IE: Google: FireFox

As an engineer, i always like to use products with source code available. I am a big time supporter of good/decent open source products. For the browser, i try to use FireFox for many of the sites and use IE when i want to visit non-english sites like Tamil news sites.

But today, i downloaded the new Google toolbar, which has the new online bookmarking feature. I like this feature and its really cool. But the problem is it's available only for IEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! No FireFox yet(!).

So, my transition to "all firefox" is blocked by Google today!

But i like this Google game: to compete with MS, just play the game on their field itself ! So, one feature in MS territory (Bookmarking in IE) is useless now :-(

-Uday.

Salesforce & WS-RM

We all know how powerful & innovative is Salesforce.com but i never had a chance to look deep into their technology. This week i attended a presentation from Salesforce engineering folks and it just mind boggling to hear about their vision, technology and the customer base!

They changed/changing the software industry from packaged solution to SaaS model. They are using webservices to build their API's and using 3 WS technologies. SOAP, WSDL and guess what, WS-ReliableMessaging from the WS-* family!

They talked in length about WS-RM and i was telling my friend that "great people think alike".

-Uday.

SOA Startups & 2006

The marketing buzzword "SOA" is finally starting to cool down but it doesn't mean that loosely coupled nature of apps or even some of the new foundations like SOAP will fade away...

The big players will be pushing very hard their sw/hw products in the SOA umbrella but in a more concrete fashion. This new paradigm is an evolution and not revolution.

So, what does it mean for the SOA startups? Already Sarvega, Datapower, Systinet and Actional(actional+westbridge) is taken away by the big players. IMO, few more of them will be bought out by end of this year 2006 and comes 2007, it will mostly be a big player playing field for SOA.

Uday.

Sun Founders panel.

I attended this event and it was fun to hear straight from Vinod, Andy, Bill and Scott about their bootstrapping experience of Sun.

You can read about this event here in the CNET and the best part is, this one:

In the early days, Scott is responsible for the sales and here is his conversation with one of his customer:

Customer: "Is Bill (Joy) onboard?"
McNealy: "Yeah."
Customer: "I want two of whatever you got. What are you selling?"

If you are in bayarea OR visiting bayarea, check out Computer History Museum in Mountain View. They got some wonderful collections from the past and it's worth a visit there...

-Uday.

Happy New Year-2006