For the third year running, IT salaries have gone up. If you're still making
the same cha-ching as you did in 2004, it may be time for a little heart-to-heart
with the old boss.
If he says no, you might want to show him a copy of Redmond magazine's
latest salary survey, which is summarized here.
Posted by Doug Barney on September 10, 20070 comments
ROI researchers Nucleus Research have found that when it comes to dollars and
cents, SOA doesn't always make cents (or dollars).
A
recent report shows that only a minority (37 percent) of SOA shops have
gotten their money back on SOA investments.
I worked for a bit for Nucleus and can tell you that its methods are pretty
darn solid. The group has debunked many a vendor ROI claim, saving customers
probably millions.
That said, these findings don't mean that SOA is no good. It's just that today,
SOA is complex, expensive and not always fully backed by developers.
I questioned SOA in
a recent editorial, asking if it was too complex and grand for its own good,
and if we would even be talking about it five years from now. What do think?
Is SOA the Lord's gift to software or a scheme for consultants and vendors to
make money? Let us know at [email protected]!
Posted by Doug Barney on August 27, 20070 comments
We at
Redmond have been semi-fans of what Microsoft is doing with open
source interoperability. Clearly, Microsoft has a Windows-first approach to
interoperability and management, such as its support for Centeris, Centrify
and Vintela (now owned by Quest), which all do a fine job of helping Windows
tools like AD to manage Linux, Unix and other systems (even the Mac!).
And Microsoft's détente with Novell is very real, unlike the deal with
Sun which seems to have turned into nothing besides an agreement not to publicly
flog each other.
Microsoft critics continue
to harp on the flaws, arguing that Microsoft doesn't "get" open
source licensing and, as a commercial (read: capitalist) concern, is trying
to define (read: control) how interoperability happens.
The critics are absolutely right, but so is Microsoft. It's doing the best
it can given the limits of self-interest. But that's just my opinion. Tell us
what you think at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on August 27, 20070 comments
Sun, to my mind, has been a mite shy about Java lately. It's been years since
I've heard Scott McNealy talk about "write once, run anywhere," and
how Java is going to take over the world.
But Sun apparently cares a lot more about Java than I thought, as it's changing
its stock symbol from
SUNW to JAVA (a little more catchy, eh?).
This is actually pretty cool, as it signals a long-term commitment to the Java
community.
Posted by Doug Barney on August 27, 20070 comments
You gotta love Mark Cuban, the founder of Broadcast.com and billionaire owner
of the Dallas Mavericks, where his temper and outspokenness have resulted in
over $1 million in fines (a drop in the bucket for someone worth $2.3 billion).
While Cuban made his billions from the Internet, he's not too excited about
what he sees in today's cyberspace. Cuban argues that the Internet "is
dead" and -- in a huge surprise to kids all over America -- that the 'Net
"is for old people."
Cuban loves to stir things up, but he makes some excellent points in a lengthy
interview with Portfolio magazine. His main concern is that broadband
speeds aren't increasing fast enough and aren't nearly snappy enough to support
revolutionary applications like quickly downloading high-quality movie files.
In a move I'll happily back, Cuban is calling for home connections to be 1GB
per second. Now, that's some serious downloading!
Posted by Doug Barney on August 27, 20070 comments
When most of us think of architecting a house, we imagine room shapes, door
openings and roof lines. Peter Rhys Jenkins thinks of software -- in this case,
SOA software.
At IBM's recent SHARE conference, Jenkins, an IBM employee, described
his SOA-based house -- a house three years in the making. This fully automated,
12,000 square-foot abode includes a system that detects (and eliminates with
extreme prejudice) mice in the barn and -- through RFID tags stuck in family
members' shoes -- makes sure that only friendlies are let into the house.
To me, this is like a car with too many options. Instead of driving, you spend
all your time and money fixing seat warmers, power windows, air conditioning
and your kids' stupid DVD players!<
>
Posted by Doug Barney on August 20, 20070 comments
Forty months ago, Sun and Microsoft buried the hatchets (the same ones they'd
been hurling at each other's skulls). As part of a broad agreement, Microsoft
promised it wouldn't sue Sun for any StarOffice patent or copyright infringement.
Little did Microsoft know that Google would use this deal against it. Last
week, Google announced that it's giving
away StarOffice, which ordinarily retails for $70 bucks.
Now, before you get too excited, keep in mind that the paid version includes
support. With the Google version, you're pretty much on your own. If you look
at it that way, it's nearly the same as simply downloading OpenOffice, which
is also free.
While some critics contend that this is a major challenge to Microsoft Office,
it's simply a marketing/distribution deal. And since the Google home page is
so sparse, I doubt most users will even know the software is available. If Google
really wants to unseat Office and Windows, it'll have to do a lot better than
this!
What say you? Share your thoughts with other Redmond Report readers be e-mailing
me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on August 20, 20070 comments
IBM and Sun have
reached
a major agreement that seems aimed at thwarting Hewlett-Packard. The first
part of the deal -- calling for Solaris to run on IBM Intel-based servers --
sounds a little silly: Solaris has run on Intel for years.
But plans to port Solaris to IBM Big Iron is a whole 'nuther story. This is
potentially a very big deal. As servers proliferate, there's not just management
complexity but huge electric bills, as well.
One approach to consolidate these servers is virtualization. Another is to
run apps on bigger servers, and they don't come any bigger than a mainframe
(supercomputers aside).
Have you looked at rationalizing your infrastructure, and are mainframes making
a comeback? Have any of you looked at Microsoft's Infrastructure Optimization
model and, if so, what do you think of it? Let us all know by writing [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on August 20, 20070 comments
Script Start, an automation tool that focuses largely on log-in scripts, is
now open
source.
The tool from Georgia-based Entrigue Systems has a graphical interface and
can "map drives, install printers, configure Outlook profiles, modify environment
variables, adjust Internet proxy settings [and] configure RDP connections,"
the company's Web site explains. Hmm, sounds a bit like our friends from ScriptLogic!
Going open source doesn't mean Entrigue has given up on capitalism. The higher-end
version that includes product support will be sold for $990 for each domain
controller.
Posted by Doug Barney on August 20, 20070 comments
When it comes to crafting SOA services, .NET has a slight -- very slight --
advantage over Java. As of now, 31 percent of SOA developers code in .NET, with
28 percent writing in Java. But Java is closing the gap and may surpass .NET
if the
trend continues.
To my mind, Microsoft has been too quiet about its SOA offering and plans,
and this isn't the best way to recruit developers.
In a recent Redmond cover story, Microsoft went into some detail about
its SOA strategy. Check it out here.
Posted by Doug Barney on August 13, 20070 comments
Add Pete to the list of readers who've moved away from Windows. Here's his story:
I made the switch some time ago, in 1993. I was working on a game using
Borland's Turbo Pascal in my spare time. As with a lot of games back then,
it used 32-bit protected mode, so it was not compatible with Windows, and
all the drivers (graphics, keyboard, mouse, timers, everything) were written
from scratch in assembly. I had libraries of code for processing images, animations,
sprites, the lot. I also had high school assignments which I typed up on the
computer using MS Works on Win3.1. After submitting some assignments, I became
interested in the file format that they were in. I was worried that my .WKS
files may not be readable in years to come. I couldn't find anywhere that
had details of the format, so I decided to have a look at the files themselves
in a binary editor. Lo and behold, what should I see but my own Pascal code
staring back at me! There were large blocks in this .WKS file that seemed
to be just dumps of random portions of memory (I can only assume I had the
TP IDE open at the time of saving the file). This really angered me and I
vowed to find an alternative to Microsoft, but since it was the family computer,
there was little I could do about it other than resort to doing assignments
on my Amiga.
The following year, I was off to university, and at some stage I managed
to afford a computer of my own. Some friends from the computer science department
started mentioning this Linux thing which was apparently a version of Unix
that ran on a PC. I'd heard of Unix before and my computer-related classes
all were based around Unix, so I decided to give it a try. They had arranged
a batch order of CD sets containing a number of distributions, but as the
first disk contained Slackware, that's what got loaded up. I wasn't particularly
blown away by the installer or the interface, but it worked identically to
the computers in my class labs so I spent quite a bit of time using it. I
didn't at first like the lack of control when coding -- you couldn't just
poke around with video registers and memory like you could with Windows --
but at least you didn't have to write code for every particular device out
there.
Little did I know that it was this protection that drove me to Linux
for good, since I'd upgraded the other drive to Windows 95 and it was proving
to be difficult to manage and keep stable despite the numerous re-installs.
Linux, on the other hand, was dream-like in manageability. Installing new
software didn't mean a reboot or even require logging out and logging back
in. I had turned into a Linux fan. I went to the local Linux user group meetings,
advocated Linux to friends and family, and helped develop some parts of it
in what spare time I had. Over the last 15 years, I've used Slackware, Red
Hat (and Fedora), SuSE, Debian and Ubuntu, and since graduation have only
looked for jobs involving Linux and Unix.
-Pete
Got something to share? Let us have it! Send an e-mail to [email protected]
or leave a comment below.
Posted by Doug Barney on August 13, 20070 comments
Tomorrow is the second Tuesday of the month, so yes, it's time to roll up your
sleeves and get to patchin'.
This month, a wide range of tools that are usually neglected get some attention,
including Virtual PC, Virtual Server, Mac Office, Visual Basic and XML Core
Services.
Get a sneak
preview here, and clear your calendar for tomorrow.
Posted by Doug Barney on August 13, 20070 comments