Applauding innovation and those who take risks

• By Michael W. Bucken
• July 5, 2001

Innovation knows no bounds. The winning applications in the 1998 edition of the Application Development Trends Innovator Awards competition come from a variety of industries and from companies of all sizes.

But the winning corporate development organizations also had something in common -- each used innovative, somewhat risky techniques to build an application that brought a competitive advantage. We applaud these risk takers and congratulate all on their successes.

I would like to thank the group of consultants at Keane Inc. in Boston and the editors here at Application Development Trends for their yeoman efforts in reviewing more than 100 entries, selecting the best applications from a very impressive lot and writing profiles of the winning applications and development teams.

The Keane team of judges consisted of Bill Champitto, the consulting manager that lead the team, and consultants John Kelley, Dick Perkinson and Arvinder Oberoi. The entire staff of ADT was involved in the gathering of the applications and in the researching, writing and editing of the profiles.

The winning organizations ranged from the small West Roxbury, Mass., Veterans Administration Medical Center, to Browning-Ferris Industries Inc., a Houston-based waste services giant. The other winning applications are: the Texas Workforce Commission; TeleService Resources, a Fort Worth, Texas-based call center unit of AMR Corp.; Boeing Wichita Information Systems, the Wichita, Kan. I/S unit of The Boeing Co.; and Hong Kong International Terminals Ltd., one of the largest container terminal operations in the world.

We also describe several applications that gained Honorable Mention awards in each of the seven categories. We encourage you to read profiles of each winning and runner up application in the special Innovator Awards section.

Meanwhile, our cover story this month, "Write Once, Test Everywhere," examines some serious issues faced by organizations looking to use Java in component-based development projects.

Author Sandra Taylor, director of SPG Analyst Services, notes that the write-once, run-anywhere mantra of Java has become muddled by too many platforms, too many Java Virtual Machines and too many versions of the Java Development Kit. Taylor examines the good and bad sides of the continuing changes in Java and component technologies.

Best Regards,

-Mike W. Bucken