![oracle[1]](http://www.didierbeck.com/pics/2008/04/b11e3a5611cc_9F94/oracle1.png "oracle[1]")
Innoveo Solutions enjoys its new membership to the Oracle PartnerNetwork, which is illustrating the long and successful deployment of our insurance frontend solution – Innoveo Skye® integrating Oracle databases.
Our partnership with Oracle helps us to leverage our expertise and build on the strong foundation that Oracle’s technology provides.
Cross-posted on the Innoveo blog.
via HubbleSite and cnet
The Hubble telescope is again working well. The first images were published by the NASA. Simply extraordinary!
The Hubble Space Telescope got back to business this summer after an intensive repair and upgrade mission in May by a crew aboard the space shuttle. This week, an exultant NASA praised the work done by the astronauts–“Bottom line, these professionals left Hubble as a new state-of-the-art telescope,” said Ed Weiler, the agency’s associate administrator for space science–and released a series of photos that offer fresh and spectacular glimpses of the interstellar realm.
Three fantastic examples of these new “shots”.
This image, taken by the new Wide Field Camera 3, shows the Butterfly Nebula (or Bug Nebula, cataloged as NGC 6302), at the center of which is a dying star that once had five times the mass of Earth’s sun. The wings of this butterfly are actually gas heated to 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit and traveling faster than 600,000 miles per hour, NASA says. The nebula is some 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius, within the Milky Way galaxy. The outer edges of the butterfly wings arise from light emitted by nitrogen, while the white areas show light emitted by sulfur.
Photo by NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
The Wide Field Camera 3 captured this still life of Stephan’s Quintet, a group of five galaxies. (It’s also known as Hickson Compact Group 92.) At the top right is NGC 7319, a barred spiral, and those blue and red specks are clusters of thousands of stars.
At the center are two galaxies that appear from this perspective almost as one, where there’s “a frenzy of star birth” going on. (For the record, they’re NGC 7318A and NGC 7318B.) At bottom left is NGC 7317, which NASA describes as “a normal-looking elliptical galaxy.”
At upper left is the dwarf galaxy NGC 7320, where the blue and pink dots represent bursts of star formation. It’s actually much closer to Earth (40 million light-years away) than the other four galaxies here (290 million light-years away, in the constellation Pegasus).
Photo by NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
A “huge pillar of star birth” taking place in the Carina Nebula is seen here in two images from the Wide Field Camera 3, the top one taken in visible light and the bottom one in infrared. In the infrared image, only a faint outline of the cloudlike pillar remains, allowing astronomers to see fledgling stars and other details more clearly.
At the center of each image is an infant star that is shooting out a jet of cosmic material to the left and to the right. The jets are thought to be moving at speeds of up to 850,000 miles an hour.
Photo by NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
VMware announced on August 10, 2009 its willingness to acquire SpringSource for $362 million in cash and equity, plus $58 million of unvested stock and options (press release). The process should be closed in Q3 2009.
How can this acquisition be interpreted? What are the goals of VMware/SpringSource?
Some interesting inputs and analysis found on Internet.
About the merge itself
[…] We have signed a definitive agreement with VMware, who will acquire SpringSource. Subject to regulatory approval, we expect the transaction to close in Q3. SpringSource will become a division within VMware. I will continue to lead SpringSource, reporting to VMware CEO Paul Maritz.
About the opportunity
[…] But the broader transformation in IT goes beyond Java frameworks, tooling and runtime infrastructure. The way in which people think about software stacks is changing. Virtualization is reshaping the data center, and cloud computing is set to drive far-reaching changes. Significantly, cloud computing blurs the division between development and operations, bringing new power (and responsibility) to developer.
And so the question becomes, what is the most simple, powerful, pragmatic way of utilizing SpringSource technologies in the data center, and in the cloud?
About the vision
Working together with VMware we plan on creating a single, integrated, build-run-manage solution for the data center, private clouds, and public clouds. A solution that exploits knowledge of the application structure, and collaboration with middleware and management components, to ensure optimal efficiency and resiliency of the supporting virtual environment at deployment time and during runtime. A solution that will deliver a Platform as a Service (Paas) […]
About the vision (said in other words)
The next chapter of our work at SpringSource is tackling those challenges: Building on our Build/Run/Manage solution to provide the industry’s best solution from developer desktop to cloud deployment. Bringing Spring’s power and simplicity to enabling the millions of Java developers to benefit from the full power of cloud computing. […]
About the representation of this vision
About the open source community
Our commitment to open source practices, licenses and traditions will remain unchanged. We expect our contributions to open source to increase. Our open source projects will retain their commitment to enabling user choice. Spring will retain the portability between deployment environments that empowers users. […]
Part I
[…] VMware is clearly in need of a story beyond virtualization, even if we are still relatively early on in enterprise adoption. Still, looking into the future, it sees clear skies, and that does not fit with the multi-billion dollar opportunity shaping up in cloud computing. Thus, VMware is willing to invest a significant amount in SpringSource, which does represent a crossover in customers without much, if any, crossover in competition.
Part II
VMware is working to address its increasing competition from all sides. While it may seem somewhat odd for VMware to want to get involved in enterprise Java application development and deployment, it may want to take advantage of SpringSource’s relatively quick climb in the enterprise Java development and support business. VMware may also be looking to offset any gain in enterprise Java influence and control by Oracle, which may do so with its more than $7 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems.
Part III
VMware is also facing increasing competition from OS vendors, including Microsoft, Novell and Red Hat, which is among SpringSource’s biggest competitors with its JBoss business. Again, SpringSource may not seem the most likely suitor for Java application development, but VMware may see this as an area where it can most effectively integrate its own technology and talent to differentiate in virtualization and cloud computing.[…]
Open source?
Although SpringSource’s open source nature has been critical to its developer reach and success, this is likely not as important to VMware, which may view SpringSource more as a subscription software company than as an open source software company. Either way, it seems VMware, similar to Oracle, may have somewhat limited vision when it comes to open source software, seeing it for its development and time-to-market advantages, but missing other community benefits — including user and customer communities, feedback and contributions — that help make things work.[…]
Disclosure: Innoveo Solutions is using Spring in its Innoveo Skye™ software product.
cross-posted on the Innoveo blog.
via Jeff Busgang
I personally like the idea that we are all able to learn during our entire life, thanks to our family and private life, thanks to our social and business activities.
I am also convinced that it is extremely important to be able to change your goals (without being frustrated) and, at the same time, to be very resilient, which is totally antinomic :-) A question of balance perhaps.
Anyway, super food for thoughts from Jeff!
[…] If you aren’t facile at adjusting your goals, and they’re overly ambitious goals, it can lead to depression.
[…] As investors, we VCs are always attracted to entrepreneurs who set big, hairy audacious goals (BHAGs). Who wants to invest in an entrepreneur whose pitch is, “I’m going to make a nice living in a small niche,” as opposed to, “I aspire to achieve world domination”? Yet are those entrepreneurs more susceptible to depression and defeatism when they’re unable to achieve those outrageous BHAGs?
To reconcile these two views I am reminded of an excellent book I recently read by renowned Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, called Mindset . Dweck’s research shows that successful people in business, sports and life have “growth mindsets” rather than “fixed mindsets”. The “growth mindset” is one in which a person believes that one’s world view is less about ability and more about lifelong learning. “Growth mindset” individuals feel they can always learn from experiences (failures and successes) and develop resilience because they’re focused on personal growth rather than achievement tied to rigid objectives. When a “growth mindset” individual faces adversity, they focus on the learnings and the self-improvement opportunities that come from adversity.
I have seen in my own work that the best entrepreneurs do set BHAGs, sometimes outrageous and unattainable ones (create a $100 million company in 5 years from scratch? Is that really possible?), and push themselves to achieve excellence. But the ones that really distinguish themselves are the ones who embrace the “growth mindset”. They embrace life long learning, no matter how great their achievements, and allow themselves to occasionally hit the reset button and adjust their goals […]
Again, an absolutely fantastic car from Maserati!
The new Maserati GranCabrio to premiere in Frankfurt.
The Maserati GranCabrio, the first four-seater convertible in the Trident carmaker’s history, will make its world wide debut on September 15 at the upcoming Frankfurt Motor Show. […]
It’s a Maserati in the purest sense of the word: from the unmistakable style by Pininfarina to the spacious interior […]
Four proper seats, so that the rear passengers are not merely supporting actors, but co-stars of the journey. […]
The GranCabrio is powered by a 4.7 liter V8, 323 kW engine and is the convertible with the longest wheelbase on the market. The GranCabrio’s roof is strictly canvas-made, emphasizing the link with the Maserati tradition. The Maserati GranCabrio will be marketed starting next winter, and experienced by customers the world over from the following spring.
As some of you have already observed, I have completely left my Flickr account since beginning of this year. For different reasons. I have to post about that too ;-)
I would like to mark this day because I have passed the 100’000 photos viewed on my SmugMug account within one month! These views have generated more than 16 GB of bandwidth usage for the same period (actually, exactly 29 days).
On my Flickr account, with about the same portfolio, I have today 18’341 views within … more than 2 years. Crazy, no?
All my photos and videos can be found under:
