeIron, Dapper, AccuWeather, and Kapow Technologies.

Last week I had a meeting with a serial entrepreneur who's working on a new company whose product is a calendar for social networks, or a social network of calendars, depending on which thread you pick up. It's basically a good idea, a no-brainer, because time and networking relate to each other. I have relationships with individuals, or any group of people I choose to meet with. Of course systems can work better if there's a way to express those relationships.

Yahoo has dumped its CEO Terry Semel--regarded lately as a main barrier to progress and thereby preventing the company from cutting Google-addressing partnerships and acquisition bids. Goodness knows Microsoft might be on the phone right now. The surprise news hit right after the market closed in New York. There has been much speculation that such a thing could happen in the last couple of weeks and many investors were disappointed that Semel wasn't handed his head at the company's stockholders meeting a few days ago particularly given his outlandish $71.7 million compensation package last year. In response to the news Yahoo stock, in the tank for a couple of years now compared to Google?s 300% run-up, was up 4% in after-hours trading.

In the early days of the Web, we were thrilled when we could find addresses and phone numbers of commercial establishments. As more sophisticated Web sites started using databases behind the scenes, we came to expect a page that included all the addresses for each branch of a chain in our city or neighborhood. When Mapquest came along, we were delighted that we could click a button and see the location for each of these shops on a map. Then came the Web 2.0 idea of the mashup; at a click of a single button, we could see all the Starbucks in a zip code all at once.

Adobe has delivered itself of a public beta of Flex 3, a free open source cross-platform framework for creating Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) except they don't necessarily have to run on the Internet. The Flex 3 drop includes a companion beta of the widgetry code named Apollo, now renamed Adobe Integrated Runtime, that will let developers move their on-air RIAs offline to the desktop using HTML/CSS, AJAX, Adobe Flash and Flex itself.

ITerating, a free Wiki-based software guide covering open source, commercial, and hosted software, has added a Feature Matrix that allows users to dynamically create customized, side-by-side feature comparisons of software solutions within seconds. Users can use the feature matrices to evaluate software solutions and make more informed product selection decisions. As an online guide, ITerating allows users to search across all software types, find detailed product information, read user reviews, and create and share comparative matrices ? all from one site.

SYS-CON Events has created a hands-on, immersive learning experience for all Web developers who want to know the how, what, and why of the tools and concepts behind AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), the popular user-interface approach to creating Rich Internet Applications. AJAXWorld University AJAX Bootcamp is a compelling, intensive, one-day, hands-on training program that will teach Web developers, Web designers, and other Web professionals how to build high-quality AJAX applications from beginning to end.

OpenAjax Alliance has been growing well with over 70 members. The initial OpenAjaxHub received immediate community response - most are positive and a few responses were negative but turned out to be very helpful. Over ten Ajax offerings demonstrated support for OpenAjaxHub already (such as Apache XAP, Dojo, Nexaweb AjaxClient, Tibco, etc). Addressing the feedback received so far, the upcoming release of OpenAjaxHub 1.0 in the next few months is going to be really good - tiny footprint (under 5KB), focused on interoperability and event propagation between Ajax widgets and highly functional.

Now that collaborative, decentralized development is the norm, how do you harness the ability to 'mashup' data sources? What's happening in the industry? What's the motivation for a business to start serving mashups from the 'long tail' of the Web?

SYS-CON.TV has invited me to participate in the live TV broadcast 'RIA Shootout.' This panel will discuss variety of tools and techniques available for developing rich Internet applications. If you are not sure if RIA is for you or what software platform is the best fit for your needs, this panel may give you an overview of what's available today. At the end of the show, we'll be answering questions from the virtual audience, but if you miss the live show, its recorded version will be published at SYS-CON.TV some time later.