Seesmic has acquired ping.fm

Loic LeMeur, the CEO of Seesmic, announced yesterday that his company has acquired ping.gm. As a “happy-user” of both services, I find this acquisition definitely interesting ;-)

I am using Twhirl as a Windows Twitter client, and the ping.fm service to spread my updates to LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, Plaxo and FriendFeed.

We're happy to share with you very big news if you have not heard. We've acquired Ping.fm. Get ready to update 50 social networks from Seesmic.

[…] Ping.fm has more than half a million active users who post daily from any device just by sending an email, a text message or chat - simple tools that existed since the early stages of the Internet are available on all connected devices. This is why Ping.fm is extremely easy to use and access -just send an update and it can touch on 50 social networks including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Ning, WordPress, TypePad, Yammer, Status.net and many more. Ping.fm is compatible with every single Internet device in the world, which is why it has become so successful among thousands of users. 

[…]

Thanks to its powerful and simple API, more than a hundred applications already use Ping.fm to update all the main social networks and Seesmic commits to maintaining and improving the Ping.fm platform. Not only has Twhirl supported Ping.fm for about a year, but we are also preparing to open Seesmic apps with our own plug-in architecture so we understand and care about the developer community. Ping.fm co-founders, Adam Duffy and Sean McCullough, are joining the Seesmic team full time and will keep improving Ping.fm as well as integrating it with our Seesmic applications. The number one request from Ping.fm users is to have more powerful clients support postings to their social networks, so they should be pleased to know Seesmic applications will be adding this functionality.

Seesmic is also welcoming ping.fm angel investors as shareholders and advisors Joi Ito (@joi), Reid Hoffman (@quixotic) who was already a Seesmic shareholder and Mohamed Nanabhay (@mohamed). Seesmic applications on Blackberry,  Android,  Web,  Windows  and OSX via Air will all have advanced Ping.fm integration very shortly and therefore will instantly support 50 social networks.

[via Loic’s information mail]

Supercomputing and Linux

via 451 CAOS Theory

I haven’t realized yet how far Linux extremely dominates the Supercomputing market as Operating System.

Evolution of the Linux OS share in the Top500 (Supercomputing 2009):

• November 2007: 84.6%
• November 2007: 87.8%
• November 2009: 89.2%

All Top10 systems are based on Linux.

The 451 Group published also another “worth-to-read” article about Open source software and the need for speed.

We’ve also seen speed as a factor for building and providing cloud computing infrastructure. Vendors report that Linux is ideal for cloud construction since the availability of source code means that unecessary pieces can be relatively easily and quickly cut out of the OS.

BY the way, more than 80% of the Top500 systems are using Intel computers, 10% IBM Power processors, and 8% AMD Opteron. More than 85% are already based on Quad-core processors! HP is delivering 42% of the servers, and IBM 37% (source: Top500 computer sites).

And: 82% of the Top500 systems integrate between 2’000 and 8’000 processors. 1% more than 128’000 processors (source: Top500 computer sites)!

And: the Top1 (a Lab of the US Department of Energy) uses 224’162 AMD Opteron Six Core 2.6 GHz processors and generates 1’759 TFlops (source: Top500 computer sites).

MVVM Light Toolkit V2

via Laurent and the Innoveo Blog

Cool stuff!

At Innoveo Solutions we are using .NET and WPF for our Innoveo Skye® Editor application. Skye® Editor is a distribution channel editor targeting business people letting them edit and configure their insurance products.

From the beginning we have adopted the Model-View-ViewModel architecture. Having our solution growing we were facing the issue of having our ViewModels dependency growing too. Some ViewModel became too much dependent of others. This was obvious in our unit tests whose complexity to setup were growing too. It was time to find a solution to decouple the ViewModels.

The solution came out after a discussion with Laurent Bugnion, the famous author of MVVM Light Toolkit. At that time we used the V1 that already helped a lot in this decoupling.

Now with MVVM Light Toolkit V2 it is even better with the new Messenger API. What we also really appreciated in comparison to other frameworks is that it is really light and the ability to open and edit the user interface into Expression Blend.

So Thank you Laurent for this GREAT framework and I looking forward for V3!

I also would like to thank my managers at Innoveo Solutions who understand Open Source and the need to have people contributing to Open Source projects, even during their professional working time. A Win-Win situation and not just a one way benefit as often.

Thanks also from my side to Laurent Bugnion, great work and contribution!

Adcubum and Innoveo agree to a strategic partnership!

We are very happy to announce that we, at Innoveo, could agree to a strategic partnership with Adcubum, a Swiss product software company also focused on the insurance market, and developing a very complementary product, adcubum SYRIUS® (back-office), to Innoveo Skye® (front-office).

A step-by-step process, very solid, between the two companies, integrating both Boards of Directors, Executive Management Teams and operational experts, to be able to mature the cooperation model on a strategic and product levels. The first operational activities have started for exactly one year in September 2008, with the first contacts in spring 2008.

And, it is always better to announce this kind of partnership, when both partners have already won together a customer, which is the case for us ;-)

Some words about Adcubum

Adcubum was founded in 1998, is privately held, with more than 100 people, and a capital of 7.5 million CHF. Our colleagues have so far achieved 60% market coverage in Switzerland (health insurance) and 100% in Slovakia (social security) with adcubum SYRIUS®.

They are now expanding their activities to the important markets of Germany and Eastern Europe, and to the Property & Casualty (P&C) lines of business.

 

PRESS RELEASE

 Adcubum and Innoveo contract a strategic partnership to integrate the multi-channel distribution solution Innoveo Skye® with adcubum SYRIUS®.

St. Gallen, 30th September 2009 - Adcubum and Innoveo intensify their co-operation and agree to a product and strategic partnership. Goal of this agreement is the seamless integration of the multi-channel distribution solution Innoveo Skye® in the insurance core solution adcubum SYRIUS® as an optional module. Therewith, their customers are in a position to use the software for all lines of business and to holistically support respectively control their products and services sales. Moreover, with this co-operation Adcubum and Innoveo consolidate their complementary competences and experience in the insurance industry.

Like adcubum SYRIUS®, Innoveo Skye® is based on a state-of-the-art scalable 4-tier-architecture and is easily embedded in any portal solution. Innoveo Skye® comprises all lines of business in the insurance industry (health insurance, property and casualty insurance, life insurance) and supports various back-office systems simultaneously. Furthermore, Innoveo Skye® is capable of multi-channel operations, which enable insurance companies to quickly and consistently offer new products and services via different channels like branches, agencies, insurance brokers or via the Internet.

"The partnership with Adcubum allows to offer our complementary expertise and insurance solutions in one integrated product", says Nick Stefania, Managing Partner of Innoveo. "Customers benefit of a reduced time-to-market for their insurance products and we enable them to offer all insurance products and services for every distribution channel with one single module."

"We are already working together intensively with Innoveo in a customer project", says René Janesch, member of the executive board of Adcubum. "Insurance companies seek more and more for an end-to-end solution supporting the continuous process from the back-office management to the multi-channel distribution. Hence, the current point in time is most convenient for such a collaboration. Above all, we are able to considerably strengthen our know-how in the property and casualty insurance market."

Press release English / German

Innoveo corporate fact sheet English

 

Adcubum AG
Adcubum is a leading Swiss software manufacturer in the international insurance business. The core solution adcubum SYRIUS® is a modularly built back-office system for health, accident and property and casualty insurances based on the Java Platform Enterprise Edition (Java EE) technology. The foundation for the successful company history was laid in St. Gallen in 1998. Since then, the product has been continuously enhanced according to customer and market requirements. At present the company employs more than 100 high qualified and specialised experts. Multiple millions of insured persons with more than 30 million claims are administrated by the core solution adcubum SYRIUS® - tendency rising.

Further information under: www.adcubum.com

 

Innoveo Solutions AG
Innoveo emerged as an independent software manufacturer from a spin-out of the Helvetia Group in 2007. It is characterized by a unique combination of technology expertise and insurance industry knowledge. The SOA/Java EE based agile insurance front-office system Innoveo Skye® is based on more than 12 years of experience in the implementation of flexible distribution systems for all lines of business as well as in the integration of any back-office and CRM systems as well as portals. In an increasingly diversified market a consistent, per distribution channel and insurance product configurable solution offers crucial strategic possibilities, considerable time savings as well as remarkable cost efficiency for the launch of new products.

Further information under: www.innoveo.com

VMware/SpringSource – About PaaS

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.

A post from Rod Johnson, CEO of SpringSource

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. […]

An analysis from 451 CAOS Theory

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.

Cédric nominated to the EOS Directory Advisory Board

I am very proud to announce that Cédric Walter, one of our colleague and founding member of Innoveo, is nominated to the EOS Directory (Enterprise Open Source Directory) Advisory and Expert Board. Cédric is a very well-known contributor of the Joomla community since 2004.

EOS Directory is a great catalog of more than 350 open source projects, that are listed, described and analyzed. It is today the leading online platform to help enterprises and organizations identify and evaluate Open Source technologies. Initially launched by Optaros, about two years ago, the platform has been recently handed over by Bruno von Rotz, initial sponsor of the initiative, well known Open Source specialist, and one of our Innoveo Board Member.

In support to strengthen the neutral approach to ratings and selection of the technologies, the new EOS Directory Advisory and Expert Board has been established over the last weeks.

The Advisory and Expert Board will be both instrumental in guiding the future development of the EOS Directory Platform as well as in making sure that the content is accurate, relevant and fairly represented. (Source: EOS Directory Blog)

Congratulations to Cédric!

More Information on Cédric’s blog and the EOS Directory blog.

Cross-posted on the Innoveo Blog.

IBM Rational conference

via Judith Hurwirtz

Judith has attended to the last IBM Rational Conference and is sharing with us some noteworthy aspects of the “changing landscape of software development”.

1. Rational is moving from tools company to a software development platform. […]
2. More management, fewer low level developers [were attending the conference] […]
3. Rational has changed dramatically through acquisitions. […]
4. It’s all about Jazz. Jazz, IBM’s collaboration platform was a major focus of the conference.  Jazz is an architecture intended to integrate data and function.  Jazz’s foundation is the REST architecture and therefore it is well positioned for use in Web 2.0 applications. What is most important is that IBM is bringing all of its Rational technology under this model. Over the next few years, we can expect to see this framework under all of the Rational’s products.
5. Rational doesn’t stand alone. […] What I found quite interesting was the emphasis on the intersection between the Rational platform and Tivoli’s management services as well as Websphere’s Service Oriented Architecture offerings. Rational also made a point of focusing on the use of collaboration elements provided by the Lotus division.  Cloud computing was also a major focus of discussion at the event.[…] The one area that IBM seem to have hit a home run is its Cloud Burst appliance which is intended create and manage virtual images. Rational is also beginning to deliver its testing offerings as cloud based services. One of the most interesting elements of its approach is to use tokens as a licensing model. In other words, customers purchase a set number of tokens or virtual licenses that can be used to purchase services that are not tied to a specific project or product.

Cross-posted on the Innoveo Blog

Software maintenance

via Judith Hurwitz

Judith is bringing, as usual, interesting feeds for thoughts, this time in the field of software maintenance fees.

[…] As the world slowly moves to cloud computing for economic reasons there will be a major impact on how companies pay for software. Salesforce.com has indeed proven that companies are willing to trust their sales and customer data to a Software as a Service vendor. These customers are also willing to pay per user or per company yearly fees to rent software. Does this mean that they are no longer paying maintance fees? My answer would be no. It is all about accounting and economics. Clearly, Salesforce.com spends a lot of money adding functionality to its application and someone pays for that. So, what part of that monthly or yearly per user fee is allocated to maintaining the application? Who knows? And I am sure that it is not one of those statistics that Salesforce.com or any other Software as a Service or any Platform as a Service vendor is going to publish. Why? Because these companies don’t think of themselves as traditional software companies. They don’t expect that anyone will ever own a copy of their code.

The bottom line is that software will never be good enough to never need maintenance. Software vendors — whether they sell perpetual licenses or Software as a Service– will continue to charge for maintance. The reality is that the concrete idea of the maintenance fee will evolve over time. Customers will pay it but they probably won’t see it on their bills. Nevertheless, the impact on traditional software companies will be dramatic over time and a lot of these companies will have to rethink their strategies. Many software companies have become increasingly dependent on maintenance revenue to keep revenue growing. I think that Marc Benioff has started a conversation that will spark a debate that could have wide ranging implications for the future of not only maintenance but of what we think of as software.

Interesting!

Cross-posted on the Innoveo Blog.

Oracle buys Sun

via Between the Lines

As everybody already knows, Oracle is buying Sun for about $7.4 billion, including Sun’s debt ($9.50 a share in cash). Some interesting thoughts from Larry Dignan, Editor in Chief of ZDNet.

• [Oracle] added that the acquisition of Java “is the most important software Oracle has ever acquired.”
• Oracle also becomes a full-fledged hardware player.
• Oracle and Sun have been long-time partners. […] “More Oracle databases run on the Solaris Sparc than any other system,” said Ellison, noting Linux was second. “We’ll engineer the Oracle database and Solaris operating system together. With Sun we can make all components of the IT stack integrated and work well.”
• Oracle with Sun appears to be the Apple of the enterprise. Indeed, Oracle President Charles Phillips noted that the company is looking to offer everything from apps to the disk.
• Oracle’s stack of IT stuff now includes:
  • Java;
  • Solaris;
  • Enterprise applications ranging from CRM to ERP to business intelligence;
  • The database (Oracle and MySQL);
  • The middleware;
  • The storage hardware;
  • Cloud computing services;
  • And servers.
• Art of War approach:
  • Oracle gets to annoy IBM—and own Java—over a few pennies a share more than Big Blue was willing to pay.
  • Oracle gets to kill MySQL. There’s no way Ellison will let that open source database mess with the margins of his database. MySQL at best will wither from neglect. In any case, MySQL is MyToast.
  • Sun has a big installed base. All the better to upsell applications into.
• Sun was relatively cheap compared to Oracle’s other acquisitions. The price was above the Hyperion buyout but below PeopleSoft and Siebel.
• Oracle saves Sun management from what could have been a complete debacle following the IBM takeover talks. The Sun board had been split on the IBM deal. Today, it’s all roses.

The official Oracle press release can be found here.

It is clear that this deal will change the IT landscape quite massively. And the consolidation is definitely not finished…

Cross-posted on the Innoveo Blog.

Twhirl v0.9 is out!

The new version of Twhirl is out after a good organized and dynamic private beta phase. You can download it here.

This version is very stable, no problem to attend on this side.

I’m quite a fan for a while of Twhirl as a Twitter client. Now, it allows also to broadcast your messages to Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. through the ping.fm service.

By the way, do you know this ping.fm service? Really great! It allows to publish centrally and to push your messages to the different “status” services of the main social networking websites. Worth a try, it’s free!

Below, some information about Twhirl.

Twhirl features

• multiple Twitter, laconica, Friendfeed and Seesmic account support
• runs on Windows and Mac OSX (and Linux)
• notifications of new messages across all of your accounts
• shorten long urls easily (using snurl, twurl or isgd)
• post images to TwitPic
• search tweets using Twitter Search and Tweetscan
• timeline filtering
• groovy color schemes to personalize your experience
• automatically checks for new versions

What’s new in Twhirl v0.9

• spellchecker (currently English only, can be deactivated in settings if you use Twhirl in other languages)
• your Twitter @replies will display even if you are mentioned in the middle of a tweet - don't miss anyone quoting your name
• share all your updates to all your favorite social software via Ping.FM support: Twhirl now posts to Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more
• follow any topic in near-realtime: searching for a term or a brand and then activating it as a saved search it will bring all future mentions of it into your timeline
• record a video and post it straight to Twitter, then get your Seesmic video replies and follow the video conversation
• get new Seesmic replies and videos in realtime thanks to XMPP support
• support for bitly url shortnener with stats and history
• support for direct messages and favorites on laconica/identica

Actually, I’m using Twhirl as micro-blogging client, without being a seesmic user ;-)

Have a look also at the video from Loic, showing how Twhirl is working.

Marten Mickos, former MySQL CEO, is to depart Sun

via 451 CAOS Theory

It seems that SUN will not communicate on that, but Marten Mickos, the former MySql CEO, is leaving SUN, after about 1 year... I remember one of my post in February 2008 with some explanations about the “why” of this merge, directly from Marten. Outch. Something didn’t work as planed there.

Some more information below.

I just got news that Marten Mickos, former MySQL CEO, is to depart Sun amid a reorganisation of its infrastructure and database business units. Don’t expect an announcement from Sun on this, but the news is confirmed.

[…] Marten will be transitioning out of Sun by the end of the company’s (current) third quarter.

Marten’s departure is a big loss for Sun and follows quickly after the departures of Monty Widenius and David Axmark.

[…] Matt Asay is right, Marten’s departure “is likely to lead to an exodus among MySQL’s deep talent pool”. This needn’t be a complete disaster - the same thing happened at JBoss and Red Hat has recovered from that, but this is going to be a serious test for Sun’s ability to maximize on the potential of MySQL and its other open source assets.

Matt also writes that “Mickos was the backbone of MySQL’s rising revenues, as an open-source pragmatist and visionary. He was the face of MySQL, but also of the rising open-source industry.” This is true, and for that reason I hope it’s not too long before we see him taking charge at another vendor.

Good luck to Marten, hope to see him asap in a new role!

What is a great software company

via Judith Hurwitz

Judith is discussing the difference between a good and a great software company.

Interesting insights!

1. Great companies start with a predictable business model and turn the model upside down. They look three years ahead and experiment with innovation. They have to have a combination of intuition, risk, and innovation. These companies are willing to take enough risk to win big but smart enough to know the difference between great opportunities and pipe dreams.

2. Great companies find new areas to position themselves for leadership. This is very tough to pull off. The area has to be important enough for the market to pay attention to but not too big that they look silly.  Great companies never try to take a big existing market with established leaders and try to claim primacy.

3. Great companies build great relationships. Management at these companies builds an ecosystem of influencers including great customers who will talk about the value, press, analysts, and partners who together help the company create a persona of innovation and greatness while the company is still building.

Great software companies are complicated to build.   The software business a complicated and brutal with  lots of failures at every turn.  […] It isn’t easy. Great software companies are even more difficult and scary to build.

Comparison of Open Source Application Servers

I have found - by accident really! – a very interesting presentation on SlideShare concerning the different leading Open Source Application Servers on the market.

This very solid evaluation is proposed by OpenLogic.

I have summarized parts of it below.

Goal of the presentation /

Help you choose which open source application servers to evaluate more thoroughly:

• JBoss
• GlassFish
• dm Server
• Geronimo
• Tomcat

Which open source application servers are your using or considering using /

J2EE Didn't Fill the Need /

• EJB 2 is difficult to use
  • Many people consider it unnecessary difficult
  • Entity Beans were especially problematic
  • But even session beans earned bad reputations
• The Open Source community responds
  • OSS packages mitigating the problem
    • Hibernate instead of Entity Beans
    • Spring as a component model
  • They were very successful in the marketplace
• Many Spring/Hibernate applications
  • Required only Tomcat to run but also work in full app servers

When Tomcat Is Not Enough /

• Tomcat doesn't support
  • JMS
  • EJBs
  • Other...
• Enterprises need integration
  • The more mature the app is, the more likely it is to be added
• Add-ons
  • It was possible to add things that Tomcat was missing
  • But this became a “build your own Frankenstein” exercise

Java Enterprise Edition in the Meantime /

• Weaknesses in EJB 2 model were recognized
• Work on new specification was completed
  • J2EE → JEE 5
  • EJB 2 → EJB 3
    • Entity Beans → JPA
• EJB 3
  • Simple annotation-based programming model
  • Not everybody adopted EJB 3
• JEE 6 will embrace modularity
  • Profiles, including web profile

Choices in 2007 /

• Use Spring
  • Start with full app server
  • Start with Tomcat, build from there
• Use EJB 3
  • Requires full app servers
• Full application server
  • Pros – everything you are likely to need, could use EJB
  • Cons – complexity, might use more resources then Tomcat
• Tomcat
  • Pros – small, simple, low resource usage
  • Cons – you might need to build your own app server, no EJB

OSGi /

• Started in 1999
  • Recently got a lot of exposure
  • In particular, R 4.1
    • JSR-294
• OSGi brings
  • Dependency management and modularity
  • Ability to load only parts it needs
• OSGi currently has a lot of mindshare

The central questions /

• Decisions, decisions
  • EJB 3 or Spring
  • Spring on dm Server or on J2EE/JEE server?
  • OSGi or not OSGi
  • Do I need EJB 2 compatibility?
  • In addition, there are many “old” considerations
• Servers are not “all inclusive”
  • EJB 3 apps won't work on SpringSource dm Server or Tomcat

Assessment JBoss /

JBoss Thought Leadership Complete ecosystem Portal ESB BPM JBoss has history of innovation Pioneer of EJB 3 Seam Application Framework Web Beans OSGi Support in JBoss 5	JBoss for Developers Excellent customizability JMX-based, don't deploy what you don't need Seam is worth a look for developers JDK 6 with 4.2.3 and 5.0 GA JDK 5 compiled binaries work on both JDK 5 and JDK 6 JBoss IDE Eclipse-based JBoss Tools Free version (RHDS is paid version)
JBoss in Production Dependability Excellent clustering and failover capability Reliable in production Monitoring and deployment capabilities Not really oriented toward system administration out of the box Command line/file edit flavor of configuration GUI tools (Tomcat manager and JMX Console) are fairly basic Excellent 3rd party tools available for monitoring Hyperic GroundWork IT JON *	JBoss – Conclusions Strengths Mature, scalable and reliable Good support for J2EE and EJB 3 Seam framework Weaknesses Limited GUI-based configuration in open source version LGPL License may be a concern for ISV's embedding app servers

Assessment SpringSource dm Server /

SpringSource dm Server Newcomer Released in April of 2008 GPL license Incorporates many mature components Spring Framework Tomcat Equinox dm Server users are very early adopters Different take on app server OSGi support No support for EJB No JMS out of the box	dm Server for Developers Server works well with Spring Framework IDE Spring IDE - IDE for Eclipse platform Support for NetBeans and IntelliJ OSGi support Resolves “dependency hell” But requires application migration to take advantage of it Supports Java 5 and 6
dm Server Thought Leadership OSGi-based Good OSGi implementation OSGi discussed a lot in their documentation No support for EJB No support for EJB 3 or old EJB 2 spec Spring offers similar functionality to Seam Which is somewhat more mature Although some of the Seam ideas might be somewhat more powerful Bijection	dm Server – Conclusions Strengths Support for Spring Framework Support for OSGi Weaknesses Newcomer No EJB Limited experience among workforce

Assessment Tomcat /

Tomcat First release (3.0.x) in 1999 Apache license Servlet container Lightweight server Used in many other app servers JBoss dm Server Geronimo	Tomcat – Conclusions Strengths Lightweight Well known and tested Fast startup/deployment for development Weaknesses No support for EJB, JMS or almost anything else outside of “web side”
Tomcat in Development and Production Tomcat 6 supports Clustering Failover Widely used for both development and production Supported in most popular IDEs

Conclusions /

• App servers are not just about the JEE specs
• Make some high-level decisions before evaluation
  • Do I need EJB 2 compatibility?
  • Do I intend to follow EJB 3 and other industry standards?
  • Do I need something fast, lightweight, and easy to use?
  • Do I have a need for lifecycle management of server components (through OSGi)?
  • Do I need support for dynamic languages like Groovy and JRuby?
  • Am I an early adopter of new technology?

Recommendations /

• “I’m using EJBs and I’m conservative”
  • JBoss, GlassFish
• “I don't need XA/JMS/EJB”
  • Tomcat, JBoss, GlassFish, dm Server
• “I’m using Spring”
  • Conservative - JBoss, Tomcat, GlassFish
  • Leading edge - dm Server
• “I need to embed an app server in my commercial code”
  • Tomcat, Geronimo
• “I use Spring heavily and I need OSGi”
  • I need it today and don't need EJBs - dm Server
  • I need it soon and/or need EJBs – GlassFish, JBoss
• “I use Seam”
  • JBoss
• “I want ActiveMQ/Spring/Hibernate preinstalled”
  • Geronimo
• “I need dynamic language support”
  • Groovy/Grails – dm Server, JBoss, GlassFish
  • JRuby/Rails - GlassFish, Geronimo

Innoveo Skye – Product strategy workshop

Yesterday and today, workshop with the Innoveo Management Team near Zurich for refining and documenting our Innoveo Skye™ (content, scope, roadmap) software solution for insurances (front-end and distribution).

More information there about Skye™.

 

Innoveo at the InsuranceCom conference

Innoveo was again this year partner of the InsuranceCom congress in Zurich.

Lot of very interesting presentations (main topic was innovation this year) and many very good contacts and exchanges!

International IT market is resisting the downturn

via EITO

Despite the weakness in the international economy, demand for information technology (IT) will continue to increase in the coming year. According to the new forecast of the international market research institute EITO, turnover of computers, software and IT services in Western Europe will increase by 2 percent in 2009, to a round 315 billion Euro. "IT expenditure of businesses will continue to grow even in an economic recession", said EITO chairman Bruno Lamborghini. "Information technology is of strategic importance for companies in a crisis situation because it makes operations more efficient and more economic." Increasing demand for IT was also to be expected from contractors working in the public sector, where investment has limited dependence on economic fluctuations. According to the latest forecast, providers of software and IT services in Western Europe will achieve a substantial increase in turnover of 3.2 percent in the coming year, to 228 billion. In comparison, manufacturers of IT hardware are facing a loss of 1.3 percent, to 87 billion Euro.

The EITO market researchers are expecting development of the IT market in Western Europe, which includes the 15 core countries of the EU with the addition of Switzerland and Norway, to be more robust than in the USA. IT turnover in the United States is forecast to grow by 0.8 percent to 347 billion Euro. Before the global financial crisis became more acute, EITO was assuming growth of the IT market at a level of 4.4 percent in the USA.

The global IT market for the year 2009 will grow, according to the EITO forecast, by 2.7 percent to 983 billion Euro. As in Europe, suppliers of software and IT services around the world are growing particularly strongly. Their turnover world-wide is forecast to grow by 3.4 percent to 677 billion Euro in the coming year. The hardware market is increasing by 1.3 percent to 305 billion Euro. The driving forces are emerging markets like China, India and Russia, which still have some ground to make up in developing their IT infrastructure.

So, summarized, concerning turnover forecast for 2009

• Worldwide:
  • Overall: +2.7%
  • Software and IT services: +3.4%
  • IT Hardware: +1.3%
• Western Europe (15 EU countries, Switzerland, Norway)
  • Overall: +2.0%
  • Software and IT services: +3.2%
  • IT Hardware: –1.3%
• USA:
  • Overall: +0.8%
• Western Europe more robust than in the USA
• Driving forces internationally: China, India, Russia (generally speaking: emerging markets)

Innoveo - A real life example of productive SOA solutions

Two years ago a first version of the publication “Service Oriented Architecture for Dummies” has been published. Therein our reference customer, the Helvetia Insurance Group, was mentioned together with the solution we have successfully put in place for them.

In the second, reviewed edition, Innoveo has been dedicated again one full chapter of the book. Still our solution is considered to be a practical, state of the art example of how SOA can work in real life, creating both, an enhanced efficiency and cost optimization on the IT side as well as real business benefits on the customer side.

We are proud of having been selected by Judith Hurwitz for her book and we wish Judith again an amazing success with this new publication.

Find more information about the book on Judith Hurwitz’s Weblog. Judith is one of the authors and we’ve had the pleasure to be directly in contact with her to discuss the content and the progresses we’ve made in the time between the first and the second edition.

You can order the book at Amazon.com.

Get additional information about our consulting services and our insurance frontend solution Innoveo Skye™ by visiting our company website.

cross-posted as Innoveo News.

Firefox Add-on – ScrapBook

I am not using so many Firefox Add-ons but this one – ScrapBook - is just great!

You can download it here.

What is ScrapBook

ScrapBook is a Firefox extension, which helps you to save Web pages and manage the collection. Key features are lightness, speed, accuracy and multi-language support.

Functionalities

Major features are:

• Save Web page
• Save snippet of Web page
• Save Web site (In-depth Capture)
• Organize the collection in the same way as Bookmarks
• Highlighter, Eraser and various page editing features
• Full text search and quick filtering search
• Text edit feature resembling Opera's Notes

Good tutorial here (pdf, 692KB)

Screenshot

 

My new lens: Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

I am using a Canon EOS 20D since April 2005 (!) with 2 lenses:

• an ultrawide-angle, the famous Canon EF 17-40mm, absolutely great
• a standard zoom lens with Image Stabilized, the Canon EF 28-135mm

I have taken a majority of my pictures with the 17-40mm, which is really very nice. Now, for travelling, and specially when you are in a “non-safe” atmosphere (humidity, dust, sand, etc.), it is quite difficult to change your lens. Without speaking about the transport ;-)

Canon has released this autumn a new lens, which is to my mind the “perfect” compromise between an ultrawide-angle and a zoom lens, the Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6, with Image Stabilization, but without the USM (Ultra Sonic Motor). Perfect compromise for the usage means also automatically … some optical compromises! Which “forces” me to start to use a “post-production” software, to be able to correct some very visible optical aberrations (barrel distortion, chromatic aberration, softness, etc.) with this lens. I am using DxO Optics Pro, but I will talk about that in a coming post!

Good summary from Wikipedia

Reviews indicate that the 18-200 does not compare to the 28-300L in terms of image quality, though this is understandable since the latter is priced much higher, due to it belonging to the L-series line. Most reviewers have criticised the lens for high levels of barrel distortion at the wide end, and chromatic aberration and softness evident at all focal lengths and apertures. The lack of an UltraSonic Motor has also been noted by reviewers, and along with the 18-55 IS has given rise to concerns that Canon may be moving towards removing USM from their lower-end lenses. It has generally been rated higher than Sigma and Tamron's offerings however, and has gotten generally positive reviews with the caveat that it is designed for convenience rather than image quality.

Some detailed reviews

• dpreview
• photozone
• the-digital-picture.com
• PhotoReview
• SLRgear.com

Scenarios For 2009: How CIOs Should Prepare (Forrester research)

via Ed Cone

Ed is pointing to a very interesting document from Forrester about the reactions of CIOs, classified by sectors. Including the Finance &  Insurance industries.

For the Insurance Industry, the analysis of Forrester is quite aligned with what we are perceiving at Innoveo.

The analysis is very recent and was presented during a webinar on December 11, 2008.

What is the insurance industry doing to address the downturn?

• Anticipating more cut backs for 2009.
• Insurance has already made significant cuts in IT spending early in 2008.
• Growth in IT purchases for Finance & Insurance:
  • 2007: +8%
  • 2008: -2%
  • 2009: -3%

How will the recession affect the Insurance Industry?

• Shallow recession: GOOD
• Deep recession: NEUTRAL

What are firms in these sectors doing to address the downturn?

• Most firms focus on IT’s traditional cost-cutting tactics.
• New investments (30% of the overall costs):
  • Portfolio segmentation
    • Use commodity / low-cost resources
    • Eliminate large-sized efforts
    • Focus on short-term returns
  • Adopt lean thinking, reduce complexity
  • Shorten planning horizons
• Operational costs (70% of the overall costs):
  • Consolidation/standardization, consistent with the business model
    • Data centers, server/storage virtualization
    • Consolidate and squeeze vendors
    • Centralization of IT contracts
  • Lean thinking — reduce complexity,
  • Staff and asset utilization optimization
    • Delay upgrades and refresh
    • Downgrade for lower volumes
    • Automate where it makes sense

The Finance & Insurance sectors are considering to invest in the following actions in 2009:

• Retiring older applications or technologies to save support costs 50%
• Adjusting project portfolios to increase near-term return on investment 55%
• Assessing the IT organization structure to improve efficiencies 60%
• Investing in technologies such as automation to reduce IT operating costs 70%

Leading firms take multiple alternative approaches:

• Traditional IT tactics to deliver short-term results
• Agility to offer alternatives in the long run — providing a lasting ability to rapidly shift partners, customers, and markets
  • Focus on increasing ability to change: adding/removing services, reselling services from third parties, channel integration
  • Focus on external interfaces to data and systems
    • Apply SOA for strategic flexibility
    • Look to third parties for flexible interfaces
  • Increase flexibility of contracts
  • Employ agile development methodologies
• Innovation to accelerate out of the downturn — new business models and product/service offerings in addition to operational improvements
  • Accelerating out of the downturn requires a strategic focus, but without higher overall costs
  • Use a portion of CapEx for innovative ideas
  • Focus innovation criteria on business strategies
  • Use Web 2.0 technologies to farm ideas from across your Innovation Network — internal and external
  • Employ a different idea pipeline / steering committee
  • Keep investment performance metrics

Summary for the Finance & Insurance sectors:

 

2009 will be a complicated year for software

via Judith Hurwitz

One of the first “predictions list” for 2009 for software companies.

Very interesting insights!

1. Software as a Service (SaaS) goes mainstream. It isn’t just for small companies anymore. […]
2. Tough economic times favor the big and stable technology companies. […] The only way emerging companies will survive is to do what I call “follow the pain”. In other words, come up with compelling technology that solves really tough problems that others can’t do. They need to fill the white space that the big vendors have not filled yet. […]
3. The Service Oriented Architecture market enters the post hype phase. […]
4. Service Management gets hot. […]
5. The desktop takes a beating in a tough economy. When times get tough companies look for ways to cut back and I expect that the desktop will be an area where companies will delay replacement of existing PCs. […]
6. The Cloud grows more serious. […] Just as companies are moving to SaaS because of economic reasons, companies will move to Clouds with the same goal – decreasing capital expenditures.  Companies will start to have to gain an understanding of the impact of trusting a third party provider. […]
7. There will be tech companies that fail in 2009. […]
8. Open Source will soar in this tight market. […] Companies that offer commercial open source will emerge as strong players.
9. Software goes vertical. I am not talking about packaged software. I anticipate that more and more companies will begin to package everything based on a solutions focus. […]
10. Appliances become a software platform of choice for customers. […] More software solutions will be sold with prepackaged solutions to make the acceptance rate for complex enterprise software easier.
11. Companies will spend money on anticipation management. […] Companies will need to understand not just what happened last year but where they should invest for the future. They cannot do this without understanding their data.

Wow, good food for thoughts!

I am excited also to be able to read the new version of the book “SOA for Dummies”, written, among others, by Judith Hurwitz. Innoveo should have there its own chapter, hopefully ;-)

10 characteristics of software companies that will fail

via Judith Hurwitz

Extremely interesting post from Judith. She is listing the 10 characteristics of software companies that will make them fail in the coming economical downturn phase.

1. My technology is so revolutionary everyone will want it.
2. The platform we offer to our customers is a complete architecture and we’re going to build an ecosystem.
3. We don’t plan to try to partner with the big players; it’s too hard.
4. We’d love to partner with a large vendor if they are willing to put our product on their price list and sell for us.
5. We sell a great tool.
6. Our technology sells itself.
7. We sell an entire turnkey environment.
8. We are implementing precisely what our customers tell us they need.
9. We are thinking about Software as a Service (SaaS)…but…
10. We are limiting our outreach in the market. It is too expensive to advertise or market. We’re going to wait until things get better.

So, are you “in” or “out”?

Innoveo Skye, a Swiss made software!

At Innoveo, we are member of the swiss made software community, since our creation.

"swiss made software" is the new label of the Swiss software industry. International software companies like Google, IBM or Microsoft have discovered the Swiss values - quality, reliability and precision - in software development and have established important research and development centers in Switzerland. If you are looking for Swiss values and innovation, openness and flexibility in software, choose your partner from this site.

Our software product – Innoveo Skye – is now also listed in the new product part of the swiss made software website.

Description: Innoveo Skye is a generic, flexible insurance sales solution. It supports an unlimited number of products and services, all lines of business (life and non-life) and all sales channels. Industrialize  
Technology: Insurance-specific, J2EE (TM) based IT solution on commercial (Weblogic (TM), Websphere (TM), ...) and open source (JBoss (TM)) infrastructure stacks, together with a wide range of business-oriented services. 

sugarCRM

via ITRmanager.com (in French)

At Innoveo, we are using intensively sugarCRM since the start of our company, for managing in a structured way our contacts, leads, opportunities and marketing material. At the end, our sales-funnel is managed in sugarCRM.

We are using the professional version of sugarCRM, which is a commercial open source CRM software. This allows us to connect in a very easy way Microsoft Outlook and sugarCRM (archiving of emails of example). Below you can have an idea about the different versions of sugarCRM:

ITRmanager has just posted an interesting interview with the CEO of sugarCRM, John Roberts:

• founded in 2004
• 180 employees
• 4’000 customers of the commercial editions of the product, more than 500 in Europe
• 450’000 users
• 5 million downloads
• one of the biggest PHP project, with more than 600’00 SLOC (Single Lines Of Code)
• 40 software developers that are working full-time on the product
• published under GPL v3
• 4 founding rounds for a total of $46 million
• their goal is not to propose free software, but a very good functional product for a cheaper price than its competitors, because of a different sales and marketing structure
• 80% of license sold, 20% on-demand
• only the software engineers of sugarCRM are developing the core-product, which represents 50 to 60% of the overall code
• about 100 external developers are contributing actively
• about 12’000 developers are representing the sugarCRM community and developing extensions (about 500 extensions so far)
• about 80’000 users are building the overall community, participating to the forums, roadmaps, tests, etc.
• IPO was planned for 2009, will be postponed
• about $20 million cash-reserve
• positive cash-flow planned for Q1/2009

Research & Development investments in 2007

via ITRmanager.com (in French)

An interesting study showing the amount of the investment in R&D at different technology-oriented companies.

Besides the amount of investments, I think that it is interesting to have a look at the investment in R&D as a % of the revenues of the company. This % is showing how far R&D and innovation is central or not for these companies.

Company	Revenues 2007 (in mio EUR)	R&D 2007 (in mio EUR)	R&D in % of the revenues
Symbian	264	128	48%
IONA	53	14	26%
Dassault Systems	1'259	292	23%
Adobe	2'160	419	19%
Alcatel-Lucent	18'005	3'368	19%
Yahoo!	4'767	818	17%
Intel	26'219	3'936	15%
SUN	9'489	1'384	15%
SAP	10'256	1'458	14%
Microsoft	41'325	5'584	14%
Cisco	23'885	3'077	13%
Google	11'350	1'450	13%
Oracle	15'341	1'875	12%
Nokia	51'058	5'281	10%
SunGard	3'352	203	6%
IBM	67'566	3'931	6%
Apple	16'419	586	4%
HP	71'130	2'470	3%
Swisscom	6'699	45	1%

 

Some surprises, no?

Articles, conferences, reports, books, collaterals and video

Above an updated list (per October 18, 2008) of the different publications, articles, conferences, reports, books, collaterals and video linked with my work in the last years by Helvetia, ecenter solutions, and now, innoveo!

 

	ARTICLES
1	31.10.2002	German, English	Switzerland	Schweizer Versicherung	pdf DE, pdf EN, url
2	26.11.2004	French	France	01 Informatique	pdf, url
3	06.01.2006	English	USA	CIO Insight	pdf, url
4	01.02.2006	English	Rusia	The Insurer	pdf, url
5	11.04.2006	English	USA	FinanceOnWindow	pdf, url
6	11.04.2006	English	USA	Finextra	pdf, url
7	12.04.2006	English	USA	CRMtoday	pdf, url
8	13.04.2006	English	USA	InfoWorld	pdf, url
9	20.04.2006	English	Australia	ComputerWorld Australia	pdf, url
10	24.04.2006	English	USA	ComputerWorld	pdf, url
11	30.04.2006	English	USA	Enterprise Networks&Servers	pdf, url
12	15.05.2006	English	NewZealand	ComputerWorld NewZealand	pdf, url
13	30.06.2006	German	Switzerland	Netzwoche	pdf, url
14	01.07.2006	English	USA	Insurance Networking	pdf, url
15	10.07.2006	English	USA	Computerwire	pdf, url
16	24.07.2006	English	USA	GlobalServices	pdf, url
17	04.09.2006	German	Germany	ComputerZeitung	pdf, url
18	06.11.2006	English	USA	Baseline	pdf, url
19	01.11.2007	German	Switzerland	ICT in Finance	pdf, url
	CONFERENCES
1	16.04.2003	German	Switzerland	Euroforum - VersicherungsIT	pdf, url
2	15.09.2005	German	Switzerland	IT-Strategie-Forum	pdf, url
3	29.11.2005	English	Russia	International Conference	pdf, url
4	15.05.2006	English	Italy	HP Enterprise Executive Summit	pdf, url
5	19.09.2006	English	Belgium	euroOSCON	pdf, url
	REPORTS
1	19.11.2005	English	USA	Thoughtware Worldwide	pdf, url
2	01.11.2006	English	USA	Hurwitz & Associates	pdf, url
3	01.12.2006	English	USA	Butler Group report	pdf, url
4	16.01.2007	English	USA	Celent	pdf, url
5	01.06.2007	English	USA	ovum report	pdf, url
	COLLATERALS
1	01.01.2001	German, English	Switzerland	HP Success Story	pdf DE, pdf EN
2	01.01.2002	German, English	Switzerland	HP Success Story	pdf DE, pdf EN
3	23.10.2006	English	USA	HP Success Story	pdf
4	01.08.2008	English	Switzerland	HP Marketing Collateral	pdf
	VIDEOS
1	01.10.2006	English	USA	HP Video	url

Innoveo Solutions, already one year - Part II

After the “who” of the “First who, then what”, let’s have a look at the “what” ;-) And let’s start with what I would like to call the “prerequisites”

 

Prerequisites

 

The prerequisites are quite “simple”! You have a business and the right people to address it ;-)

In other words: you have a business plan with clear ideas about:

• the status quo (current situation where you are in the founding, acquisition from customers, productizing, financing, etc.)
• you product and services
• the market you would like to address
• the competitors (no competitor, no market)
• marketing and sales
• administration & organization
• productizing
• management
• risk analysis
• finances

At the end, all this should be translated in a clear “values, vision, mission, industry and markets targeted, capabilities”.

As others, I like to speak about differentiation and customers’ pains, as from product positioning.

The best is still to confront your perception of the market with…the market itself! And to correct, iterate, improve, learn, make failures, learn, improve, etc.

We had the chance to start with a big customer contract with a well-known and established company, for quite a long duration. On top, we had also a huge asset, the IP (Intellectual Property) of our software product, coming from a 7 years development and big former investment.

 

Founding

Pfffuu, not so easy. Quite a lot of steps to do, and the first steps are extremely important!

• First you need to fix the name of the company. The name is representing your new venture. It is central for your identity, your marketing and communication future activities. If you have already tried to find a name for a product or a company, you should know that it is very difficult to find a name which is not already used or reserved. As everybody, you then try to combine names, to use Latin or Greek names, etc. We were lucky because after a lot of tries, Nick found the name INNOVEO. At this time, 34 results on Google! And no company registered in Switzerland under this name. Furthermore, Innoveo is a great combination between INNOvation and VEO which means “to see” in Latin. At the end, we decided also to add “Solutions” to our company name because we are delivering software solutions. The domain-name was already reserved. So we had to buy the different main domains (for “innoveo”) and to transfer them. The name is also usable internationally and doesn’t seem to mean something in another language.
• For the office location, it was clear that we wanted to stay in the Zurich/Switzerland area. As we are coming from different places, Zurich remains central and very attractive for hiring A-level international employees. Zurich is designated since years as one of the best place to live. On top, Zurich is a well-know financial place internationally. Concerning the office itself, we wanted to stay near a train-station. The building we were in before was ok. So after having evaluating other opportunities, we decided not to move.
• Our Team was fully integrated in the evaluation and decision process for the choice of the name, as for the office location.
• So, you have the name and the location, you need to choose the form of the company. This is also impacting a lot your venture! Accounting, Corporate Governance, legal obligations, etc. are very depending from this form. We mainly had two possibilities: “GmbH” (limited liability) or AG (Incorporated). As we have started with more than 14 people and we have very big companies as customers, it was quite clear that we need an “AG” form (incorporated). As for liabilities reasons (we deliver a software product).
• Then you need to work on the statutes of the company.
• You have to structure and define your Board of Directors. It was clear that Nick and myself will be members of the Board of Directors. We wanted to enlarge our Board with two external members, very qualified and experienced in different fields: strategic management, sales, software product marketing, product positioning, accompanying start-ups in their development, etc. We had the chance to be able to gain Bruno and Pancho. The organization of the regulations between the Shareholders’ Assembly, the Board of Directors and the Executive Management of the company should be also fixed and documented.
• Ok, then you need to find the shareholders, to define the level of equity requested, the investment of each shareholder, and to define the Shareholders’ Agreement.
• In the statutes, you have also to determine the signature rights of the Board and of the Management, and to authenticate them by a trustee.
• At this point, you have also to open a corporate bank account, to be able to transfer the capital … and pay your first bills due to the founding process ;-)
• The statutes, name and form of the company, office location, member of the Board of Directors, level of Equity, and the signature rights have to be registered (and partly published) at the Commercial Register.
• For all these steps, you need absolutely the support of a attorney at law and a trustee. And, it is not the last time that you will need them ;-) We are working with Peter Neuenschwander (attorney) and Oliver Götz (trustee). since more than 18 months now. These two persons are extremely important for our company.
• A picture below taken from the office of the notary in Walliseller – Switzerland, where Innoveo Solutions was founded on Monday, June 25, 2007 (Nick, Lorenz, Philippe and myself).

That is, more or less (I have surely forgotten some stuff!), the founding process. At the same time, you need to define quite a lot of administrative processes. These, for the next post!