Application Development Trends' News


New Rational Tools Link Operations to Development

IBM Rational has announced two new tools to bridge the traditional gap between enterprise IT operations and application development by integrating its testing and development tools with its Tivoli application management software.

alphaWorks to Provide Window on IBM Research Labs

IBM launched its alphaWorks Web site in 1996 as an emerging technology showcase for developers. A component of IBM’s developerWorks, alphaWorks is where IBM publishes early implementations of technologies and research prototypes, primarily for early adopters.

IBM Helps Companies Put Guard Up with Privacy Software

IBM recently introduced software it says will allow companies to share and compare information, while protecting private and sensitive personal information.

State of Texas Recovers $400 million Through Predictive Analytics

All states face compliance regulations when it comes to taxes. Tax gaps usually arise between the tax owed and the amount collected, which is the thrust behind tax audits: to reclaim that missing money. The state of Texas took a proactive approach to reducing its tax gap by implementing SPSS predictive analytics technology to aid in the process.

Reinvent or Else or Maybe Not

It looks like gloomy skies ahead for IT professionals, if the crystal-ball gazers at Gartner turn out to be right—5 years from now. Analysts at the market research firm predicted at a conference in Barcelona earlier this week that the number of IT pros will shrink by 15 percent come 2010.

IBM and Nortel Establish Dev Center

IBM and Nortel Networks have signed a new agreement to collaborate on product development and marketing. As part of the agreement, the two companies are establishing a development center in Research Triangle Park, NC.

Sun's Pragmatic Path to SOA

The watchword of Sun Microsystems' new specialized service-oriented architecture practice is pragmatism.

DirecTV Pulls Mega Project Together

DirecTV Group kicked off its enterprise architecture project last July with the idea of putting silos of information into a uniformed system.

Appistry weaves "fabric" for fault-tolerant apps

Throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, goes the old saw, and it'll jump right out. But drop him in while the water is cold, turn up the heat very slowly, and he'll never know he's being boiled. Although it turns out not to be true (according to Dr. Victor Hutchison, a professor from the University of Oklahoma), that story is an apt metaphor for the way developers have come to accept a very high level of complexity, says Mills Ripley, marketing manager at Appistry.

CodeCrawler in search of developers

A group of developers at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign released CodeCrawler, a Web-based search engine tailored for developers to search source code.

IBM and Red Hat launch Solaris-to-Linux migration program

orm migration programs are nothing new, and neither are strategic partnerships, but IBM and Red Hat's Solaris-to-Linux server migration program throws a spotlight on some significant trends around Linux, the server market and persistent perceptions of Solaris creator Sun Microsystems.

Happy Birthday, Java!

On Java’s 10th birthday, Javarss.com sums up the impact Java has had on the technology industry: “4 million Java developers. 1.75 billion devices run Java. Java is everywhere.”

Gartner to IT: Complexity Isn't All Bad

Complexity for complexity's sake is never a good thing, but complexity itself isn't always a bad thing. A modern MRI machine, for example, is much more complex than an X-ray machine, but the former device is also a vastly superior diagnostic tool.

Retraining Developers a High Cost of Service-oriented Development

Through 2007, enterprises will spend close to a COBOL developer’s salary if they choose to train that developer in Java and then retain the developer.

IBM Introduces Availability Monitoring Toolkit

IBM recently introduced the Availability Monitoring Toolkit, which would help developers determine—in an ad hoc manner—the status of a variety of services.

JDK Community Establishes Participation Site

The Java Development Kit Community is seeking interested parties to help create its project page, which details projects that are being developed as part of the community and defines the available roles.

OASIS Okays Open Source Open Doc Format for Office Apps

OASIS said yesterday that its members approved the OpenDocument file format as a standard. OpenDocument is a royalty-free, XML-based file format that covers features required by text, spreadsheets, charts and graphical documents.

Forrester: Employees Losing it with IT Support

Imagine this scenario: you’re having computer problems, you call up your company’s help desk, explain the situation and then they tell you to reboot your computer. Your computer’s rebooted and you’re still having problems.

Big Changes Coming for IT, Says Gartner Analyst

Technology and organizational changes are coming in every area of IT, and they are going to have a profound impact on virtually all of the 11 million IT professionals around the world—and eventually, everyone, everywhere.

Microsoft and Sun Join on Single Sign-on Specs

Microsoft and Sun Microsystems are collaborating to enhance interoperability between .NET- and Java-based technologies.