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Presentation: Kent Beck: Trends in Agile Development
In this presentation, Kent Beck, the father of eXtreme Programming, shows the synergies between business and Agile development. The reason Agile is becoming more popular every day is because it responds to the business needs as they evolve.
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Requester Pays: A New Amazon Business Model
Amazon has introduced a new business model for its S3 web services called Requester Pays. Businesses using S3 can mark up data buckets so their transfer will be paid by data requesters instead of being paid by their owners as it is now. Used in conjunction with DevPay, the new model opens new business opportunities for companies willing to share their data with others.
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Financial Functions for .NET
Luca Bolognese has reimplemented Excel’s collection of financial functions in F#. Released under an open source license, it should prove useful for both learning F# and for porting applications from Excel to .NET.
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RESTful Business Conversations
In an on-going series of posts titled The REST dialogs, Duncan Cragg “argue[s] the case for eBay to adopt a truly REST approach to their integration API”. In “Business conversations”, Duncan makes a businesses case for adoption of REST-style architecture.
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Business Case for SOA
One of the prerequisites for successful SOA implementation is an understanding of the business problem that will be solved and building a business case for the implementation.
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Results of a SOA Case Study competition show main ingredients for SOA success
The results of SOA case study competition, conducted by SOA Consortium and CIO magazine are showing common themes in SOA implementations. The include strengthening of business IT alliances as the main factor for implementation success and definitions of specific, confirmed by real numbers, business benefits, , as a measure of this success.
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New Windows Essential Business Server Targeted to Midsize Businesses
Microsoft has created a new server, called Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (EBS), which combines management, messaging and security features into one integrated multi-server solution. The new server is targeted to midsize businesses with reduced IT staff personnel of 1 to 3 persons.
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Architecture Life Span:Implications on Business and how to build more Long-lasting Architecture
Introducing the concept of architectural shelf life, Dan Pritchett defines the average duration of an architectural life span. Stressing that failing to evolve the architecture at the end of its life span may have important business implications, he provides some advices that aim at facilitating architecture update with new technologies and patterns, thus making architectures last longer.
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Opinions: Why Most Social Software Fail and how to Avoid it
According to Clay Shirky, the success key for social software is “a brutally simple mental model [...] shared by all users”. Referring to it as Shirky’s law, Michael Nielsen analyzes why programmers often fail to obey it. His arguments as well as the discussion that has followed provide interesting insights into pitfalls that need to be avoided for building successful social applications.
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Using Open Source in your Business: Myths and Clarifications
A white paper “10 Myths About Running Open Source Software in Your Business” was released by ActiveState. It promotes rational approach to open source software and refutes some common misconceptions about its quality, its usage and its place in today’s industry. The authors believe that open source adoption is inevitable but they advocate for a more structured approach to its implementation.
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Thoughts On Software Architecture and Corporate Structure
Many important challenges faced by a software architect for a large company have as much to do with the organization as technology. In a recent blog entry, Dan Greenblog drew parallels between the principals behind software architecture and effective organizational structures.
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Opinions: What is The Optimal Business Model for Today's Web?
What is the optimal business model for today’s web? Opinions diverge in a series of articles around this issue. While authors seem to share the conviction that simplicity is the key in web environment, they do not necessarily put the same meaning into this term. Is less really more? Or should it rather be more with less? And how do we achieve it?
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Progress Software Acquires IONA and Mindreef
Progress software acquires two companies: IONA Technologies and Mindreef, in an effort to augment their SOA Portfolio. The portfolio consists of products in the following categories: enterprise service bus (Sonic ESB), enterprise messaging (Sonic MQ), data interoperability (DataXtend), Mainframe integration (Shadow), Complex Event Processing (Apama) and SOA management (Actional).
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Agile Practices with the Highest Return on Investment
Return on Investment is a critical factor for decision making pertaining to following a particular software development practice. The post summarizes the ROI benefits of Agile and the inexpensive practices which lead to highest return on investment.
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Could the Solution to IT's Problems be less IT-Business Alignment?
The never ending debate about the role, the relevance or the organization of IT has added yet another frustration moment. Susan Cram, an industry expert, shared the 8 things -she thinks- we hate about IT. In her analysis, she points out a surprising remedy: avoiding the IT alignment trap.