Sean Rhody

One of the frustrations of editing a monthly magazine, as opposed to a daily newspaper, is that I seldom get to scoop the rest of the press. With our lead times, breaking news is more or less old by the time you hear it from me. So by now you've heard that Corel has merged with Inprise, maker of my favorite IDE, JBuilder. Corel has been quietly positioning itself as the new challenger to Microsoft's monopoly on the PC desktop. Capitalizing on the open-source revolution that is Linux, Corel has brought forth several different offerings to compete with Microsoft. There are a good number of Linux vendors, but Corel has a fairly unique position among them. If you looked at it strictly from an operating system standpoint, you might pass on Corel in favor of Red Hat, which is... (more)

A Face to Remember

There's an expression in the industry - "putting lipstick on a pig." It's used to signify a task, or project, that has only cosmetic value and doesn't address the real issues of a situation - it merely makes the pig look a little better. But after all, it's still a pig. Sometimes as we discuss Web services, we tend to think of the user interface as lipstick. It's an easy trap to fall into... (more)

The Whole Package

One of the more interesting observations I've made in the past year concerns the model on which corporations base their IT strategies. I've visited a large number of major corporations, and there's a very strong trend. These corporations are large, with established business practices and IT organizations, and one of the things they all have in common is that no one is writing a new busin... (more)

SOA World Editorial — Ready, Fire, Aim

We all do it from time to time - forget something, get it out of sequence - and experience that annoying feeling that we've just done something incredibly stupid. I usually arrive at the dry cleaners to pick up my clothes, only to realize I'd left the next batch behind. Fortunately, it's not a long drive. But it's usually because I'm in a rush, trying to accomplish multiple things. If I ... (more)

Put on a Happy Face(book)

I had the opportunity recently to speak at a Microsoft event on Web 2.0. It was an interesting evening, with speakers from several organizations discussing various issues and strategies that could be used to move the bar forward on the Web. Now if you're a faithful reader, you've seen me rant every so often about the inadequacies of browser technology when it comes to delivering applicati... (more)