From The Group Publisher

What Are The Seven Wonders of the Web?

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:25:00 EST

A few years ago, a British newspaper speculated on what might be the Web equivalent of the Seven Wonders of the World, and received suggestions that were hardly surprising: Google search, the Amazon.com e-tail portal, the eBay auction mechanism, etc. But that was back in 1991, before Facebook, Google Earth, and YouTube had even seen the light of day. So what would be today's list?

Comments Pour in As Nexaweb Founder Asks "Why Isn't Facebook Built in Java?"

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:00:00 EST

Coach Wei, whose Java credentials are impeccable, opened up a can of worms by raising the issue of why Java's not in favor any more for building web sites, even complex ones. Even a complex site like Facebook, Wei noted, is not written in Java. 'Why do 'cool kids' choose Ruby or PHP to build websites instead of Java? I have to admit that I do not have an answer ... the power of Java is a perfect fit for the areas where websites may need more than markups or scripting, such as middleware logic,' Wei argued.

Is Blogging Just the Tip of the Co-Technology Iceberg?

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 15:00:00 EDT

Gartner says that the total number of bloggers will peak during the first half of this year at around 100 million, causing John R. Patrick to ask rhetorically whether spring 2007 truly is The Peak of Blogging?

Is Java a "Ball and Chain"?

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 09:00:00 EST

These are curious times just now for Java. In one and the same month, Steve Jobs stands up, and declares - referring to language support on the new Apple iPhone - 'Java's not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It's this big heavyweight ball and chain.' And in the same month a company like Backbase, whose AJAX JSF Edition is aimed at 'Java developers who want to leverage the JSF standard by creating a next generation rich component-based AJAX presentation tier,' wins a 'Technology of the Year Award 2007' in the category 'AJAX Toolkits.'

Which Is More Important - Saddam Hussein or Google?

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:00:00 EST

The year 2006 in which YouTube became culturally ubiquitous, Flash video became the de facto Internet video standard of the Web, Microsoft beta-launched Vista, and the Wii entered our lives - was also memorable for one or two other real-world events such as the hanging of Saddam Hussein, prompting the obvious question: Is the progress of i-Technology front-runners like Google and eBay more, or less, important than the trial and execution of Saddam.

Is the Rise of Google the End of the Game for Everyone Else?

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 12:00:00 EST

As I write this, the stock price of Google, Inc. just exceeded $500 for the first time in the company's still-brief (two-year) history as a public company. That gives the search colossus a market cap of $150 billion, many times in excess of its physical assets - currently valued at $10.2 billion.

Is There Life Beyond Google?

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:15:00 EDT

In one of my (several) former professional lives, I used to publish books about the future, including, for example, the world's first full-length book about groupware. Unless we can first capture and thereafter harvest - asynchronously, as and when it is most needed and most relevant - the collective wisdom of our time, how can it be deemed 'wisdom'? None of us has time any longer to attend all the conferences we'd like to, or to join all the societies or support all the causes that appeal to us for attention, time, and money. What we need above all is to be able to act co-intelligently. While co-intelligence is what we need, our actual opportunities for meaningfully interacting with our peers are in some respects growing in inverse proportion to the variety of ways in which we can execute the interaction.

Google's Bosworth Wields His Invisible Hand; Scott McNealy's Final Top 10 List?

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 10:15:00 EDT

Ever since Google realized that 12% of the population would consult Google prior to seeing a doctor, which was followed by a British Medical Journal editorial suggesting that one of the natural next steps for Google would be some kind of medical database for personal use, rumors have been circulating that 'Google Health' would be the next addition to the Google stable. Last week the rumors were proven to be true.

Does i-Technology Matter?

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 11:45:00 EDT

When Nicholas Carr posed the question 'Does IT Matter?' in his now-famous Harvard Business Review essay, he clearly knew that it would provoke discussion. He probably didn't know, on the other hand, that it would eventually cause the world's richest man - whose wealth is derived 100% from IT - to call the essay, during a dinner party at his home, 'the dumbest thing I've ever read.'

Are 'Paternity' Suits the Latest Phenomenon in i-Technology?

Wed, 08 Mar 2006 14:00:00 EST

Almost anyone who writes about Internet technologies, or i-Technology in shorthand, runs into a problem area from time to time concerning the issue of what in the i-Technology world was invented by whom?

As Oracle Recommits to Java, Sun Sweeps 2005 RCAs

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 14:45:00 EST

Every year for the past 10 years, SYS-CON Media's 'Readers' Choice Awards' have given the multiple constituencies we serve - developers, architects, IT managers, vendors - a chance to exercise their democratic rights, not just through the ballot box but also through the nomination process. The products, tools, and services voted on in any particular set of awards are also nominated from within the community. If there are sins, either of omission or commission, then it is accordingly to the community itself that one needs to look, not to JDJ or SOA Web Services Journal or LinuxWorld Magazine or any of the other SYS-CON publications that hold RCAs each year.

Java, .NET, SOA, Web Services, Linux, XML, Open Source and AJAX Predictions for 2006

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 08:15:00 EST

This is traditionally the time of year for SYS-CON Media's roundup of i-Technology predictions from around the Web and the year's harvest of thoughts and viewpoints. According to our worldwide network of software development activists, evangelists, and executives, 2006 promises to be a vintage year for software development...

Oracle-Sun Announcement: Sun's Schwartz Sets the Record Straight

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 02:45:00 EST

'Please don't read [anything] in to my not being at Sun's recent announcement with Oracle,' wrote Sun's president and COO Jonathan Schwartz the weekend after Sun (represented not by Jonathan but by Scott McNealy) and Oracle (represented by Larry Ellison) announced a broad-based reinvigoration of their collaboration. Schwartz's intention? To quash idle press speculation that his absence from the Sun-Oracle 'Town Hall Meeting' somehow betokened something mysterious. It didn't, Schwartz insists.

Accelerating Uphill: Gravity-Defying Businesses Will Win the Race to be Great

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 03:30:00 EST

Sometimes people ask me what it takes to run a successful business and I, who know only the media business, am always hesitant to reply. What could someone who has 'merely' spent the past 25 years exclusively in publishing and broadcasting via radio, TV, print and, most recently, online possibly tell anyone about the wider world of business - the hurly-burly of globalization, the brouhaha surrounding offshoring, the cut and thrust of M&As, hostile takeovers, poison pills, and platinum parachutes?

Companies Who Dare to "Disturb the Lexicon" Win

Thu, 10 Nov 2005 19:30:00 EST

If successful trade expos are a good barometer of the market place (and they are), then things are going very well indeed with the homegrown category of apps named by Macromedia (soon to become Adobe), namely 'RIAs.' Which started me thinking: to what extent are the winners in the game of personal and enterprise software those who first and foremost win The Name Game?

i-Technology Viewpoint: "Pessimism Leads to Weakness, Optimism to Power"

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 06:15:00 EDT

Sun and Google are going to be teaming up to take on Microsoft in its holiest of holy markets, the desktop. Could such an alliance have been dreamed of just one year ago? The answer, of course, is 'Yes!' 'Game-changing' is what a disruptive company like Google does best, and Sun for its part isn't a slouch when it comes to innovation, especially not since the arrival of Jonathan Schwartz.

Java Developers: 'Just Do It!'

Mon, 19 Sep 2005 13:00:00 EDT

September is here and since the name comes from the Latin septem, for 'seven' - September having been until 153 BCE not the ninth but the seventh month of the Roman calendar - I have no hesitation in saying that it's an appropriate month to pluck just seven items from the wealth of information and insight in this issue and say just a little about each of them, to help you to decide what to read first in this issue of JDJ.

It's Official: Welcome to the 'Technology Bounce Back'

Wed, 10 Aug 2005 09:00:00 EDT

All the myriad commentators who monitor Internet technologies and the i-Technology companies on the NASDAQ doubtless have their own private cluster of indicators that they use to take a weather-check on the overall state of the industry. For some, it's as simple as looking at the NASDAQ index level. This (wholly understandable) approach is the one adopted by SYS-CON's own Roger Strukhoff, who wrote recently

Sun Did It in 1986; Microsoft Took Longer

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 13:30:00 EDT

Who do you suppose registered their corporate Internet domain name first: Microsoft, Oracle, or Sun? The answer is Sun; it did so in 1986. When in the early 1980s Dr. David Mills, John Postel, Zaw-Sing Su, and Dr. Paul Mockapetris were all involved in the development of the Domain Name System, known ever since by its initials DNS, their aim was to allow organizations to have meaningful names for paths to their systems, since by then computers had begun connecting to each other over wide area networks. However, it was unlikely that at the time any of those fine professionals ever had an inkling of what kind of unprecedented 'land-grab' the system was destined to spawn.

From JavaOne to JavaTen

Wed, 29 Jun 2005 10:15:00 EDT

Technology birthdays come and go, but Internet technologies, by their very nature, aren't old enough to allow yet for centenaries, or even diamond anniversaries. So it is fascinating to see how people are reacting to the fact that popular technologies like Java, ColdFusion, and Flash have now finally reached - or are about to reach - the ripe old age of 10.

i-Technology Blogging Begins at Home

Tue, 17 May 2005 20:45:00 EDT

When we opened up the JDJ domain to bloggers everywhere, we knew the take-up would be good. But one thing we couldn't be certain about in advance was whether the blogs themselves would be any good. We needn't have worried. As many of you will already have found out, the editors of JDJ all blog regularly, and naturally RSS feeds are available too - so if in between issues of the magazine you want to read something by, say, Ajit Sagar, all you need to do now is scoot over.

Open Source, Open Sesame?

Thu, 10 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST

As Sun open-sources Solaris, and another software development 'community' is tugged into being around it, critics are saying - Red Hat's general counsel Mark Webbink in particular - that the strategy will fail.

The i-Technology Right Stuff

Tue, 21 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST

Our search for the Twenty Top Software People in the World is nearing completion. In the SYS-CON tradition of empowering readers, we are leaving the final 'cut' to you, so here are the top 40 nominations in alphabetical order. Our aim this time round is to whittle this 40 down to twenty, not (yet) to put the twenty in any order of preference. All you need to do to vote is to go to the Further Details page of any nominee you'd like to see in the top half of the poll when we close voting on Christmas Eve, December 24, and cast your vote. Happy voting!

Sung and Unsung i-Technology Heroes

Mon, 08 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST

When I asked in a previous editorial who the Top Twenty Software People in the World were, I knew there would be a widely divergent response from readers. As promised, here's a preliminary update on the identity of some of your nominees.

i-Technology Viewpoint: Is Mergermania Back?

Wed, 06 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Hurricanes Ivan, Charley, and Frances notwithstanding, sometimes being in the eye of the storm has its advantages. At SYS-CON Media, where we by definition dwell at the epicenter of what might be called the i-technology weather cycle, our central position allows us to ask industry influencers for quickfire responses to burning issues of the day.

i-Technology Viewpoint: "Java is Back!"

Thu, 12 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

What do a CNET technology columnist, 95.5 million telephone handsets, and Sun's president and COO all have in common? Answer: they all strongly favor Java. Is it a sign of better times ahead for the language once known as 'Oak'?