Quickies Worldwide RDBMS revenue drops. IBM, Microsoft gain market share, Oracle declines [InfoWorld: Top News] If you are looking for work, here's one more reason to have a weblog. The Quiet Death of the Major Launch. Jared Spool published a great article, The Quiet Death of the Major Re-Launch, about the advantages of a staged redesign approach vs. a major redesign done in one shot. (Thanks Digital Web) [ia/ - information architecture news] Appreciating the awesome power of XML [IBM DeveloperWorks: XML News] Mainframe Techies Are A Dying Breed [Slashdot] ny times robots.txt. How NOT to get into google. [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog] 6:57:14 PM    comment []

Highlights of IBD's Web Servies Panel Attended IBD Network's event Will Web Services Change the Industry Forever at the St. Francis Yacht Club last night. The Panel: Moderator: Tony Perkins, Creator and Editor-in-Chief AlwaysOn Network Peter Graf, SAP Marketing VP Paola Lubet, Peoplesoft Marketing VP Karla Norsworthy, IBM Technical Director Steve Cakebread, SalesForce.com CFO Themes of the Evening: (Loose inductive reasoning, far-reaching theme): Lasting changes and major players in industry revolutions take root after the bubble (example: PC revolution, Apple, Dell). Web services took root after the bubble, ergo Web Services will be a lasting change of the Internet Revolution, and there is still a chance to get really rich off the technology. (More practical, unanimous theme): Web services allow people to re-use components they already have. Goodbye monolith enterprise solution from one vendor. Hello small granular components. Closing Question from Tony Perkins: "Where do you see the Software Industry in 5 years, in regards to Web Services?" Peter Graf, SAP: The industry will look much like it does today, with many of the same players: SAP, Peoplesoft, HP. Because web services require the defining of objects, which takes a lot of time and expertise, customers will need companies like SAP to implement the interoperability they desire. Paola Lubet, Peoplesoft: Software components will be more easily replaced. This will put pressure on vendors to create software with minimum installation time, lower maintenance cost. Karla Norsworthy, IBM: Web services will have permeated the industry to the point that people won't be talking about web services anymore. This will change the desired resource from technical expertise, which we have today, to business expertise. Steve Cakebread, SalesForce.com: Buying software will change to a subscription-based model. Closing the sale will be just the beginning of the software provider sales cycle. Anonymous Guy in the Audience, balding with glasses, who worked his crossword puzzle most of the evening: Like docomo did in Japan, Web Services will provide a network enabling many entrepreneurs the means to become a supplier to a wide audience. Lasting Impressions: Re-use==Refactoring, a good thing: The point that hit home with me was the concept of re-use. As a developer, I now see web services enabling re-use of existing components the way refactoring enables re-use and evolution of source code. Performance, Scalability? Nobody addressed these issues. Does anyone see this as a barrier or is it just me? On-the-fly Interop - coool: A concept I almost can get my head around. One of the panel members described a directory of experts with a web service interface that any enterprise app could discover, snap into, and mine with no customization or pre-existing knowledge of the data's structure. If someone can figure out how this could be done, I'm not sure I could, it could be pretty cool. Still a lot of hype?: I liked what the woman from IBM said, I think the effects of web services, while vast, will be much more subtle than many anticipate.   8:47:47 AM    comment []  - See Also: