Economics

A modern approach to Java application development

With Java investments in the billions over the last dozen years, it's a safe bet that enterprise companies won't be replacing these systems any time soon. In fact, one could claim Java usage is growing in spite of best efforts to claim otherwise by aficionados of Ruby, PHP, Python, Groovy, Scala, and other dynamic languages.

Red Hat for example reports that its JBoss Java middleware is its fastest growing business. IBM remains heavily invested in its WebSphere Java middleware. And let's not forget Oracle, which not only has the Sun brand (and ergo Java) pending but last year added BEA to the fold.

Java application platforms have been so focused on scalability and efficiency of database-driven applications that they've often ignored what's evolved in the consumer Web: rich user environments, better interactivity, and a mixing of content and data, collaboration and social features--all with much more personal control and empowerment. Efforts like JavaFX have been interesting if not ready for prime time.

But Java is hardly irrelevant, and Benjamin Mestrallet, founder and CEO of eXo Platform, thinks he can change exactly the perception that Java can't be Web 2.0 hip. eXo, which just opened its first U.S. office, is hoping to remake Java from stodgy to socially aware by combining powerful REST-based common services with rich Web 2.0 apps to get the most out of so-called legacy Java apps.

eXo counts a number of very smart people with deep Java roots in their court to make this happen including: Bob Bickel, a founder of Bluestone Software, former head of HP Middleware and former JBoss head of strategy; Edwin Khodabakchian, founder of Collaxa and former VP of Product Management at Oracle; and Sacha Labourey, longtime JBoss CTO and former co-GM of Red Hat Middleware. … Read more

Mountain Dew drinks up social media (Q&A)

This past year we saw consumer brands embrace social-media programs for branding and product promotions in sophisticated ways that most tech companies haven't quite gotten to yet.

Much of the reason behind the tech lag is due to the breadth of the audience, but also because tech buyers have tended toward expressing their opinions to companies without being asked.

Mountain Dew recently unveiled the details of its year-long DEWmocracy 2 program, "an open communications platform that relies on the collective intelligence of loyal consumers to shape the direction of the brand and Mountain Dew innovation pipeline." In layman's terms this means it is looking to go beyond crowdsourcing and incorporate a huge variety of community marketing and branding efforts into a bigger strategy.

DEWmocracy 2 launched in July and is a 12-month, seven-stage campaign that will result in the production of a completely user-generated Mountain Dew beverage. This is not dissimilar to a program Vitaminwater ran on Facebook earlier this year to crowdsource ideas for new flavors. The main difference is that DEWmocracy is a sophisticated, fairly massive endeavor, encompassing online communities like Facebook, video submissions, Twitter, and a variety of ways to vote, allowing users to share their thoughts.

I put forth a number of questions about the program to Brett O'Brien, director of marketing, Mountain Dew, detailed below.

What stage of the program are you currently in? We completed the advertising challenge, which is the sixth stage of DEWmocracy, on December 13. DEW fans voted for their favorite advertising submissions, choosing six finalists. The finalists will now create short pitch videos for the Flavor Nations, which will each select which ad creator they would like to work within 2010 to create ads that will run on national TV.

Has any one particular tool been most effective in your marketing efforts? Several tools have been effective, but we're particularly impressed with the consumer response to our call for video submissions on 12seconds.tv. In total, more than 1,000 videos [were] created by consumers and posted on 12seconds.tv and other social-media outlets. That type of response, coupled with the quality of the video submissions, screams a high level of consumer engagement. Consumer video submissions also enabled DEW loyalists to share content with other DEW drinkers and introduce them to the program not through the voice of the brand, but through the enthusiasm of fellow DEW fans. … Read more

Top ad trends list spotlights online behavior

Research firm Nielsen has released its top advertising trends for 2010. Not surprisingly the leading trend is the ability to measure activity that merges online and offline purchasing behavior, addressing the fact that users have expanded options for how they consume content and how they interact with brands.

Nielsen data shows that "time spent on each of the three screens--TV, PC and mobile--is increasing. In particular, the consumption of video content is on the rise across all platforms."

Top advertising trends for 2010

Optimizing media convergence is a top priority New models emerge to take advantage of smartphones … Read more

IBM closes lackluster M&A year with buying spree

IBM decided to close 2009 with a bang by acquiring Lombardi, a privately held provider of business process management (BPM) software. Big Blue racked up a number of acquisitions this year including: data discovery software firm Exeros, database security firm Guardium, security provider Ounce Labs, and analytics provider SPSS.

Lombardi marks IBM's 90th acquisition since 2003. That's a lot of companies to digest.

With Lombardi, IBM strengthens its presence in BPM by effectively capturing the customers it doesn't already have. IBM currently has more than 5,000 BPM customers in about 30 countries and growing.

According to Lombardi CEO Rod Favaron, the company has about 300 enterprise-level customers with a high percentage shared with IBM. Lombardi has a shockingly impressive customer list, including Allianz Group, Aflac, Barlays Global Investors, Dell, FETAC, Ford Motor, Hasbro, ING Direct, Intel, Maritz Travel, National, Bank of Canada, National Institute of Health, Safety-Kleen, T-Mobile, UCLH, and several governmental agencies.

It's generally been a quiet year for technology merger and acquisition deals with the 2009 value total for tech M&A activity reaching $142 billion, according to recent data from technology investment research firm The 451 Group. To provide context, the second quarter of 2008 alone saw $173 billion in tech M&A deals. The median deal size in 2009 was $40 million, contrasted with a median of $43 million in 2008 and $100 million in 2007.

From January to November 2009 there were only 31 technology transactions valued at $1 billion or more, and The 451 Group reports that all of the high-multiple deals took place in the second half of 2009, resulting in M&A spending running 50 percent higher than in the first two quarters. Notable deals include Dell's purchase of Perot Systems and Cisco Systems' pair of $3 billion acquisitions in October. … Read more

Virtual currency exchange to launch in 2010

Beginning in the first quarter of 2010, social sites IMVU and MyYearbook will launch a virtual currency exchange allowing users from either service to exchange currency between the sites.

Currency Connect is billed as a "cross property virtual currency exchange" system similar to how you would change U.S. dollars into euros if you were traveling in Europe. Users simply swap their currencies depending on what site they are on. Overall this is not a bad idea as I still find it surprising that users pony up real money for virtual money that can never be taken out … Read more

Microsoft needs to go big with Windows Mobile

It's no secret that Windows Mobile has hit a rough patch as the iPhone and Android-based smartphones have take center stage. Recent statistics from AdMob shows that Windows Mobile market share of Web surfing was way down during the past 12 months--more than 70 percent year over year.

Any number of people postulate that Windows Mobile will be dead, some say as soon as 2011, unless Microsoft figures out a way to not only make the operating system better but to convince users that they should care.

On the New York Times Bits blog, Steve Lohr wrote earlier Thursday on analyst Mark Anderson's comments suggesting that Microsoft abandon their consumer efforts entirely--that the company has lost the battle for consumers:

Except for gaming, it is 'game over' for Microsoft in the consumer market. It's time to declare Microsoft a loser in phones. Just get out of Dodge.

I'm not a huge fan of Windows Mobile, but Microsoft certainly can't give up on smartphones and really has no alternative but to make a big move in the mobile operating system space. And Windows Mobile is not nearly as bad as many people think--if you don't believe me, check out these results from mobile blog jkOntheRun.

I recently toyed with Windows Mobile phones at both Verizon and AT&T stores and I could absolutely see the appeal of the common desktop functional paradigm if I were a Windows user. But consumers are fickle and don't want to add an OS decision into their buying process. They just want the phone and its applications to work and be easy to use.

There remains a huge opportunity for Microsoft to take its dominant position and make Windows Mobile truly great, even if it means walking away from the status quo. And while that's not typically the Microsoft way, the company has shown with Bing that it can make those kinds of decisions (as well as less-positive choices.)

There are two very simple moves Microsoft could make that would not only shake up the whole market, but also build a path for the future:

… Read more

IBM opens new cloud lab while Microsoft reorgs

IBM is continuing its investment in cloud computing with a new lab in Hong Kong, expanding the presence of its IBM China Development Laboratory (CDL), the company's largest with more than 5,000 developers on staff.

The laboratory builds on the e-mail technology of Outblaze Limited, a Hong Kong-based company whose messaging assets were acquired by IBM earlier this year and incorporated into the Lotus brand. The new lab claims to be the first of its kind in Hong Kong and shows both the importance of global development teams and IBM's focus on growth in emerging markets, a … Read more

Cloud-scaling on Amazon with Memcached

One of the headlines that caught my eye today is this blog post from the Amazon Web Services team about a new Memcached as a service offering from Gear6.

For years, Memcached has been used quietly to provide in-memory caching for many popular Web sites, from LiveJournal (for which it was first developed six years ago) to Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook. In the last couple of months, Facebook has opened up about how it scales, and one the key technologies enabling this is Memcached, which services 120 million queries every second. To achieve this, Facebook admits it has had to … Read more

Brazil looks to ban video games while U.S. makes ratings work

Late last week it was reported that following Venezuela's lead in attempting to reduce "violent tendencies" in South American children, Brazilian Sen. Valdir Raupp has authored a bill that would make it a crime to make, import, or distribute "offensive" video games.

The goal of the bill is to "curb the manufacture, distribution, importation, distribution, trading, and custody, [and] storage of, the video games that affect the customs, traditions of the people, their worship, creeds, religions and symbols."

Where this ban, like many others, falls short is in assigning blame for societal ills to video games instead of dealing with larger social issues, including a lack of parental oversight. There are, no doubt, influences in Brazil that are different from the U.S., but video game ratings have proven to be an excellent example of an industry-wide standard that could easily be adopted internationally.

In a recent report, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) praised the video game industry for continuing "to have the strongest self-regulatory code" of all the entertainment sectors. … Read more