VCSY, A Laughing Place, Part 3

Let's Do the RagingBull TOS Dance...

2007-11-14T15:45:00.000-08:00

The Questions is: What are the bashers trying to hide? What truth are they trying to hide? That they lie? That they obfuscate the truth? That they only post to confuse issues? And so when they're called out, why do they just get the posts TOS'd and deleted?

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:17 am

Dear morrie33,

This is an official warning that you have violated Raging Bull's Terms of Service as detailed below: Personal Attack/Harassment Message you posted: (Board: VCSY Post number: 203003)

===============

Why's rheemer so upset? I'm a LONG. I'm ecstatic that I can buy more at these levels. Another filing is upcoming. I'm not expecting any new news, but guess what, VCSY is still alive, in business, making over $6 million a year, and it's less than .02. I know what they have in the pipeline. I know what the possibilities are. As long as it stays at this level, I just keep buying more because I know it won't be at this level forever. All it takes is one of these connections to be made public. And then what .10, .20, .30, .40? And I'm not even including the MSFT case. That's secondary to the licensing deals VCSY will make. Yes, teapot will say “where are they?” And I'll reply, “I don't care right now, because I know they're there, and if they were public, I couldn't continue to buy more at these levels. So I'm glad they're not public yet.” It's called patience. 7+ years for me, and I'll put in more months and more years even, because the payoff is going to be HUGE, whenever it is, and I can wait. That's why I'm happy. Most LONGS are. rheemer, on the other hand, isn't here to be happy.

____________________________________________________________________________________
Mon, 12 Nov 2007 6:20 pm

An Email from Dan:

This keeps getting TOSsed from the Yahoo/Microsoft board.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Does the firing of CIO Stuart Scott signal a VCSY settlement?

On the same day(Nov 2nd) that VCSY and Microsoft were in a hearing over the lawsuit, Microsoft fired their CIO Stuart Scott. I can't see them firing him if they planned to let this go to trial, he would ultimately become their worst nightmare as a VCSY witness if it went to trial. IMO.

Does that mean we should hear of a settlement? I would think sooner or later. The whole idea of firing Stuart Scott is to keep the top guys in management out of the suspicion and you set the new guy up to take the fall.

That's why I(Port's view) think it's like this:

If I was Ballmer I would let the lower guys on the totem pole in the company carry out the plan and then have a way out when the lawyers said the discovery wasn't going to be going Microsoft's way. The top guy would be the CIO in charge of new technology and that's what Scott was. Markevich was the guy in charge of the Microsoft infrastructure and Scott was the guy in charge of new technology in Microsoft for using before it went out to customers.

So everybody below Scott would be using VCSY technology and only Scott and some engineers and laywers would know. That way Ballmer could wait until the point in the case where the lawyers said "we're not going to be able to beat this" and then he could fire Scott for some company "violation" he got conned into and poof the trouble would go away.

What would Scott say? Ballmer could say they found out he was using VCSY technology and they got rid of him the most unembarassing way they could and then he could tell the lawyers to cut a deal.

"Keeping people quiet" never works. You have to "Keep people stupid" and then cut their throats when the investigation gets too close. Poof no problem.
-------------------------------------------------

...fired November 2, 2007 with only explanation: "fired for violating company policies".

Odd.

The one guy most central to any discovery efforts in VCSY v MSFT fired on the same day a ruling was to be given on the discovery phase of VCSY v MSFT.

Very odd.

Microsoft put out a news article about Scott taking on co-CIO role with Ron Markezich December 5, 2006. One day before VCSY returned to OTCBB from SEC delisting. Patrick Tinley, CEO of CDC/Ross was fired the same day.

Scott had left GE and taken the Microsoft position July 2005.

VCSY was cleared by SEC investigation begun December 1, 2004 - one day after VCSY was granted the 6826744 patent.

Very very odd.
_________________________________________________________________________________ 12 Nov 2007 2:12 pm

Dear morrie33, Personal Attack/Harassment Message you posted: (Board: VCSY Post number: 202791)

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Keep the price low. I'm buying more too. I love the bashers. Ignorance personified. And they're doing all of us LONGS a service by helping to keep the price down here. Well, WADE is keeping the price down here, but when it starts rising the bashers bash it down. Thank you for my early XMAS present.

__________________________________________________________________________________ 12 Nov 2007 1:56 pm

Dear morrie33, Personal Attack/Harassment Message you posted: (Board: VCSY Post number: 202805). Further warnings will result in suspension or deletion of your account.

===============

I am a LONG. I don't care who buys VCSY, when they buy VCSY or how much they buy VCSY. I am only here for my concerns and to protect my money from liars such as rheemer and tepe. They only want to steal your shares. They are negative. They don't own any shares. They lie, they cheat, they will steal your shares.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 1:48 pm

Dear morrie33, This is an official warning that you have violated Raging Bull's Terms of Service as detailed below: Personal Attack/Harassment Message you posted: (Board: VCSY Post number: 202802). Further warnings will result in suspension or deletion of your account.

===============

tepe and rheemer are dishonest and unscrupulous. They lie. They cheat. They steal. They are immoral. They are not shareholders. Yes, they might have 5 or 10 shares so they can legally say they are shareholders, but they're here for one purpose only to lie, to cheat and to steal away your shares from you.

Where's Waldo? Where's D.B. Cooper? Where's Stuart Scott?

2007-11-09T21:58:00.000-08:00

By: waitin-on-news

08 Nov 2007, 04:32 PM EST

Msg. 202500 of 202722
(This msg. is a reply to 202493 by DC-Steve.)
Jump to msg. #

Here's another article that shows DC-Steve and tepe don't know anything about what Scott did or they aren't reading so they can just say what they want and hope people don't read. They want people to think he was just a regular CIO so he wouldn't know anything about VCSY technology but Microsoft says the IT department worked in development.

http://www.informationweek.com/windows/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=Z0Z4QBMNPZCTIQSNDLRCKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=201806860

Scott noted that the IT organization now spends almost 45% of its budget on new product development (as opposed to maintenance and ongoing support), a notable improvement from 30% in the past. Turner, asked to point to areas Microsoft IT can still improve, said, "I'd like you to be up around 65% application development spending."

If Scott's IT initiatives sound a lot like Microsoft's software marketing strategy, they are. He's expected to be the first implementer of any technology coming to market

The job also means keeping a step ahead of a group of employees who don't think twice about writing their own code or provisioning their own server if they have an IT need.

By: waitin-on-news

08 Nov 2007, 07:48 PM EST

Msg. 202541 of 202722
(This msg. is a reply to 202500 by waitin-on-news.)
Jump to msg. #

Here's the kicker that shows Scott would be the first to try out any VCSY technology Microsoft had. "If Scott's IT initiatives sound a lot like Microsoft's software marketing strategy, they are. He's expected to be the first implementer of any technology coming to market "

It in here.

http://www.informationweek.com/windows/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=Z0Z4QBMNPZCTIQSNDLRCKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=201806860

Then in email morrie33 wrote to his fellow longs:

Just a thought; if MSFT was fighting the VCSY case tooth and nail, wouldn't you want someone like Scott still at MSFT and still very loyal to MSFT because they're paying his bills...? If he is an important figure in this case, why fire him and get him angry if his words and testimony could come back to screw you? But, if MSFT had settled and/or were working on a settlement that was almost done, and Scott was one of the architect's of this problem, one of the reason MSFT is going to have to settle this case, his firing wouldn't harm MSFT. The case is settled. He won't have to testify. MSFT could use a scapegoat now because the case is over or will be over, in a sense. Just a thought. If VCSY can subpoena this guy in a court case, he would be VCSY's best friend because MSFT fired him. So...the move really doesn't make much sense to MSFT if this guy is an important cog as others are making him out to be. Now MSFT is full of ego, and they do a lot of things that don't make sense, but this seems like suicide in this court case if it moves forward. Conversely, if MSFT settles. They need to drop their "infringement" in someone's lap. Just strange. And strange timing on top of it.

Port responded:

I agree with your points. Now, plug Scott in as the scapegoat set up to perform the infringing technology integration in 2005 and bounced now. Why? Gates and Ballmer can blame any discovered infringement on their go-to technology guy.

Scott is the one who was the key guy in new technology introduction. The minions could have purged all their work when VCSY got the Siteflash patent and re-introduced the concepts when Scott came on board. Scott then becomes the guy responsible for bringing "that technology" into Microsoft after the patent was granted.

That allows Ballmer to know his company will have the tech in play as he needs it and also allows him to have righteous indignation to find the tech is VCSY patented technology when it becomes obvious they're going to have to settle with VCSY.

The introduction of various elements within this past week is difficult to explain if Microsoft intends to fight VCSY. At some point VCSY is going to call foul on 521 if the fight is in full force.

Then POSCASH wrote:
Hey Morrie!

All I can say is I like your thoughts and all of this speculation does make sense.
If true, it could be a best seller as a book deal! LOL
Interesting also that this topic of S. Stuart being fired has really got the bashers
in a frenzy!

MORE FROM PORT:

Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 08:57:45 -0800 From: port Subject: Re: FW: scott at MSFT

Microsoft has been making announcements this week that are bound to get them in deeper if they're intent on fighting VCSY. I can't explain what they're doing because it sounds like they went nuts if they really are going to fight.

This only makes sense with a settlement. It does not make sense without a settlement. It's almost like Microsoft is settling in along with Google, Adobe and IBM as far as their subdued marketing and marking time with the competitors:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=918

It’s surprising to me how little Microsoft is doing to publicize the Windows Live APIs and tools that it is making available to developers. Instead, the Redmondians are letting Google steal all the thunder — while simultaneously hoping to siphon a little of Google’s momentum by choosing a “Fire” based name for the upcoming Microsoft Silverlight developers’ workshop…Microsoft Silverlight Fire Starter vs. Google’s OpenSocial Campfire.

I think what happened to Scott was Ballmer ejecting his plan to bring the technology in in case the VCSY folded (he would have had the tech ready to go) and now he needs to look like his technology people are doing brand new work.

BUT. If Scott catches on that he was a pawn, this kind of strategy could blow up in Ballmer's face. It's all very confusing and that's why it's hard to track this kind of thing without somebody coughing up some real information. That's why the rumors need to be wrung out.

And finally, to be fair to the Idiot Brigade, their Lieutenant Moron spoke up:

Msg. 202565 of 202652
(This msg. is a reply to 202557 by waitin-on-news.)

perhaps morrie should spend less time hacking out ridiculous emails & thinking more about what he'd like to comment on.

scott is likely of no importance. If he was the smoking gun like you lunatics like to make him out to be, MSFT would've transferred him out of the country & out of range of the court system.

I get amusement every time one of you nitwits posts a conspiracy theroy.

Two Emails. Port and POSCASH regarding General Atlantic

2007-11-05T15:05:00.000-08:00

From POSCASH:

Hello Morrie!

I wanted to run yhid by you and Portuno. I saw this post on the YHOO/MSFT board and something caught my eye! Is Network Solutions owned by General Atlantic getting ready to launch a Worldwide advertising campaign or am I nuts?

Here is the post:

http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_M/threadview?m=tm&bn=12004&tid=1312128&mid=1312128&tof=2&rt=1&frt=2&off=1

Hey, I'm "pulse360.com" - And, I'm on another interesting Site ....And I'm part of the reason why MSN will "miss" the CIGAR with facebook, on Tuesday! And if you check my Privacy Policy, you can read about your opt-out "option" for "cookies", that we provide: "To opt-out of other behavior targeting programs not associated with Pulse 360, [click here] for the National Advertising Initiative (NAI) opt-out tool." http://www.pulse360.com/privacy.html

And the Link (that's the [click here]...that's provided in the above statement), is as follows: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managi...

Oh, and I must advise that all fellow members of the NAI have "access" to (yes, are compatible with) Looksmart's AdCenter (along with the "bid4KeyWords" alternative to Google's Adsense) and in addition, ALL members of the NAI allow publishers and advertisers, to "fully control their campaigns in all facets including their daily spend" ....

And the news is, that "Quigo" have just joined our growing membership (and AOL were already heavily "involved" with the NAI, through it's "advertising.com" and "Tacoda") Facebook will choose us with the "Bid4Keywords" platform (provided through Looksmart's AdCenter) on Tuesday as most ALL Major Ads Agencies will then have access to Facebook, including Yahoo, MSN [through ATLAS] and Google, (yes even Google), through Double Click's "Performics" ...... <>

> http://vortal.0086124.com/privacy.html "...Facebook will choose ......the "Bid4Keywords" platform ...." Well .....They'd be foolish not to, wouldn't they? After-all, they have been found to have been testing Ads through "ME" (pulse360.com) of late, now haven't they? Yes ....It should be a GREAT week for Looksmart's shareholders ...Finally!!!!! Re: I'm "pulse360.com" - And, I'm another interesting Site http://www1.investorvillage.com/beta/smb...

< "weather.com's audience is one of the largest, most respected and highly qualified on the Web and is a great addition to our network," said Lance D. Podell, chief executive officer of Seevast, Pulse 360's parent company. "It is clear that the Web's biggest and best sites require a partner with deep expertise to drive value for advertisers and publishers alike. We were thrilled to be chosen as a partner for weather.com and are confident that our advertisers will benefit from access to this world-class audience."

> Yes, that's Seevast that "owns" me ......Just as they "own" Moniker.com who have linked with DDN. Many "relationships" have recently formed, within the "Domain Space" ...... http://www1.investorvillage.com/beta/smb... We can put "The Weather" out on ALL those ("millions") of Domain Name Sites, plus other "vortal-ised" Article Content .... relative to each "name" (from Vortal.com) and with Ads, of course!! Sell them like 'plots on the moon" ....Cheapest @ $750.00 each, I'd imagine ...? I'd sell them by auction, but we'll get to that "point", (the "how to"), some other time.... <> THREE MILLION !!!!! Moniker.com (owned by the Seevast Corporation,) say they have customers that include savvy investors, Web entrepreneurs and forward-thinking global companies, including Marchex, Nokta, Future Media Architects, AOL, Yahoo, the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, Lions Gate Films, Bank of America, Microsoft, Jupitermedia, Geosigns, Mainstream Advertising and many others. [The last named there, "Mainstream Advertising", is "owned" by the probable Looksmart "new owner", (in Network Solutions), of course!] If you notice on the last paragraph of this post the last sentence states: [The last named there, "Mainstream Advertising", is "owned" by the probable Looksmart "new owner", (in Network Solutions), of course!]

So Network Solutions now owned by General Atlantic owns LookSmart?I found this old newslink here: http://www.shareholder.com/LookSmart/releaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=74489 Companies to Offer Suite of Web Site-Building Tools Herndon, Va. - April 14, 1999 - Network Solutions, Inc., the world leader in Web address registration, and LookSmartSM, the Internet's largest directory of quality Web sites, today announced a strategic alliance to offer domain name registration services and Web site-enhancing tools to businesses. As part of the agreement, businesses will be able to access Network Solutions' domain name registration and other services, including its Affiliate Program, from LookSmart's Web services area. Network Solutions' customers will be able to download LookSmart's free suite of site-maker tools, including its industry-leading Web directory, from a co-branded Web site accessible from Network Solutions' dot com toolkitTM resource center. An advertising and direct marketing campaign will be launched to raise awareness about the companies' one-stop shopping capabilities. "LookSmart is a young, aggressive company that is very well known by key industry players" said Doug Wolford, Network Solutions' senior vice president, marketing and sales. "Its partnerships with leading Internet sites will help extend Network Solutions' services beyond our current reach." "Network Solutions is a premier brand among Web masters and we're excited to work with them to distribute our site-building products," said Evan Thornley, co-founder and CEO of LookSmart. "This agreement gives us unparalleled access to Web site owners and tremendous opportunities to distribute our directory to this audience." Network Solutions provides online domain name registration in five easy steps. In addition to registration services, Network Solutions also offer the dot com mailTM personal, portable email service and the dot com biz cardTM service, designed to provide personalized business solutions that enhance online identity. These services are also available through Network Solutions' Affiliate Program. The agreement is part of LookSmart's unique distribution strategy that focuses on displaying its Web directory on the screens of as many users as possible through syndication and licensing agreements with other Web sites and properties, partnerships with ISPs and viral marketing. In addition to its directory, LookSmart currently provides free Web services including hit counters, chat rooms and message boards, to thousands of Webmasters. The company currently distributes its directory of more than 1,000,000 Web site listings to top Web properties including MSN, Netscape, HotBot, @Home, AltaVista and Bluemountainarts.com.

And then PORT responded in another email:

Morrie,

That's definitely a find. Much more now makes sense and it points to a very large operation in the background getting ready to spring.Here's some background on Looksmart:IBM got out of the laptop business and sold to Lenovo May 1, 2005 with funding to Lenovo from General Atlantic, Texas Pacific Group, Newbridge Capital Group.General Atlantic bought Network Solutions February 6, 2007netowrk Solutions owns Vortal Interactive.Vortal Interactive took over Looksmart.(A "vortal" is a "vertical portal")

***********

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=19796

post Sep 2007 by texas4qldStrange things happening at LooksmartI suspect that Looksmart are joing forces or being taken over by "vortal interactive" who is owned by "network solutions" who was recently bought by "General Atlantic" for $800 million.

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http://www.topix.com/forum/business/search-engines/T364V47JKL5PB4BBT

Sep 20, 2007The LOOK-Network Solutions Vortal will show all just who is , "The Daddy" .....

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http://sierrawebmarketers.blogspot.com/2007/10/myspace-invades-looksmarts-space.html

10/30/07MySpace Invades LookSmart's Space (excerpts)MySpace will take residence in the "LookSmart Building" according to BizJournals.com;"Los Angeles-based MySpace made a triumphant entrance into San Francisco last week at the Web 2.0 conference, throwing a bash at SFMOMA and announcing that it was opening an office in the city with about 200 employees.While the company did not disclose the location of its new offices, it has signed a letter of intent to take about 35,000 square feet at 625 Second St., according to sources. MySpace, part of Fox Interactive, ...... ."This is an interesting development. LookSmart leased the building in 1999 for all 130,000 + square feet of space for a ten year term....How can the full building accommodate the MySpace mob? ...it's possible too the primary occupant, LookSmart may be readying an exit themselves.Evidence exists to suggest they are in a deal of some sort with General Atlantic Partner property Network Solutions. NetSol property Vortal.com houses the 180 vertical sites using different URLs but the content appears to be the original LookSmart material.Network Solutions also leases the LookSmart AdCenter. Bid4keywords.com is the product and they have attached it to their evolving network of sites that include domain reseller Ditto.com and many others.Combine the information above with the fact CEO Hills, CTO Grubb and CFO Simonelli (already passed his announced departure date) have all quit and a picture of the future of LookSmart is unfolding.SFGate.com wrote about the MySpace move to San Francisco Oct. 15 and did not mention the address though they knew the exact neighborhood.Is LookSmart that far under the radar of everyone but a few shareholders?If something is afoot I credit the LookSmart employees for maintaining the code of silence.Absolutely nothing official or otherwise is coming from LookSmart lately that can shed light on what's really happening inside the big brick building.Shareholders must resign themselves to guessing.

***********

(Gee. I guess we're not alone in guessing, right? heh heh heh)

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More about General Atlantic, Network Solutions, Vortal and Looksmart:

http://www.topix.com/forum/business/search-engines/TGN0F2VQ1CTQ0NH5S

October 1, 2007And the package is about Looksmart's Chairman Ted West in his temporary role, as Interim CEO & President.I am Chairman and CEO of Network Solutions, a leading provider of online products and services for small businesses. I oversee all facets of the company with the support of a very smart and talented management team.General Atlantic wants to see us continue to grow our business...

The Complexities of Obfuscation

2007-10-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

By: ghost_of_portuno

21 Oct 2007, 07:20 AM EDT

Msg. 200742 of 200747
Jump to msg. #

Dear Rheemer,

I know you are upset about how things turned out, but, you really do have to come to terms with the situation. You can't denegrate people and their concepts of value for months and months and then decide it's time to play nice within a few days. Flaring your temper when others don't immediately accept your unilateral declaration of peace and happiness fails to appreciate the level of hurt you applied to people and their intellects since you began posting about VCSY.

People don't turn as quickly as you will want. Not that fast. It will take a period of time for a testing of the sentiments you claim anew. For all the longs know, your attempt (along with kantuc) is nothing more than an effort to throw water on the fire that burst forth when you deleted the first 200328 and replaced it with the current 200328.

Claiming a VCSY long made up that post (others have the copies from the original web pages thanks to the magic of email and only a complete fool would fabricate something like that) served to threw gasoline on the fire you should have wanted so badly to quench. (right: rheemer, kantuc and tepe) There is no quenching something when you get caught trying to cover one mistake... especially if the new action is similar to the first.

Such proclamation of innocence by condemnation of others is a character flaw that does not serve the condemner well when condemned. You know; claiming to want a kinder, gentler posting regime on the Raging Bull board only to turn around after your one post offering a truce is laughed at out of hand shows a lack of appreciation for the level of rancor you foster lo these many months while going out of your way to slam those who sought to converse about VCSY value.

So, you're going to have to practice long-suffering and humility before anyone will be able to forget seeing those two copies of 200328 seared into their brain. Do you know why I use the word "seared"? Because longs have suspected you and Mirror had some way of making your booboos disappear for a long long time. We've all seen situations happen throughout the past, but only with posts going away over time. This is the first one caught disappearing and reappearing transformed within one posting number. This one was so fast! And the replacement popped right up straight away after the first was deleted.

We know it was your flustered response to a signal by DC. He ridicules the idea, but, when you read his post, the only sensible line in the post out of all the nonsense he offered indicated Microsoft and IBM would be paying for VCSY IP.

You subsequently followed a diverjes' question with a stern blast that "nothing happened". But, you apparently had second thoughts about claiming nothing happened when DC clearly sent you a signal... and you knew you would have to take DC's signal and pass it along to your other operatives... and leaving "nothing happened" would throw your entire crew into confusion as they would be depending on you to interpret DC's signal.

So you deleted that first 200328 "nothing happened" and you wrote to still about not knowing what the question was. And you changed from a "hold" to a "buy" to underline and pass along the shift in situation indicated by DC's signal.

Such a strange thing is a mistake made in haste and high emotion; the error sketches out our inner conflicts in stark relief not soon erased from the graffiti stained walls of our subway minds. Perhaps we could all "buy" your contrition if it would hold up for more than just a couple posts instead of collapsing into a heap of bitterness as a response to the inevitable coarse comment about your actions.

Now, here's the deal. There IS a way to get every long to simply forget about what happened and let it all go, but it's an extremely hard thing for somebody in your position to do. Confess and apologize. Confess you've been working for months to try to hammer the conversation about VCSY in order to convince readers they shouldn't consider VCSY stock worthwhile. Then apologize to longs for claiming they faked a post which you clearly made.

That way we could all be one big happy family and celebrate the value of VCSY in the days, weeks and months to come, rather than having you slam and hammer everyone who writes positive words about VCSY and in kind have longs remind you and the world just what our complaint with you has been. That way kantuc could loosen up again and be his old self (he's become far too somber and conciliatory calling for a change in the rancor and animosity) and he could laugh again instead of quiver and quake.

Until you do come to terms with what you did, and until you do so with some form of apology about all the efforts you've made in the past to damage the VCSY conversation, I don't think anyone is going to be in the mood to let one cross word from you or any of your associated like-thinkers go without scrutiny and criticism.

It's a cold cruel world we live in, Brother Rheemer, where people consider money more dear than life. And when people discover someone being deceitful where their money is concerned, one is sure to end up with harsh condemnation and retribution. Would that it would be not so, dear Rheemer, but it do be. Do be do be do. And until such time as the lion lays down with the lamb in yon blessed Millenia, this poor old world of human nature is going to hold those who do wrong to a high standard of cleanliness.

So, if you want to continue posting on the RB VCSY board, I would suggest (just a suggestion, mind you - you're free to carry on as you desire) you make amends with the entire group of longs and the past history of abuses directed against them by confronting your lapse in honesty (maybe the day wasn't all that long that October 17th day), coming clean with your past and break open a bottle of "now that that's over" and we can all drink to the coming days of good fortune and success for VCSY and the VCSY stock. Otherwise, every time you post, you'll be having to do so under a barrage of criticism and complaint as you continue the hypocrisy of claiming to not have written "nothing happened" in the first 200328.

Orgplus links up with Northern Health's Now Solutions emPath System

2007-09-26T18:25:00.000-07:00

It's all out there - You'll have to use the Google to find the URLs. It will build character.

Northern Health Uses OrgPlus® to Ensure Post-Merger HR Data Accuracy and Structural Efficiency (Thanks for digging this up- Jes!)

Northern Health delivers healthcare to more than 300,000 people in a half million square mile area in northern British Columbia, Canada. The organization is made up of more than two dozen acute care facilities, 14 long term care facilities, public health units and offices providing specialized services. Northern Health physicians performed more than 24,000 surgeries, welcomed 3,000 babies and treated nearly 255,000 emergency patients in the 2004-2005 operating year.

Challenge
Northern Health was formed by merging together 40 independent healthcare facilities to provide these locations with central governance, planning and communication. The desired structure also allowed individual facilities to maintain local operating and decision-making autonomy. As a newly-formed public healthcare organization with more than 7,000 employees and an annual budget of $521 million, it had to ensure effective management of its converged workforce by instituting an efficient organizational structure.

Solution
The management of Northern Health understood that an intelligent organizational charting system would serve the company as a platform for workforce and structural planning. Key decision-makers from across the organization collaborated on a list of functional requirements for a solution. After a lengthy comparison of OrgPlus to other products, Northern Health selected OrgPlus based on overall look and feel of the user interface, the clean-looking charts for presentations and its competitive price. OrgPlus also outperformed competitive offerings in security, conditional formatting, integration with Microsoft Office and exporting capabilities to PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat.

OrgPlus' dynamic organizational charts mapped the entire hierarchy of 7,000 employees for communicating the new structure, geographical locations and reporting relationships. The new chart allowed management to view the organization as a whole, as well as by its separate business units and allocated resources. Problems with the hierarchy were easily pin-pointed and corrected in order to reflect accurate reporting relationships and budgeting needs.

Results
As soon as OrgPlus was linked to Northern Health's Now Solutions emPath HR system, problems with the accuracy of their HR data were immediately identified. The HR department and approximately 300 department managers at various geographic locations were given secure access to edit charts, validate data and correct inaccuracies. With OrgPlus, the organizational structure now keeps pace with change. Changes are automated, eliminating the need for constant maintenance and correction by management. Problems with data or structure are easily identified and corrected in minutes in the emPath HR system.

Beyond improved data and structural accuracy, the intelligent organization charts dramatically improved communication across the organization. OrgPlus functions as a self-service directory where employees get answers quickly about reporting relationships, employee locations and contact information. Detailed profiles of each employee provide e-mails, phone numbers and addresses. The directory is linked to Microsoft Outlook allowing employees to locate the proper person to contact and e-mail them with a single click.

With the successful roll-out of OrgPlus completed, Northern Health?s human resource department is beginning to pull HR metrics from emPath into OrgPlus and is planning to perform workforce modeling, salary-rollups and other key metrics to prepare for future changes.

With OrgPlus, Northern Health has achieved effective central governance, planning and communication of its new organizational structure. Additionally within OrgPlus, it has a platform for workforce planning to help management make informed business decisions and plan change with confidence.

About HumanConcepts
HumanConcepts is the leading provider of workforce modelling and intelligence solutions. With its OrgPlus technology charting millions of employees for organizations worldwide, including 400 of the Fortune 500, HumanConcepts has defined best practices in organizational charting. OrgPlus integrates with HR systems to automatically create, update and distribute organizational charts for team collaboration, workforce planning and critical decision-making. OrgPlus integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Office applications.

HumanConcepts is based in California with offices in the United Kingdom and Germany and offers OrgPlus software and services worldwide. For more information visit www.orgplus.co.uk.

A layman's View of VCSY part 3 - arbitrary

2007-09-09T12:16:00.000-07:00

A Layman's View of VCSY part 3

“Arbitrary”: Latin arbitrarius = judged between

*****Section 1*****
>>>>WHY?

If an operating system may be virtualized and if an application can be virtualized and if a body of data can be virtualized, can a body of programming code be virtualized?

Of course. A chunk of code is a set of instructions by which the computer carries out the desired tasks. Sometimes the code is a monolithic body as in a single-file application. Sometimes the code is a collection of bodies as in library objects. Sometimes the monolithic code provides hooks to access modular procedural segments in the file. Sometimes a developer can build a hook by finding a particular direct index into the file memory. There is always a way.

Either way, virtualization opens up the ability to treat data bodies and their uses in an “arbitrary” fashion.

Now, that does not mean capricious or willy-nilly. Arbitrary means we can use something without having to argue or worry about whether the act of using requires any necessary concern for details. Arbitrary is the basis for “agnostic”.

Patent 6826744 aka 744 provides a novel concept for application building by allowing ANY code of ANY language for ANY machine to be fitted and used with ANY other code of all other arbitrary qualities for ANY purpose including retroconstruction (what? The system can have children.).

So, whereas virtualization fits data to be used universally, arbitration fits data to be used without concern for use. Agnostic fits data for universal arbitration.

Most programmers are aware of the prior art in “wrapping” a code object in a virtualization layer (usually using XML but may also be done by proprietary means) which allows that object to be used with other objects not normally fitted to co-mingle.

744 takes this several steps beyond by outfitting and treating all aspects of all data in such a way. This is done in 744 by compartmentalizing the data into three classes relative to application building and use: content – format – functionality.

Content and format management are well known concepts from the dotcom era. But, as with Microsoft's segmentation of Silverlight/Expression for designers and Visual Studio .Net for developers, the dotcom era products typically had gaps in integration that made building unified applications difficult and often impossible.

Arbitration removes the gaps between various data uses to bring Content – Format – Functionality under one shop roof allowing the designer to also be the developer (to also be the manager to also be the maintainer to also be the governor) without having to be concerned with how the design or development is actually carried out in code.

Although this sounds like magic, virtualization wrapping demonstrates this sort of idea clearly, although no other applications before SiteFlash (the deriving product body of 744) provided a means or an envelope in which to handle virtual forms of content, format and functionality as one application package... or else the patent examiner would have been able to find an example easily.

There are many who say that's not true but we've yet to be pointed to an example, so, until such time, we are in the position of the patent examiner who approved 744 who also saw no prior art to block the 744 grant.

What does this mean to software development?

Arbitration frees the designer/developer from having to know much at all (if any) about the underlying code that is doing the work. A virtual layer abstracts the mechanical workings of “code” into a useful semantic construct that may be used like a modular component.

Some of this capability can be found in newly created projects like MSFT Popfly, for instance. The idea being various functionalities can be packaged as 'snap-on' components so the program can be built without any programming.

SiteFlash embodies this idea comprehensively by delivering an “ecology” in which all data/code representing each of the three assembly categories may be intercombined to result in applications built from any resource.

The three areas: content (the information to be presented or processed) format (look and feel – interaction functionality) and functionality (program capabilities) are handled and managed in such a way as to abstract the entire process away from handling code programming tasks in order to elevate the usefulness of virtualization to the end user and away from the programmer.

*****Section 2*****
>>>>HOW?

Remember the sister patent 521? Remember how the “guts” or the kernel of the 521 process is a virtual computer built out of markup language able to process and produce markup language? Such markup language construction is able to build an abstracted construct around any data encountered whether content data (your name here) format data (your presentation here) or functionality data (your workflow here) so each compartment may contain all (any) content, all (any) format, and all (any) functionality from any resource (reachable via internet) to achieve all (any) computing purpose.

Each compartment is managed separately while each compartment element combined with other elements (of same compartment or different compartments) are likewise managed and arbitrated into an abstracted construction, transparent to the user and kept as a construct by the ecology.

How is that possible? There are a finite number of resources in any number of computers interconnected with each other. There are thus a finite number of possible configurations any application may be required to take. Within the body of a “program” there will be a finite number of possible components to affect a finite number of operational actions or functionalities.

A finite state machine (a deterministically transacting machine) is able to compute all possible combinations for all possible states and deliver the required combination to the particular use requirement at specific states.

All this is made possible because the inner workings of 744's virtual machine and abstracting language are based on markup extensibility just as 521 virtual machine and native programming language is made up of markup extensibility. AND such extensibility is dynamic as the markup is a script and may be compiled for ultimate package use at the client but may live forever in the ecology as a malleable script... which may be repurposed as desired for multiple uses... given the component nature of the compartmentalized content/format/functionality.

These kinds of statements make programmers angry because they are the attainable goals everone has said is an intuitively reachable goal, but McAuley and Davison are the first to build solid and demonstrable constructs to achieve these lofty “intuitions” wished for by IT heads. I don't think the patent office patents intuitions and wishes. I do know they patent solid and demonstrable first art constructions.

That's why VCSY owns these two lawfully granted patents. That is why programmers everywhere are likely angry at VCSY. Possible angry enough to say some very stupid, libelous and tragic things.

I realize it sounds like magic just as Forth programming sounded like magic to traditional language programmers in the 70's and 80's. Because FORTH used a tiny virtual machine as the interpreter for all FORTH primitives built into vocabulary words, the programmer could fashion the application to do whatever he liked by defining words (objects) in a vocabulary (library) into compilers and interpreters which were thus used to construct the program. Then, the program is assembled by placing the words from each vocabulary in an appropriate sequenced position in a newly defined word. This word (procedure) was likewise placed in the vocabulary (library) allowing the developer to now use an abstracted form of the workflow he was attempting to achieve. Thus, Forth could evolve to become human language syntax which was the basis for further programming construction.

SiteFlash is a cousin to such a concept but distinctly different in execution.

The traditional procedure-assembly of objects that ultimately provide extensibility is the foundation for all current and prior IDE's and is what confuses 744 readers who quickly forget what the patent is saying and begin crying foul for something so “obvious” and “overly broad”. They are wrong because of the nature of 744 and 521 construction which render the very fabric of these patents extensible BY NATURE: At the core, as it were. NATIVELY extensible so the kernel can become anything at any time for any use.

So, “obvious” and “too broad”? Not so. The elementally extensible virtual machine concept (instead of a procedural compiler assembling object blocks as in procedural languages like C) allows the programming base elements to take on ANY form, thus, the VM may change to accommodate the code, allowing to abstract code chunks without changing or even touching the code.

Traditional programming languages force the programming environment to adhere to a carefully structured syntax and form with the objects providing some measure of abstracting capability.

Extensible programming languages and ecologies allow the programming environment to morph dynamically (real time) to accommodate the changing needs of the code user without ever having to change the base code.

Thus, write once, use many becomes write once use ANY.

Some will think it's a matter of semantics, and it is. Semantics describe architecture and operational structure which are what ultimately determine real capability and reach. The word to hack between the traditional method and the 744/521 method is “extensibility” - the same “eXtensible” found as the base abstract in XML.

So, the bottom line is; any “virtual machine” dependent on an object oriented/library based code pool (like JAVA) will offer only a limited abstracting facility because the “virtual machine” employed is not itself extensible. It is what it is and the main office will have to bring their developers to bear on the kernel to build in further “extensions” when they get around to it or when the corporate office figures they've pissed off enough customers.

With a markup language based kernel, the kernel may morph at any time to whatever extension necessary, then become whatever other entity required next.

Cool, huh? That same capability can be found in the 521 patent which now explains how 521 can virtualize and abstract in a very granular way while 744 virtualizes and abstracts in a platform wide way.

This adaptability of the virtual machine to the virtual use results in very small code bases that serve very large programming frameworks.

Such capability finds a greater kinship with simulation/emulation than “programming”. Thus, 744 SiteFlash and all derivatives may simulate or emulate any abstraction of any code (it may even become a particular computer architecture as needed – thus virtualizing and abstracting even computer hardware into an emulation of any hardware process) at any level or scope just as the 521 patent may emulate/simulate any data virtualizations/abstractions at any level or scope including at the machine code.

This pseudo “overlap” in 744 and 521 provide a seamless and bumpless capability for an “application” to integrate as an operating system + application + any resources needed... into a single package that may be shipped to the client and run.

And that brings us to 744's strength: massive affiliation.

Because 744 can integrate ANY abstraction, the user may employ various standards of specification, construction, management, maintenance, governance at any targeted point in the entire framework.

This capability is echoed in 521 so scaling is extensibly flexible according to the information theory speaking to granular construction of abstracted components to abstracted applications. 744 covers component assembly of abstracted capabilities of abstracted applications to abstracted frameworks and ecologies.

Reversely, the extensible nature also allows 521 to create applications that create operational components. 744 allows ecologies that create operational cultures.

And then you can take those and fold them into another evolution of components and cultures ad infinitum.

So, Siteflash can accomplish all this by itself using markup and code libraries. But, adding 521 allows 744 to fly. So 744 by itself? OK. 744/521? Unbeatable.

Then, there is the ability to massively affiliate this “program” to all users anywhere on any machine with any requirements. The program continues to be a part of the ecology for its entire life-cycle (as long as an internet connection is available or cache is long-lasting and comprehensive enough which may be seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, years... etcetera etcetera etcetera) and is able to track its processes by virtue of the granular governance and audit capabilities in elements built out of 521.

How? The package arrives with all necessary requirements (which have been extracted from the metadata passed between server and client machines) that allow all possible conflicts in construction and use to be resolved dynamically in the SiteFlash base before the package arrives. Once there, the package has been abstracted for that particular use case (requirement/design/construct is an abstracted workflow in SiteFlash so it self-assembles from object in the library to application body) and is fitted for THAT specific use.

Because SiteFlash is an ecology covering ALL aspects (which may be added to or taken from the libraries at any time) of the software use, the delivery tailored for each computer allows large communities of computer users to engage in community collaboration with the level of their local client being factored into the use.

THAT is where computers should be right now. But, they are sadly not, except in some areas which appear to be using SiteFlash capabilities apparently under some sort of use permission by the inventor and VCSY.

This embodiment of arbitrary use frees the machine's ability to virtualize data for human use and to allow machines to take over a larger part of the build process.

Onward and upward.

And just a word about “obvious” and “too broad”. These are not words subject to the wishful fantasies of people so entangled in the life and death struggle for paradigm relevance they know only their part of the river and parts downstream. The effort from C. Babbage through A. Turing and through C. Moore has been a greater sophistication toward simple elegance in processing numbers and ultimately human words and abstractions. That is the goal even though others want to hold their monopolies on productivity and advanced thought.

A programmer today is not intellectually fitted to explore parts of the river upstream because his knowledge base requires he either acquire new knowledge or invent new knowledge. The first is far easier than the second if the programmer can swim against the current. The first is just as remotely possible as the second if the programmer will only kick and scream at the shoreline. The first is more impossible than the second if the programmer floats on his back and blows bubbles.

Such is the nature of abstraction that the closer we get to machine intelligence the more stupid our workers will become. We only see hints of it now. We will one day wonder how we didn't all drown in our own goo in our sleep.

A Layman's View of VCSY part 2 - virtual

2007-09-08T22:56:00.000-07:00

I realize these will not qualify as "Layman" explanations as a certain amount of information processing theory must be available to cover the ground.

I will attempt to further simplify although questions can provide a catalyst for reducing complexity and confusion.

Layman's view of VCSY part 2

In order to explain why MSFT is blocked by VCSY patents, I will have to explain what needs to happen (Section 1) and how that happens (Section 2) with VCSY's patent 7076521 aka 521.

I will attempt to provide a “Short Story” version, but, for now, this is the long version.

*****Section 1.*****
>>>>WHY?

To decipher why VCSY patents and patent derived products trump the capabilities of other technologies, we need to examine two key words: Virtual and Arbitrary

“Virtual”? Virtual means “not actual”. “Actual” means the real data being contained in an application or available for direct processing by the application. Essentially “Virtual” means a faithful representation of the actual format. Further from there, virtual means a faithful execution of an actual process in another processing form.

Virtualization is a large buzzword currently come into IT vogue given the public exposure over a coming “battle” between VMWare and Microsoft Viridian and other virtualization products. Virtualization will revolutionize the use of operating systems and applications and bring enhanced value and productivity from new and legacy systems.

A fundamental tenet of virtualization teaches that anything “soft” (as in soft-ware) can be represented as something else soft without changing the fundamental operating qualities. Data is hard reality handled in a soft form without changing the essential “being”.

Data can only be consumed if it is presented in a useful form.

Data may be “native” to a system, meaning the data is readily understood and processed because the application is built to use the data in the presented form.

Or, data may be “foreign” to a system, meaning the data must be processed first into a useful format (form) before the system can then treat that data as though it were native.

An analogy can be seen in the difference between Metric and English measurement. Both are “values” and therefore are “data”.

Both measurement systems are readily understandable to humans. But, unless a means of transforming one value into another via reference table or some means readily, one data format will likely be considered native and useful to the consuming human culture and the other data format will be foreign and unusable.

A system processing native data may produce and consume that data in any way desired by design. There are no boundaries to that processing other than the creative limits of the builders. However, ingesting one small piece of foreign data misapplied will stop the system cold no matter how brilliant the system designers unless they have built into the system a way to handle the unexpected or foreign.

Designing for all possible screw-ups or surprises is what builds cost into a system. Simple is cheap.

Thus, a cheap, simple system processing native data will do well as long as the foreign requirement is never faced. It is not a matter of resources. It is a matter of presentation. Even the most expensive and complex system will become dumb as a fence-post with foreign data.

So, Is the solution X: To learn all possible forms of expression? Or is the solution Y: To provide one universal form of expressing all possible forms? Decades of computing design demonstrates option X is expensive and difficult while option Y is inexpensive and easy.

So, the data between different systems should be standardized into a single universal form so that all applications may apprehend and consume that data without having to modify the established methods built into the proprietary system.

That's a tall order since all cultures consider their proprietary standards to be superior to other cultures.

Fortunately, in the data world, there is a standard that allows this universal presentation and that standard is called XML (for eXtensible Markup Language). Remember this: All XML does as a “programming language” is to represent data as structure and value. Fortunately, as with all elegant solutions, that is all that needs to be done to achieve a basis to achieve computing virtualization.

But, you will find, it is not the expression that virtualizes but the processing available to arrive at that expression that does the virtualization.

If proprietary application A and proprietary application B send each other copies of their respective native data presentations, chances are they won't be able to work with either as any small portion showing up as a foreign article will cause confusion and error or downright failure. Unless the builders built or modify the applications to work with each other using a same data format, interoperation is not possible.

However, if app A and app B can simply transform each of their native forms into XML and back again to native, the XML that meets in the middle will represent a universally understood form any other application with a standard XML capability may process. Thus, instead of having to modify an application to work in a new system, the application may join the system as is and the availed XML allows that application to work with any other application in the universe of “interoperating” apps.

The data in each application can be said to have been “virtualized” or changed from actual to virtual because the XML representation of the data is a transformed instance of the value in a proprietary format and structure. Unless the processing consumes XML directly (something we will cover in examining “arbitrary”), the native form of the data is the actual or real form being processed by the applications. The virtual form of the data is what is being pooled for the entire system to use for communication (again, and/or depending on if applications can process XML directly – we will cover in “arbitrary”).

So, to achieve at least the first level of virtualization, we go from native A to XML to native B. We can, of course, then go from native B to XML to native A. We thus have “electronic data exchange” which is the simplest form of virtualization and a mainstay of XML “programming” in IT systems for the past decade+.

Virtualization as a simple core capability is thus the ability to universally represent the native form of any data in an application.

The XML standard is designed to allow all builders to virtualize data for use by any other builder.

HOWEVER.

XML does not have to be used to virtualize. “Virtualization” per se only requires a standard agreed upon by consenting builders. A builder may use his own standard or a standard agreed upon by other partner companies. This is often done by partnering builders to exclude competitors; a key of sorts letting folks who know the standard to enter the clubhouse and keep others without a key out.

So, even if XML is used, companies can develop various proprietary ways to process the transformation to and from the XML presentation, thus allowing only those applications adhering to the builder's proprietary XML standard to join in processing that data.

This is the case with the Microsoft version of XML for Office application document files called OOXML. Microsoft's variations in the base XML standard is the source of conflict in the international standards community where the ODF standard presents XML that may be processed by ALL applications, whereas the MSFT version of XML has been crafted to exclude non-MSFT application uses.

So, virtualization may be applied in a number of different ways for different purposes.

For example, VMWare uses proprietary methods to virtualize the targeted operating system/application relationship so the OS/application combinations may be used on different operating systems. The virtualization method is proprietary so you can't simply plug your operating system into the VMWare system unless VMWare has crafted the system to handle your OS and apps.

Sun ZFS uses proprietary ways to virtualize the data in the operating system so outside non-Sun applications may communicate with the OS without having access to the proprietary OS command and data bodies. This is a more “granular” or lower level type of virtualization more akin to what VCSY can provide. Sun ZFS does what Microsoft WinFS was supposed to do before WinFS was killed. Sun has a read/write version allowing applications to pass information back and forth between the Sun OS and the application across the virtual path. Apple has a read-only version of ZFS allowing apps to get values from the OS but unable to pass data back to the OS.

Microsoft OOXML allows Microsoft and partner applications to process a virtual representation of the MSOffice document data while preventing non-partnered applications. This is called “lock-in” ensuring the users will have to buy MSFT/partner products to join in the processing interoperation.

If these companies were to convert their applications to present all their operations to the outside world in international standard XML, ALL other applications would have an opportunity to join the party. So, why don't they?

The most prevalent argument has it the vendor doesn't want to commoditize their products allowing them to be accessed and intermixed with other vendor's products. But that seems a lame argument when analyzed against the resulting customer value and the value added to each vendor's products (unless the virtualization uncovers intentional lock-in values built in by a vendor – THAT is the fear).

The next argument has been that virtualization is difficult and that is true if modifications to your current product line are required. THAT is a valid argument and a real problem and is a key reason for using 521.

521 does not require modification to the application.

Why? Here is the biggest kink; Being able to virtualize data is ONLY the first step in the process. The idea is to virtualize the computing process that produces and consumes the data.

Simply being able to export XML and import XML are large steps in application evolution but by no means the end of the road. Without a way of passing information about the data and the process (data called metadata or “data about data”) the applications are flying blind.

Various parts of any body of data being virtualized into XML will likely be used by the applications as values. Other parts to be consumed may be metadata. Still other parts of the body of data may be event triggers, commands and process state parameters to be used by the various applications to make sure all interoperating processes are carried out properly. These elements must all be available as a virtual product for the application interconnection to be conducted properly.

So, since an application must FIRST be able to express the application to the outside world as XML, we now find the biggest current obstacle: Routines to import XML and export XML are not always available and processing data are much less likely to be available.

Although Microsoft (not to pick on MSFT but they are a perfect example – the rest of the world is worse off) is a large company with much resources, only a portion of their products import or export or process XML. That means they must either modify those applications to import/export and internally process for XML or use an outside application the industry refers to broadly as “middleware”.

Legacy systems built before circa 2000 likely do nothing with XML and rely solely on the native data forms to operate. These must have middleware solutions appended to their operations to virtualize as modifying legacy systems are often difficult to impossible.

Modern systems also likely have little or no XML capabilities as the industry has battled with various methods of implementing solutions to the legacy problems (as their software becomes legacy to future XML installations the moment shipped). The least troublesome solution is typically to not provide the capability in the application body itself but to hold off for further development which is likely a middleware solution.

So, how does a middleware solution used with legacy and proprietary applications allow them to be virtualized?

Now we come to the reason for patent 521 and the reason companies like Microsoft and various others are unable to do much more than the simplest interoperating processes using their own technologies between like or dislike applications.

*****Section 2*****
>>>>HOW?

How Doooo they Do it?

The title of 521 is a “Web-based collaborative data collection system”. This title is deceptively simple, as the action described by that title phrase alone allows a wide range of virtualization capabilities.

You may notice the patent describes all the various elements required to form a computer. Usually computers are build as processing assets on a hardware chip. But, 521 is a virtual computer also known as a virtual machine or VM [1].

The concept of a virtual machine is not unique. The architecture of this particular VM IS unique, however, and is key to the novel 521 capabilities. I will be explaining only the simplest operation as that may jog further thinking for other solutions.

The 521 virtual machine is designed to run on a web platform such as a browser, yet able to connect to data in a proprietary application (including an OS since that is an application albeit the underlying “base” or “platform” application between the applications and the bare hardware referred to as “bare metal”).

Because the 521 is typically used to augment and support programming workload on the client, the 521 product is called an “agent”. Actually, an agent is what can be built using 521 claims for 512 is actually the creative ecology for all derivative agent products and claims.

What that means is 521 is what you build 521 products (which are agents) out of.

We will do the simplest use of 521 here before we graduate to larger project capabilities and patented product derivatives which are potentially very many.

So, we have a “web-based” agent which may reside on the browser (or on the OS or on bare metal, but more about that later) which may retrieve proprietary data on the local machine, process that data and present that data as an XML representation.

The XML data may be transported by the agent via http to any other real or virtual computer for further process. It is the http protocol that makes the agent “web-based” and does not limit the agent to residing on the browser.

In our virtualization examples above, the other “target” computer would use a similar [or different – doesn't matter] agent to transform the produced XML into the proprietary data form and place that in the proprietary data store for that client application to work with.

At that point the client could be a anything from a mainframe or a micro-device.

That is essentially one of the simplest “bridge”s you can build and is a base concept that describes one of the 521 children; the “XML Enabler Agent”.

In this capacity, the 521 derived agent can act as an agent for a proprietary application to virtualize any size data body in the application datastore. That virtualization may be expressed as anything (not just XML) as various programming inputs on the MLE, so the proprietary IN, XML or anything OUT is a beginning of a universal virtualizer.

SO, COULD MICROSOFT DO IT DIFFERENTLY?

Sure. They can modify the various individual server-based applications they own to be able to express XML to the client and return received XML back to the proprietary expression on the main server or some other server (what SOAP does). This configuration would preserve their “server-centric” philosophy, but, they would then not be in a position to act as a replacement for the main server should the internet connection between the client and the main server be down. Such “off-line” processing while waiting for the on-line web connection to return, is a significant point of contention by SaaS critics.

Such on-line/off-line capability may only be served by a processing facility at the local client machine. This is what the agent does.

MSFT can provide executive agents of their own at the “end” of RSS pipes at the local client (this would leverage the inbred subscription/transaction activity in RSS) with XML routers to pass messages to various executive elements on the browser or client OS. The problem there is all processing of the proprietary data to XML must necessarily occur remote from the local client at the main server. Therefore, latency between the processed answer and the arrival at the client is exacerbated by no off-line processing capability.

This RSS method is a key component of Ray Ozzie's vision for providing MSFT's software+service distributed computing. While it works with a Remote Procedure Call architecture like SOAP, it does not qualify as “distributed computing” but, rather, distributed services.

The off-line processing vulnerability is the key obstacle inherent in the RSS method. The RSS method still needs a local agent to perform processes while the web is off-line (which renders the RSS silent until connection is resumed).

So, the above two example workarounds show the answer to “Could MSFT do it differently?” is a qualified 'yes, but'. The solution does not meet the requirements of true web application construction and does not accomplish virtualization at the client but requires virtualization at the main server – a method which has been the traditional means of providing web pages since the 1990's.

The main reason VCSY's 521 is superior to MSFT method is found in 521's ability to act anywhere in any configuration under any circumstances. “Proving” that is simply a matter of walking through thought experiments with various architectural configurations being exercised to watch the issues faced by designers. This can be done by 521 against any other vendor methods and 521 holds flexibility, scale, and power advantages throughout. I will gladly provide such thought experiments in greater detail.

I believe the virtualization and client-side server capacity are inherently desirable compared against the traditional RPC method.

The sister to “virtual” is “arbitrary”; a term not heard in current buzz because it has not been cataloged by any mainstream provider. Arbitrary is the keyword for the 744 patent which is the one MSFT is being sued for infringing in .Net.

I think you will see where in .Net such “arbitrary” capability might be needed and where it appears to be or have been.

Footnotes:

[1] Virtual Machine aka VM is a data processing computer that is not actual or “real” but is built out of software and runs using internet protocol (in this discussion) to communicate with other computers whether actual or virtual. The 521 VM is a virtual micro-server able to perform data communications between internet systems using the http protocol. It is thus a web server that runs on the local actual machine. A VM like 521 may be called a “runtime” [3], but 521 calls the VM with accompanying processing resource streams an “agent”.

[2] The 521 VM is comprised of primitive elements that perform disk and other resource I/O operations. These elements may be assembled into a workable application accessing the proprietary resources and functions of the underlying platform (typically the OS running the browser) by invoking the primitives in a dynamic markup script. This is the “program” that builds the executive functions and workflow of the web-based application.

[3] The term “runtime” is a proprietary word denoting the operating executive kernel residing as the first and central element of a VM coupled with a programming language to access the resources connected to the kernel. Typical of such a description is Microsoft's Common Language Runtime, which is the means of actioning Windows, and the new Dynamic Language Runtime, which is designed to operate on the web and run a markup-based programming language.

[4] VCSY's “dynamic markup language” Emily (the executive kernel is the Markup Language Executive) was introduced by VCSY in 2000. Microsoft's dynamic markup language is still under wraps.

Signed,
the real portuno
http://search.messages.yahoo.com/search?.mbintl=finance&q=portuno_diamo&action=Search&r=Huiz75WdCYfD_KCA2Dc-&within=author&within=tm

A Layman's View of VCSY part 1a/b - background

2007-09-08T20:34:00.001-07:00

Note, I am placing these posts on this board because Yahoo has a 4000 character limit on posts there.

The following was posted on the Yahoo/VCSY board:

http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_V/threadview?m=tm&bn=33693&tid=361&mid=361&tof=1&frt=1
Message for Portuno or any other long (Not rated)
8-Sep-07 04:37 am by ns5000
Can you make a case for vcsy for a non-techie or "traders" as you put it.

Please do not put any links. Just explain in simple terms why msft can't develop vista or viridian or .net without the 2 patents you have been talking about.

I could consider investing purely as a speculative buy if you are able to spell out your case clearly in simple terms.

I responded with this and will add to the effort shortly:
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_V/threadview?m=tm&bn=33693&tid=361&mid=369&tof=1&rt=1&frt=1&off=1
Layman's view of VCSY issues Part 1a (Not rated)
8-Sep-07 12:05 pm by portuno_diamo
One quick explanation I can provide is this:

Microsoft's entire development philosophy has been centered around their operating system on the PC for decades.

During those decades, VCSY's inventors' life work focused on the network and specifically the internet as a network.

The VCSY inventors worked on distributed networked computer concepts while MSFT worked on the personal local computer network.

By the time the internet was mature enough to have a "boom" centered on it, the VCSY work was mature enough to deploy, thus VCSY work was made available to the market in 2000.

Microsoft had only been able to build a browser and was only then branching out to attempt to mature smaller experimental efforts. Thus, MSFT's work comes to the market in 2008.

From 2000 to present, VCSY has been able to further develop their work.

At the same time, MSFT struggled to come up to speed on web operating systems and web applications within a corporate culture that dismissed the internet as a valid platform for building anything more complex or robust than electronic magazines.

THAT cultural difference between MSFT design and VCSY design is what sets the stage for the power behind the VCSY patents.

Remember what happens in design/build. The designer considers the problem and comes up with A solution. That solution may or may not flesh out properly. Revisions of that solution or entirely new solutions attempt to address the newly met issues and often require further mods or remakes based on new issues that crop up.

It's just like writing and having to do repetitive drafts to come up with the most elegant form.

VCSy's inventors have been doing this process for decades. Microsoft has been doing this in a limited way decades later than the VCSy inventors made it through their most basic obstacles.

The trader simply needs to consider this fundamental difference to see the effect of MSFT's "internet is a fad" philosophy. VCSY was able to virtualize and arbitrate (I will go into more detail why these two concepts are central to breaking free of the "PC" OS) whilel MSFT was hell bent on keeping everything locked to the PC.

Some say MSFT has superior resources, but, resources is not the issue. Simplicity and elegance in response to all the various screw-ups and dead-ends encountered in the human design process is key.

(continued in next post)
Layman's view of VCSY issues Part 1b (Not rated) 8-Sep-07 12:05 pm
(continued from previous post)

If resources were the problem, the most critical issues could be solved more quickly by simply adding people and money. So what YOU do at work should be able to be done by 20 times that many people in 1/20th the time. We all know it doesn't work that way in design because each of the 20 times more resources will encounter the same sets of issues and come up with various ways to solve them. Without the collaboration tools to bring those issues and solutions to the front so the 20x resources can contemplate them as one mind, the result is not 20 years of collective experience but 20 one year experiences.

If MSFT could have done what VCSY can do, they would have done it back in 2003/2004 when they were high on XML and touting Longhorn and all the other parts and pieces to anyone who would listen. Instead, it all went into a vault and has STILL not seen the light of day. All that is STILL not on the market because MSFT is only now issuing test versions promising to deliver even more test versions in 2008.

Meanwhile, the record shows VCSY has been quietly working to mature the solutions that were available as products for sale in 2000 and 2001.

Big difference.

Based on information VCSY longs have found, after the dotcom boom went bust, taking VCSY's shareprice down, VCSy was quietly working with others to flesh out their philosophy.

In the next post (which will require some simplification and I won't have time to do until later this evening) I will explain HOW 521/744 are technically superior to anything MSFT or any other vendor's have built for network architecting.

Then, I will explain "virtual" and "arbitrary" so you may see why the VCSy method is fundamentally superior to anything MSFT or any other vendor's have built for building, operating and controlling networked applications.

Hope this helps. There will be more of
the real portuno
http://search.messages.yahoo.com/search?.mbintl=finance&q=portuno_diamo&action=Search&r=Huiz75WdCYfD_KCA2Dc-&within=author&within=tm

IBM Patent 7,058,671 referencing VCSY 6826744

2007-09-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

Baveman found this IBM patent referencing the VCSY SiteFlash patent. I have attempted to describe the patent purpose and cited reference patents in a narrative below. It could use some work to refine so that's your homework so you can verify for yourself what it is you are seeing.

The IBM patent 7058671 appears to be aimed at automating the construction of programs on the web.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsrchnum.htm&Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&r=1&l=50&f=G&d=PALL&s1=7058671.PN.&OS=PN/7058671&RS=PN/7058671
ABSTRACT: A method and system for delivering dynamic web pages in the INTERNET. Compiled programs embedding static queries to a database are stored on a server computer; view templates with HTML tags defining the layout of corresponding dynamic web pages and data tags instructing where and how to include each record of the query result into the respective dynamic web page are further stored on the server computer. When a dynamic web page must be distributed, the corresponding program is run, and the query result is stored into a shared memory structure. The query result is combined with the corresponding view template, by replacing the data tags with the associated records in the shared memory structure. The resulting web page is then distributed to client computers of the network.

If you look at the description of the patent uses, there are no "users" involved. The patent performs work in an aggregating complexity with the aim of producing a deliverable sent to the user at the client. The deliverable is an application aka program and the patent claims the "...means for sending the view structure to at least one client computer of the network for causing the view structure to be displayed on the at least one client computer, wherein the corresponding view template is generated by a compiler and has the form of a directly executable program."

Thus, the end result is an autonomous system assembling blocks of "information" comprise the necessary content, format and functionality information into a "view" template which is then compiled into program (application) and delivered to the client for application use.

That's it in a nutshell. As any application may be comprise of content, format and functionality:
1. content (text, images, sound - anything humans or machines may produce as a deliverable of processed data - metadata attached to this content is available to guide the machine on the various processing requirements)
2. format (specifications and objects that define how the content will be presented to a human user and/or a machine user)
3. functionality (the stepwise instructions [via diagrams, outlines, narratives - think UML and other program modeling methods].

I've tried to throw together an explanation of what IBM patent 7058671 does and what the cited patents add to the discussion. There is plenty room for improvement and jsut a result of an extra cup of coffee and an English muffin with extra butter. This is a rough analysis and is my own opinion. It may be further refined and that's what you the reader should do so you can understand this concept thoroughtly. This is a foundation for modular constructed applications and delivered and used handled autonomously by machines under human supervision.

Below are citations the patent rests its claims based on evolution of past patented prior art. The citation describes what past patents reflect as founding or similar methods and advancements. The patent describes what activity regarding those patents and additional advances described in the claims is used to create the unique invention qualities.

First, view the patent refences by themselves:
Patents Cited in the 7058671 patent (aka patented prior art):
Patent Number
Title
Issue date

5835712
Client-server system using embedded hypertext tags for application and database development
Nov 10, 1998

5894554
System for managing dynamic web page generation requests by intercepting request at web server and routing to page server thereby releasing web server to process other requests
Apr 13, 1999

6055570
Subscribed update monitors
Apr 25, 2000

6275830
Compile time variable size paging of constant pools
Aug 14, 2001

6826744
System and method for generating web sites in an arbitrary object framework
Nov 30, 2004

As you see them listed in chronological order, you may also see an evolution of capability providing a foundation for the present claims of this to be validated patent claims against.

This is a ratification by progressing art extension of the claims of the cited patents.

Now, view each of the cited reference patents fleshed out individually.
In this example the progression of capability is fairly easy to see if we dissect and display each:

1. 5835712
TITLE: Client-server system using embedded hypertext tags for application and database development
ABSTRACT: A system and methods for rapid deployment of World Wide Web applications on the Internet. A preferred method provides a template, accessible to both client and server, for constructing Web source text. The source text includes HTML tag extensions for implementing dynamic Web environment. The tag extensions are nested and grouped to form scripts to perform specific tasks, such as state construction and on-line data arrangement. Each tag extension or script is expanded and replaced with data value to be embedded within a traditional HTML tag. A processor is employed to process templates and execute tag extensions therein, and produces pages in pure HTML form for displaying by any Web browser.

1. Says we can equip a template shared between the server and the client to build web code using HTML "tag extensions" (encompassing XML) to build web pages as required on the fly (dynamic) having the capability to act as functional processing applications ("state construction and on-line data arrangement").

Huh?: Web pages can be more than look, feel and interaction. A web page can be an application or even an operating system in itself. This patent addresses a method to build applications out of web pages on a changing basis as requirements, resources and specifications change. The first step toward autonomous web operation as the machine may understand and construct web components.

ADVANCE: Instead of relying on old art traditional methods of identification and indexing content, [1] provides tagging and templating methods to machine-build programs using "web pages".

Key: TAG
---
2. 5894554
TITLE: System for MANAGING dynamic web page generation requests by intercepting request at web server and routing to page server thereby releasing web server to process other requests
ABSTRACT: The present invention teaches a method and apparatus for creating and managing custom Web sites. Specifically, one embodiment of the present invention claims a computer-implemented method for managing a dynamic Web page generation request to a Web server, the computer-implemented method comprising the steps of routing the request from the Web server to a page server, the page server receiving the request and releasing the Web server to process other requests, processing the request, the processing being performed by the page server concurrently with the Web server, as the Web server processes the other requests, and dynamically generating a Web page in response to the request, the Web page including data dynamically retrieved from one or more data sources.

2. Says we can create a system whereby we get "...a computer-implemented method for managing a dynamic Web page generation request to a Web server" to allow the server to delegate processing to other servers more targeted for handling generation of product.

What the...?: This builds a supervisor machine which can take in requirements from all areas and delegate the delivery workflow to other machines. The machine becomes an autonomous contractor.

ADVANCE: Instead of relying on monolithic systems using a single server to receive process and deliver all web page product, [2] provides task management by delegating production duties to distributed servers with their own distributed reqources by a request processing supervisor. This allows servers to compartmentalize various processing needs on server by server basis rather than segments of servers.

Key: DELEGATE DELIVERY
---
3. 6055570
TITLE: Subscribed update monitors
ABSTRACT: A user can monitor changes to information located on a network by registering with an update monitor service. The update monitor service can run as a stand alone server in the network or can run on a user computer or on the computer of an Internet Service Provider. The update monitor service obtains information about changes to information being monitored for the server on which the information is located or from a comparison of old and current versions of the information. The user can modify the list of information sources to be monitored by the update monitor service.

3. Says we can provide each client with appropriate methods to monitoring current product delivery for compiance with latest instances of specified requirement governance.

Duhhh...?: Each client can be monitored by an objective seperate policing facility tracking the delivered state and the required state of information provided the client use.

ADVANCE: Instead of running blind and waiting for the next update to trickle through the system, [3] provides a means for independent and objective machine monitoring of client delivery and compliance may be provided in real time from an objective and independent source. This allows the machine to know its current state and its current health and proper work ethic. A critical element of dynamic autonomy with traceability.

Key: POLICE
---
4. 6275830
TITLE: Compile time variable size paging of constant pools
ABSTRACT: A method and apparatus for paging data in a computer system is provided. A set of data associated with a program unit is divided into pages such that no item of the set of data spans more than one page. The size of one page may vary from the size of another. When the program unit is compiled, metadata is generated that indicates the division of items into pages. At load time, a page mapping is generated based on the metadata. The page mapping is used to locate a item that belongs to the set of data. Other parts of the program unit, such as byte code, can contain references to items in the constant pool. Each reference specifies the number of the page in which the corresponding item will be stored at runtime, and the offset of that item within the page.

4. Says we can provide a means for metadata to identify and direct access to data structures throughout a mass of data within the web page, web site, web framework, web world. That metadata may be used in machine code thus enabling a machine to autonomously select, retireve, provision, and employ process and data units throughout the internet delivered processing mass autonomously.

But uhh but uhh but uhhh...?: The machine needs to know where the data is just as an operating system needs to be able to touch compounded masses of data for processing within memory resources in a hardware operating system or a software operating system.

ADVANCE: Instead of clueless web pages and web sites, [4] allows each supervisory metadata package to contain its own analog of the traditional disk operating system File Allocation Table (FAT) which represents the structural architecture and boundries of the machine. This was once found only in hardware processing resources. [4] says the virtual page, website, framework has the capability to natively identify by address index any data anywhere in the structure. This is a key to machine "awareness" of the application space.

Key: CONDUCT
---
5. 6826744
TITLE: System and method for generating web sites in an arbitrary object framework
ABSTRACT: A system and method for generating computer applications in an arbitrary object framework. The method separates content, form, and function of the computer application so that each may be accessed or modified separately. The method includes creating arbitrary objects, managing the arbitrary objects throughout their life cycle in an object library, and deploying the arbitrary objects in a design framework for use in complex computer applications.

5. Says the above masses of data and processing capability may be segmented in segregated operations dealing with content and format and functionality arbitrarily-[5] to combine these into affiliated-[5] web applications-[1] using virtualized and arbitrated resources-[2] and arbitrary governance-[3] of addressable masses-[4] to provide a means to build applications without the need for programming knowledge or skill [5].

Blink Blink...?: A machine simply needs to know [1]-what it touches [2]-where the solution is [3]-the requirements are being met real time [4]-where to touch and [5]- how to create. The building process (design/develop/deploy/determine) of applications at every knowable state may be further processed to build applications for human or other machine users autonomously (humans construct the elemental pieces of the system resource pool - the machine is able to pick up the task from there and complete the building process) by machine.

ADVANCE: Instead of human teams of programmers building applications (even if or especially if they use manual implementations of various design, develop, model environments), programming becomes an abstracted processing ecology that may be abstracted toward the human (5 as SiteFlash) or toward the machine (5 as the creating element in this patent).

Key: CREATE
---

So you create a system that can TAG,DELEGATE,POLICE CONDUCT,CREATE and funnel that activity into a system that delivers the machine built applications to the client for deterministic use tailored in usability, culture and governance to the user's unique requirements.

The user is the computer.

Viola! Gimme two beers. One for the janitor.

Congratulations. You've made it over the bridge. Now, take that farmhouse and await further orders.

Reference: Inventors for 6826744 and 7076521

2007-09-03T04:29:00.000-07:00

I am placing this here as a place holder for pointing to by the Yahoo VCSY board as the Yahoo message forum has a 4000 character limit. I may use this method of supplying information to boards without burdening the posted messages with large bodies of text.

Thanks to Morrie and all the other contributors here and thanks to all VCSY Longs ("long" VCSY stock aka investors aka treeforters native or honorary) for your work in uncovering, collecting and distributing information and opinions to the VCSY Long social network.

To Wit:
(REFERENCED FROM: http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_V/threadview?m=tm&bn=33693&tid=328&mid=328&tof=1&frt=1 )
The inventors behind 6826744 (Aubrey McAuley) and 7076521 (Jeff Davison) hold pioneer status in the field of network framework syndication (McAuley) and network automation management (Davison).

For convenience:
patent 6826744 (aka 744)
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,826,744.PN.&OS=PN/6,826,744&RS=PN/6,826,744
System and method for generating web sites in an arbitrary object framework

patent 7076521 (aka 521)
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsrchnum.htm&Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&r=1&l=50&f=G&d=PALL&s1=7076521.PN.&OS=PN/7076521&RS=PN/7076521
Web-based collaborative data collection system

(CONTINUED FROM : http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_V/threadview?m=tm&bn=33693&tid=328&mid=328&tof=1&frt=1 )
---
Aubrey McAuley:
McAuley came in contact with pioneering work in distributed computing through his background in on-line comic book publication (funny, ain't it? - see http://www.comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID=13032 ) which requires an entirely different boundary of capabilities than the traditional work limited to syndication of data typified in parallel or hive computing.

From the unique problems encountered within the realm of syndicated distribution of functional graphics, McAuley developed a method to integrate the concepts of content and format management (typified in the dotcom era by designer suites such as Adobe ColdFusion and Microsoft FrontPge) and functionality management (which is the area occupied by IDE's [Integrated Development Environment] such as the Microsoft "Visual" series of environments).

Thus, McAuley's vision was of a single framework within which a person skilled in design (content/format) and development (functionality) could produce applications built using web-page graphics interaction (look and feel aka GUI [Graphic User Interface]).

In doing so, McAuley was the first to construct the idea of web applications

Some additional reading:

McAuley's background in Austin, Texas centered around hive-computing work typified by the University of California/Berkeley WebOS:
http://www.cs.duke.edu/ari/issg/webos/
"WebOS began at the University of California, Berkeley in 1996 as part of the Network of Worksta(t)ions project." also known as 'NOW'.

that was taken further in the University of Texas/Austin project "Beyond Browsers"
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/less/bb/

Network-of-Workstations or 'NOW' is the original SaaS using thin or fat client workstations to construct distributed computing resources. In such a system, the browser serves as the GUI environment.

"Beyond Browsers" allowed ALL programmed applications, including browsers, to use geographically distributed computing resources.

VCSY NOW Solutions takes the central "network is the computer" concept to a comprehensive plateau with the emPath construct gluing all applications together so they may run on their respective proprietary platforms while interoperating with web services and other networked resources.

McAuley's work resulted in the 6826744 patent which took these distributed computing concepts and rendered them in an integrated content/format/functionality framework that referenced all resources within those three domains in an arbitrary way. A natural by-product of such arbitrated virtualization is the ability to "repurpose" any part of the application from any resource to any other required use.

A search on McAuley's current work shows him in the Adobe user forum... where one would have expected to find him these days based on his long-running experience and efforts:
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?224@@2cd6967d@.3bc48a75/9

While 744 is referred to as a "WebOS" patent, the WebOS is only one construct that may be derived from the patent. The patent is a universal framework maker from which any operating system and/or application and/or code fragments may be derived into any other purpose or use.

The framework also allows for the integration of any purposed applications into the framework. Thus, 744 becomes a comprehensive ecology for concept, design, development, deployment of applications from any arbitrary resources. The ecology may thus be extended to include life-cycle maintenance, management, governance or any other discipline relating to the purposes represented by the overall or piece-wise application resources.

744 represents one of the most significant developments in application existence in history and signals a new paradigm which promises to absorb legacy software development as well as creating wholly novel and unique applications.

One of the most important characteristics of 744 is the ability to morph operating systems and applications (both may be integrated into a single package) into any subject matter ecology where the tasking and use is carried out by SME's[subject matter experts] with little to no programming skills.

Furthermore, such constructs may be further extended into vertical disciplines with similar but different applications and appliances. Thus SiteFlash becomes the parent with all derived child capabilities remaining traceable to the original product.

This capability alone teaches a wide array of available life-cycle design, development, maintenance, management, governance and property audit methods which provide a comprehensive means of value-assessment and policing unavailable by traditional methods and products.

The above barely touches the surface of the 744 paradigm which is a transcendent approach on software.

---

Jeff Davison:
Davison's work in network management by agent methods uniquely equipped him to produce an executive kernel and a programming language constructed from and using markup language (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markup_language). The result of this construction and programming results in a universally extensible means of building virtual computer architectures.

Another useful facet of Davison's agent work means the "markup" language may be any textual system for expressing data and structure including but not limited to the more famous markup language XML. Thus, the MLE (Markup Language Executive) described in the 7076521 patent is capable of running any code of any kind. This means the 521 virtual machine is able to be applied to any platform using any code to perform the task of collecting data from any resource and processing and transporting that to any consumer.

By combining agents of various capabilities, the MLE becomes a granular component for building virtualized software and/or virtualized hardware. The 521 machine may thus become anything "computer" for any purpose and is not limited by proprietary structure thus allowing virtualization at any level for any purpose.

This small bio covers only a small part of Mr. Davison's career. The reader would do well to examine his significant background experience more thoroughly than space or time here permits:

http://www.secinfo.com/duwTa.43ar.htm from December 31, 2000
Jeff Davison, Age 45
Chief Software Officer
Mr. Davison is a Professional Engineer, certified in electrical and electronic engineering. He has more than 20 years of Internet software and product development experience. He is the author of various software products, including the popular SNMX scripting language for network management and automation, offered by Diversified Data Resources. Most recently, he has been the chief developer of Emily, VCSY's proprietary XML tool.
---

744 and 521 have complementary architectures.

The 744 patent allows for each deliverable to transform and evolve into higher forms thus providing the various constructs (of any kind with any resources) with increasing simplicity and ease.

Applying the 521 patent allows for the simulation/emulation of any software or electronic hardware construct. Pairing the 744 and 521 patents allows these constructs to evolve and repurpose via extensibility at all levels. For that reason, the potential scope of derivative computer products may number in the millions.

Applesauce, Applesauce, Pay Up MSFT...

2007-08-02T18:03:00.001-07:00

« VCSY Message list | Reply to msg. | Post new msg.

« Older | Newer »

By: RapidRobert2

02 Aug 2007, 08:50 PM EDT

Msg. 193900 of 193903
Jump to msg. #

And, a repost so it won't be buried: By: yo-eleven
02 Aug 2007, 02:43 AM EDT
Msg. 193822 of 193899
Jump to msg. #
One thing about RagingBull, they don't have a low character limit like Yahoo.

To wit:

Part1
Did you read today's news about MSFT “wanting” to settle with Eolas? Like my pa always said, “Want in one hand and $#!@ in the other and see which one fills up first.”

It's all beginning to make sense now. Nod nod wink wink. Say no more.

------------
http ://news. com. com/2100-1032_3-5173287.html

The next round in Microsoft's Web browser patent fight will unfold in an obscure bureaucratic proceeding that offers the company and its allies few, if any, chances to argue their side.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) last month issued a preliminary finding that appeared to tip the closely watched case in Microsoft's favor: A patent... may have been wrongly granted, the agency acknowledged.

------------
Sound like a familiar play? You see, it's always very important to examine the words. EVERY word. And repeat it to yourself (you can even move your lips, if that makes you feel more sure) until you know you understand what the word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, chapter, book says.

See, if you had just stopped reading you would think we're talking about today's MSFT strategy against the VCSY patents. "wrongly granted" is what MSFT wants us to believe about 744. That there was error in application criteria adherence and EVEN, heavens me, personal malfeasance on the part of the inventor. Oh my, that do stinketh.

But, no, the above news article and blurb was about their battle with Eolas v Microsoft for (what else?) patent infringement.

Read the article. It will make you feel good.

"Eolas Technologies at the heart of a $521 million infringement verdict against the software giant may have been wrongly granted, the agency acknowledged."

Note the date on the Eolas v Microsoft article that shows us MSFT had the patent office IN THEIR HANDS ready to admit the patent was wrongly granted. Where are we with the VCSY patent 744, Mister Patent Commissioner? Paper plug? Run a pig through it and clean out the lines. You guys have poop in your pipes.

Ask Paul Festa
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: March 16, 2004, 4:00 AM PST

Fortunately for Eolas, there was some good news later: On September 27, 2005, the USPTO upheld the validity of the patent. (Fortunately the patent system has its own checks and balances for making things happen correctly in the examine/grant process. It's not some whacked out college student thumbing through a patent summary with a stamp and a sticky pad.)

Now. Read today's news:

http ://www.washingtonpost. com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080100820.html
Microsoft, Eolas seek to settle patent rift out of court
Microsoft is working to settle its long-running patent suit over IE with Eolas Technologies rather than heading back to court.

Elizabeth Montalbano
PC World
Wednesday, August 1, 2007; 10:19 AM

Microsoft Corp. is seeking to settle its long-running patent suit with Eolas Technologies Inc. through negotiations rather than heading back to the courtroom.
----------

Now, isn't that a sign of good behaviour? I wonder which judge MSFT is trying to impress. The Eolas case holder or someone else?

Part2
Now, let's go to another patent case concerning Microsoft:

http ://www.pbs. org/cringely/pulpit/2003/pulpit_20030828_000447.html
Robert X. Cringely
August 28, 2003
Stupid Microsoft Tricks: Why the Richest Company on Earth Feels it Needs to Cheat

Burst claims that Microsoft negotiated in bad faith for over a year, then stole Burst's patented technology for increasing the efficiency of video and audio streaming. "Bursting" is protected by a total of 37 U.S. and foreign patents. A jury will decide later this year whether or not Microsoft is infringing Burst's patents and whether Redmond actively stole Burst's technology despite having a nondisclosure agreement in place....

What doesn't have to be proved is what was stipulated in this week's hearing. The hearing came about because Burst felt Microsoft was not divulging all the documents it was supposed to as part of the discovery phase of the case....

Microsoft handed over the e-mail messages on a disk, and when Burst's lawyers had printed all the messages they filled 140 boxes. That's a lot of messages, but not surprising for Microsoft, where the business culture of the company literally happens on e-mail.

When Burst's lawyers put the messages in order by date and time, they claim to have noticed a peculiar phenomenon. There were literally no messages from approximately one week before until about a month after all seven meetings between the two companies. This meant that either Microsoft completely suspended its corporate e-mail culture for an aggregate period of 35 weeks, or there were messages that had been sent and received at Microsoft, but not divulged to Burst.

Presented with this charge in court, Microsoft's attorneys acknowledged that the message gaps existed. The messages had been erased by the half-dozen Microsoft employees involved, both from their PCs and from the mail servers. There were no backup copies. The reason for this mass erasure, it was explained, is that Burst technology was unimpressive and not of interest to Microsoft, and the e-mails were simply not worth keeping.

http ://www.infoworld. com/article/05/03/14/HNburstmicrosoft_1.html
Update: Burst, Microsoft reach settlement
Microsoft to pay $60 million to settle patent-infringement, antitrust claims

By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
March 14, 2005
----------------
Looks to me that MSFT is fairly pragmatic when it comes to losing skin as opposed to money.

Where to now, Saint Peter?

Part3
Yes, yes yes, it's always in the nature of any architecture that the more you see of the elements the more you can see of the whole.

Regarding Burst, they had "...patented technology for increasing the efficiency of video and audio streaming" (pretty self explanatory)

Regarding Eolas, they had a patented method "...for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document" (that's patent attorney speak for any object for GUI interaction you may wish to run on a a browser).

Put the two together and you get... ah haaaaaa!

Now, treeforters, put on your thinking caps and stick some more aluminum foil under there because we's gonna radiate.

To wit:

The first necessary element in building a web application is the GUI. A GUI (graphical user interface) is the buttons and knobs (actually pictures of buttons and knobs) and various other objects up to and including moving graphics.

The natural extension of dynamic GUIness is the video streamed to the user with controls the user can interact with. Burst had the first part of that patented. But, you need to be able to start and control that object stream. Eolas had that patented. The "with controls the user can interact with" is where patent 521 steps in.

Thus, video streaming and control over the internet is a prime foundational concept. And Microsoft wanted it bad enough to steal it AND to hide information about the coveting and stealing or to come up with "information" and "witness" to "prove" the patent is "invalid".

Not very creative, but they're lawyers, dummy. They're not art majors.

Part4
So, concerning the Burst people, the relationship with the Eolas patent covered essentially the automate-able initiation of video (among other elements of GUI controls) and the Burst patents cover the streaming of said video once initiated. Everything you need to have VIOLA! GIMME A BEER! the most dynamic GUI possible on the internet.

Then you attach agents (7076521) to various parts of the GUI to provide a functional component to the GUI and you have yourself a web application.

So the Microsoft "Expression Suite", one would presume, covers building everything from 'traditional' graphics to video based GUI (what you can do when you can tag video elements with XML-based identification and metadata). And supposedly Expression takes up where Frontpage left off... in a sense. The problem, however, in the Microsoft system is that you're either a designer OR a developer. You apparently can't be both in the same package... so Expression and dotNet 3.0 grew along separate tracks.

Why? Because if you combine Expression and dotNet 3.0 together into one package you trample the patented content/format/function management on the internet (it doesn't matter if you do it all day long on your operating system platform - this one is on the internet platform and is thus 'extra-platform' as well as obviously cross-platform) of patent 6826744.

Microsoft might be able to do all this kind of thing on their own operating system but they were stuck on that platform without being able to extend their GUI and functionality to the internet (aka browser platform)... and Burst and Eolas and VCSY and who knows what others stand in their way.

Part5

I wonder for how long?

See, what good is building this kind of stuff in R&D labs and on "test beds" if you can't present it on a browser in front of the public?

Well, you COULD be satisfied with doing it on the operating system platform called "Windows" (or OX because as MSFT goes so goes AAPL).

But, in order to be done on the browser, Microsoft found, one will have to contend with an entirely different set of concepts. Whatever patents MSFT might have in it's stall should be sufficient to do all the things one might need do on an operating system, but, when one needs to move "beyond" the operating system (in order to reach those who are not on your platform) one needs something... how shall I say it?... beyond the operating system.

What's out there we can use as a 'ubiquitous' enough platform that is not like the proprietary platform, but can, in fact, be a platform on other operating system platforms?

Well, there's the browser, but, that's a whole heck of a lot of other patents not available under the umbrella of operating system... and Microsoft does not own them. Oh, they want to build and develop the stuff in, like, Research and Development campaigns, but, they apparently can't bring themselves to actually sell any of it.

Fine by me. They can sit on their sales for a decade for all I care. I got all the time in the world. And the reader knows how to learn even if it's by accident. If they're as sure about proving the VCSY patent invalid or crooked as they were with Burst and Eolas, I think the shareholders are going to catch on real fast that each day MSFT delays putting next generation patents on the field is going to cost them plenty.

How long can they wait?

So, first Burst, then Eolas, then VCSY and why?

Because, Burst and Eolas make up what have come to compose the fundamentals for web-GUI design aka MSFT Expression.

VCSY represents the segments beyond the Expression content/format wherein development fundamentals on the internet are fashioned and run and managed ... beyond the platform of the operating systems where an "operating system" or "application" may be made out of anything you can get your hands on.

It's almost like a freedom beyond the machine; Beyond the robot taught to adhere to the law because the law was made for the big man's benefit.

"He who loves me will obey my commandments."

You heard the man.

For the record.

2007-07-25T16:32:00.000-07:00

29 May 2007 15:28 EDT Posted by Rasta Mafoozle
IBM wants to know. LOL
Question:
IBM (actually an O'Reilly Editor is asking) wants to know: "What are all you 'XML Programmers' using for tools? Rocks tied to sticks?"
XML and Java technology: Low-level or high-level XML APIs?
How much control do you want over your XML?
Brett D. McLaughlin, Sr. (mailto:brett@newInstance.com?subject=Low-level), Author and Editor, O'Reilly Media, Inc.29 May 2007

Not many years ago, the options for working with XML were limited essentially to SAX, DOM, or a home-brewed API. With hundreds of different developer-friendly APIs today, though, have developers lost some of their ability to manipulate XML?

Here's the deal: I'm looking to stir the pot a bit. This is obviously not a tip that is overflowing with working code, because I wonder who really does use working XML code these days, and what API (or APIs) they use. Is it true that hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of you out there still plug away with SAX and DOM, comfortable writing your startProcessingInstruction() method, or have data binding and helper APIs completely taken over? I'm curious, as is much of the developerWorks editorial staff.

And arguably more importantly, do you believe you still have the control and power over your XML? I pose this question particularly to programmers who have worked with XML since the early days when SAX was your only option for speedy XML reading, and DOM was the only choice if you wanted to deal with an XML document in object form. Do you find yourself working at a higher level, and are you OK with that? Or have we all become Turbo Pascal programmers while only a select few guys are popping the stack over on their ASM terminals? Please, get involved in this discussion—hop on over to the forum and start posting, and let's see what everyone thinks. XML programmers: declawed or not?

(me: I would like to know a few answers as well, like, how do all you developers feel watching Java take on XML while .Net sits in the closet? )

Just when I was getting good...

2007-07-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

As most readers will know, I have posted on ajaxamine.tripod.com for months. That opportunity apparently has been denied as the site is now off-line. I will continue to explore more to find out why Laughing Place #2 is unavailable as I am able to post but not able to bring up the home page.

Thanks for the place to crash Morrie.

25 July 2007 16:14 EDT Posted by Rasta Mafoozle
The End Is Near
If Microsoft is counting on exhibit_for_msft_response.pdf to prove "prior art", Microsoft shareholders should start getting shelac and brushes to use to decoupage their Microsoft shares once they lose the VCSY patent lawsuit.
UDATE
And IF I am allowed by the poorly acting site software I will endeavour to prove my contentions.
As it is, just logging in to this blog is a chore as the software is hanging up and not allowing free movement.
UPDATE
Apparently this blog site is no longer on-line. I shall retire to Laughing Place #3 and tell the story there that I have been denied the opportunity to tell here.

Yo Morrie the frig is on the blink...

2007-07-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

Uhhh... I thought I would put something here since I can't get to the Laughing Place #2 anymore. There's an error in the directive or some such. So I just wanted to put the text here to see if it's like rat poison or caviar.

(no url available but try ajaxamine.tripod.com - could be just a cookie got shoved down the wrong neck.)

19 July 2007 00:03 EDT Posted by Rasta Mafoozle
Mommy, that man is eating my teddy bear.

Masts and Sails! Either this is a flagship or a pirate ship. harrr. Best pump up me parrot and screw in the old powdered peg leg. Looks like more socializing with the hedge hogs.

Astoria and the Semantic Web
Kevin Hoffman :: email
posted Mon 16 Jul 07
Kevin Hoffman's Blog

I have said it before and I'll say it again, Microsoft's Pablo Castro is one of the few people putting stuff out there from Microsoft that really seem to "get it". He knows how people want their data (well, he knows how I want my data, and that's really all that counts, right?) and he seems to be on the same page as everyone else that I have spoken to as far as the whole REST thing. People want their data to be located at discrete, uniquely identifiable URIs. End of story.

In case you have been living under a rock, or you really don't care about Microsoft's "data in the cloud" strategies, Pablo Castro is the technical lead responsible for such gems as the ADO.NET Entity Framework and Astoria. Astoria is a project that wraps up an Entity Data Model in a WCF service with a uniform URI query format that allows for RESTful access to relational data via XML, RDF, or JSON.

The notion of the semantic web isn't really all that new, but it has been gaining a lot of momentum lately. The short story is that right now everyone is using the Web to publish and view human-readable content. What we look at on a daily basis is graphical, textual, and has animations, flash, whatever. The bottom line is that the content is human-readable. The semantic web pushes forward the notion that in addition to using the web for human-readable content, it should be used for data as well. The means by which the data on the semantic web is accessed is through raw HTTP, through a standard representational format like XML or RDF. It's a fantastic theory but I think it's too eutopian at the moment. I don't think that anytime in the near future the web is going to be flooded with this huge sprawling green field of RESTful services exposing POX/RDF data for the entire world to consume. Ths is where technology and business diverge. Technologically speaking, the eutopian vision of the truly semantic web is quite possible, and many people are working toward that goal right now. If you look at it from a business perspective, however, the outlook is a little darker. Bottom line is that people aren't going to embrace the semantic web until they can make money off of it.

Tools like Astoria are a fantastic tool by which we can expose data in a way that jives with the vision of the semantic web. The problem is that there are business concerns to exposing data on the web, not the least of which is of course -how do you charge people for that data? How do you make money off of exposing that data? The great thing about a semantic web and standardized data location and access methods is of course mashups. If anybody knows how to get at your data, and they know that your data is referenced in a way that is similar to the way in which Bob is exposing his data, etc - then everyone can consume everyone's data and the entire world enters a euphoric bliss of data consumption.

So what I see really happening is that corporations are going to take baby steps. Perhaps they will adopt "semantic web" style philosophies internally... hopefully they will even be using Astoria to expose relational models and helper methods on top of those relational models to allow applications within a corporation to consume data. In my ideal world, this is the way much of an organization's data is exposed internally. The clash between technological philosophy and real-world business practice occurs when you try and deal with how to authenticate access to your data, how you charge for your data, and how you license your data, etc.

The great thing about tools like Astoria for exposing the data and tools like Silverlight for rendering exposed data is that regardless of what the business people decide the future of the semantic web is going to be - you'll be ready. In that regard, as long as people like Pablo Castro are still allowed to make some decisions within Microsoft, we will still see a steady stream of good things coming - at least from the data team, anyway.

Waiting for Guffman...

2007-07-23T21:39:00.000-07:00

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By: RapidRobert2

24 Jul 2007, 12:21 AM EDT

Msg. 192591 of 192595
(This msg. is a reply to 192582 by waitin-on-news.)
Jump to msg. #

waitin: The bottom line is the end game and not during the game. Richard Wade, CEO, VCSY, learned his business acumen from those around him at Duty Free Shoppers. They were also a 'silent' company but made their owners BILLIONS in the end game. Wade learned the 'art of the deal' from those guys and if he has to remain silent, he will. I don't like it but I do respect Richard Wade for following his own mind and not those of the market wanting news for news sake...important news is more important than some distribution agreement, which VCSY has signed with at least three more companies in the last month. NO PR on those. NO PR on many things we have found that is maybe 'borderline' material info but Wade decided they weren't 'Material' as we didn't get a PR...same as many things going at VCSY and NOW Solutions that we know happened and have found but yet no press release...there is a reason for NO press releases on those types of deals and we will find out from Richard Wade why he didn't feel they were 'material' enough to disclose to shareholders and the public.

Wade is looking for when everything comes together and he isn't going to rush it by looking at the pps every few minutes like you DO.

I suggest you take some breaks during the day and go for a walk, a lil trip, get a dog, clean the house...anything but watch the pps every minute of the day. That isn't healthy and no wonder you are coming up with ridiculous accusations. Wade isn't selling shares, VCSY isn't selling shares and only the BASHERS are trying to keep the pps down.

Your theories are plain nonsense. If you feel that way, sell your shares and NEVER buy another stock because you STILL DO NOT understand business or the stock market. Sure, there is MM manipulation but it is legal with the blessing of the SEC. I don't like to trade on the OTCBB for that reason. The other exchanges have some built in protections but NONE on the OTCBB..the MM's do whatever they like and that is the way it is.

I do think there was an organized attempt to put VCSY out of business and that is WHY Richard Wade is still in 'steath' and still concerned enough that he won't worry about the pps or even shareholders until the time comes when VCSY can make the announcements to propel VCSY into the NASDAQ and have enough money to fight ANY ENEMY.

I don't know if it was MSFT, or CDC or even IBM..since we haven't seen a license by IBM...we don't know if IBM is using some of the VCSY tech legally or not but I DO KNOW VCSY is working with IBM on some projects, like 'second life' and others. How much are they working together since 2001 is still a mystery UNTIL Richard Wade is Willing, Ready and Able to make the news available.

I think MSFT and VCSY is still talking, don't know if they have a deal but I think their might be some backstepping by MSFT on a deal and it has to be worked out or VCSY will go forward and WIN THE LAWSUIT and even MORE MONEY than from a license today.

Wade knows what he is doing, if someone doesn't trust him, they should simply sell and move on. But to make accusations against him and the company is wrong. Your statements are wrong and I have shown you where and yet...you ignore advice and every few weeks start the same nonsense again.

Forget it, you ARE WRONG. VCSY and Wade ARE WORKING to make VCSY a HUGE SUCCESS and that is the GOAL OF MANAGEMENT AT VCSY...Not holding the hands of shareholders.

That is the way it is in the real world. A good CEO wants to build the company into a success. Most put out FLUFF press releases and bogus news to build up the pps....Richard Wade DOES NOT PUT OUT that type of news and if I have a choice, I will be REAL over FLUFF ANYDAY of the week.

The price per share will take care of itself when the news is released.

Oh! And, don't get jealous of new investors buying in at these prices, THANK THEM for being smart enough to see a hidden gem and buy it before the big events happen and are announced.

Have a Good Night.
RR

Request to RePost: The Good Gamble

2007-07-20T23:36:00.000-07:00

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By: morrie33

19 Jul 2007, 08:01 PM EDT

Msg. 191703 of 191997
Jump to msg. #

Load-up. Here's the god's honest straight #### deal...

This is a .025 stock. But...

We have NOW Solutions. A $6 million company who Verizon picked out to be their trailblazer on SAAS. Wow. Could NOW come into big money one of these days?

We have the $20 billion Verizon deal with the government. See #1. Is little ol' VCSY, already working with Verizon, even a little part of that government work? Hmmmmm. That could be more money for VCSY, right?

And what about that Fiber Optic patent that tepe likes to bring up every third Thursday? He says it's crap. But what if it's actually for real? Didn't Luiz say to a shareholder once that the F.O. patent is something VCSY would never give up? "It could be worth billions," was a statement I think he said. Well...what if? Would you gamble a few cents a shares for something that could be worth billions?

And then there's that XML stuff and IBM? And IBM working with empath? What about those Wade trips to IBM? Do we think he's just touring the facility like a farmer visiting Universal Studios? He's just taking pictures and buying souvenirs? Hmmm...So we have a .02 stock that MIGHT be working with IBM? That might have their tech in IBM products? Is that worth the gamble?

Isn't emily going through the Patent process? Hmmmm...Another tech patented? This is still a .025 stock, right? I'm gambling that maybe this emily patent is the one that hits it big, right?

Or, someone mentioned ResponseFlash. Those billions of dollars the government just announced. Hmmmmm. Maybe VCSY is a part of that? You mean for a few cents a share, I can gamble again that VCSY might be a part of the government's emergency response system? Hmmmm. I wonder how much money that would be worth?

And then there's SiteFlash. MSFT already said they're using it. They are not challenging that fact. So, apparently one of VCSY's tech is good enough for MSFT to use and use widely in one of their flagship products. So if MSFT is using it, who else is, and/or who else wants to? You mean I can buy this stock for a few cents a share and just wait for MSFT to legally license this? Or another company to legally license this? And how much will that be worth?

Oh, and there's ROSS who owes VCSY about $2 million. That will be paid. They can prolong that, but VCSY will get that money. But, hate to say it, but $2 million is small potatos for the speculation that one can make with this stock.

Finally, there's that MSFT case. Weak response by MSFT. As others have pointed out, it's the same tactic MSFT tried with the patent office and the patent office didn't buy it, so the court won't. VCSY will win this case or MSFT will settle. So again, you're saying that for a .025 stock, I can gamble my money that within a few years, VCSY will beat behemoth MSFT in a court case? Again, for the price of the stock, a pretty damn good gamble...

Load-up, here's the bottom line. I know this is a penny stock. And when I buy a penny stock, I know there is risk. But the risk to reward ratio is HUGE here. If any of the above scenarios hit, VCSY will skyrocket. If two of the scenarios hit, VCSY will skyrocket twice, etc., etc.

This is a bargain. We get entertained by clowns like niche and tepe all for the price of .025/share, and yet our chances of greatly increasing our investments are also HUGE...It's a gamble I like, and I know you do too...

That's what the clowns don't understand. This day by day watching of the stock is silly. Their histrionics are hilarious. One day we will all wake up and the price will be very different than it is today (higher, you small-minds), and we will all be laughing, and they will be nowhere found on these boards. As RR likes to point out, this is not just a one-trick pony. Many different facets. Many different techs. And when it is announced what is being used where, watch out. Lives changed. All for .025/share. What a freakin' bargain.

Why you need to look up and out...

2007-07-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

If I were a Microsoft shareholder, I would be rather concerned the MSFT management is out to skunk me. Why? Because they're not telling you the truth about the state of web services technology.

Read this post by Raging Bull VCSY poster POSCASHFLOW and verify for yourself what's been said about VCSY technology and all the also-rans.

http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/viewreplies.cgi?board=VCSY&reply=191150
By: POSCASHFLOW
18 Jul 2007, 10:19 AM EDT
Msg. 191150 of 191172Jump to msg. #
Interesting....Web 2.0 needs Adobe

http://weblog.infoworld.com/yager/archives/2007/07/web_20_needs_ad.html
JavaScript and HTML aren't enough to bridge the desktop/mobile divide

It's thrilling to imagine rich, responsive, attractive client applications that run identically on desktops, notebooks, and mobile devices, as well as over remote connections. Java promised us that. Then .Net. Neither really came through with the kind of transparency and interoperability that Sun and Microsoft had led us to expect. Now, it looks like we've given up on commercial interests closing the application portability gap. Web 2.0 is touted as the way of applications to come, and on the face of it, it's all about standards. We don't have to wait for Microsoft, Sun, Symbian, or anyone to do next-generation software for us. All we need is a browser. We'll do it ourselves.

I wish. A browser should be the perfect place to host an application. Standards such as HTML, DOM, CSS, JavaScript, JPG, WAV, PNG, XML, and MPEG are wired into every Web browser of note on every device that can possibly connect to the Internet. You should be able to take even a relatively demanding application -- say, a unified messaging client -- and run it on anything with a browser. But you can't. Once you try to tackle something like that with AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), you quickly discover why Adobe Flash still exists, and why we're lucky that Adobe is advancing it just in time to bridge the gap between Web 2.0 pipe dreams and wimpy browser reality.

I could lay out a lengthy theoretical case to make my point, but one already exists. CommuniGate Systems sells cross-platform unified messaging server software called CommuniGate Pro to mobile wireless operators and to businesses that host their own communications. And not coincidentally, a Flash client is part of the deal.

CommuniGate Pro uses standards-based technology to manage VoIP telephony, voice mail, instant messaging, electronic mail, and conferencing. CommuniGate Pro software supports as few as five users (you can run the five-user edition for free), but the same solution can be scaled out to handle 25 million VoIP subscribers. CommuniGate Systems has the server side of the messaging story down to the satisfaction of wireless and broadband service providers such as T-Mobile, Verizon, France Telecom, and China Unicom, as well as self-hosting enterprise operations such as eBay, GE, Toyota, and British Airways.

In the office, CommuniGate Pro uses gear from the likes of Cisco, Nortel, and Polycom to give users familiar desktop phone set access to voice mail, conferencing, and call management features they got from their pre-VoIP PBX systems. CommuniGate Pro also includes client software called Pronto that provides users of Windows, Macintosh, and Linux computers with a single point of access to telephone, voice mail, e-mail, multimedia playback, scheduling, file sharing, and other services. Pronto is written using Adobe's Flash Player/Shockwave and Flex technology, and this September, CommuniGate Systems will begin shipping a version of Pronto for Windows Mobile smartphones and PDAs.

CommuniGate is pushing Pronto toward Windows Mobile devices at first, because that's where it perceives Adobe as being furthest along in development of the mobilized edition of the Flex rich-client framework, Flash Lite. This appears to be changing, though, because Adobe recently announced that Verizon has shipped the first Flash Lite-enabled handsets based on the BREW (Qualcomm's Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) platform.

Flash Lite delivers the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) standard, XML persistence, hardware-level device drivers (which CommuniGate needs for VoIP, for example), ActionScript 2.0, and Flash Player 7 compatibility, but manages to scale down to fit the microcontrollers used in mobile phone handsets and PDAs. Pieces of Pronto could have been tackled without Adobe Flash Lite and Flex, but the result would not have the smooth, responsive feel of a desktop application, and off-line access to media files and rich document attachments would be difficult to manage.

Flash Lite runs in parallel with other Web 2.0-friendly efforts at Adobe that include the open-sourcing of Adobe's ActionScript JavaScript engine and the baking of PDF and open source Webkit (Safari's HTML renderer) support into a comprehensive Adobe Integrated Runtime that hopes to do for rich graphical applications what Java has done for servers.

When I see ahead to the future that Web 2.0 holds, I don't just see Web sites dressed up to look like high-latency desktop applications. I see true interactive applications, such as CommuniGate's Pronto unified messaging client, that run wherever you can find a browser. I can understand why some might be disappointed that such things can't be done with AJAX alone. Blame Microsoft, Mozilla, and Apple for that; "browser as a platform" has been on their to-do lists for years, and none has raised HTML rendering and caching performance, standards compliance, stability, or JavaScript engine speed to levels sufficient to support true applications. With Adobe doing the driving, I think we'll soon see some action.

A Little Yo-Yo Wisdom from the Bull...

2007-07-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

By: yo-eleven

14 Jul 2007, 03:01 PM EDT

Msg. 190246 of 190304
(This msg. is a reply to 190224 by benjaamin.)
Jump to msg. #

benjamamin (and anyone looking for an answer to the question) NewsFlash looks to be one step up on FrontPage and not covering the defining characteristics of SiteFlash.

At best NewsFlash is a set of improvements on web publication on the way to becoming SiteFlash but the fundamental capabilities of arbitration and functionality do not appear to be used in the NewsFlash capability as presented in the newspaper sites. To my mind, it would be more difficult to explain to a judge or a juror (maybe even me) how NewsFlash represents claims in SiteFlash than for a demonstration of NewsFlash and SiteFlash together to show the difference.

This appeal to prior art should be about as effective as FrontPage was in trying to stop the patent grant. It's an obvious stall for time - probably to grab market share before finally settling while the competitors grope for a decision on whether to try their own grab for market share.

I think this is another poorly calculated risk/reward chart.

Want a platform? How about NewsPapers as a functional medium for the Semantic Web? Probably more intuitive for the rest of the world than a 'desktop'. How many people work at desks? Well, developers do and managers do and people at the top of those kinds of companies do. I don't like desks. I like to work near the machinery or out on a farm somewhere.

(Voluntary Disclosure: Position- Long; ST Rating- Strong Buy; LT Rating- Strong Buy)

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By: yo-eleven

14 Jul 2007, 02:20 PM EDT

Msg. 190241 of 190301
(This msg. is a reply to 190229 by load-up-the-ship.)
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Load-up - If you look at what NewsFlash is doing, you can see the construct demonstrates basically the same kind of capabilities claimed by FrontPage, only automated.

If you will look at a google of Newsflash, you will see it applied to a number of newspapers across the US.

Each Newsflashed publication is essentially news content from a particular server location broadcast (affiliated) into each subscribing website. In doing so, the format of the targeted website is employed by the content/format management portion of the NewFlash technology.

Frontpage was cited as a prior art to deny the SiteFlash patent. FrontPage did not qualify as prior art because SiteFlash acknowledged the prior art of content/format management systems and went on to explain why SiteFlash is an advancement past those systems. SiteFlash manages all (any - extensible to arbitrary) compartments of application development (FrontPage is a web-page editor with various general use management functions) and provides an arbitrated management ecology around the application environment.

NewsFlash looks to me like little more than automated content/format management (a full step beyond FrontPage to be sure but 'FrontPage' all the same) as there is no functionality - not even animation - the NewsFlash items being only HTML text and not even XML in the source code.

So MSFT admits as to the viability of the SiteFlash patent, but they're saying it's already shown in NewsFlash. LOL And it's clear NewsFlash is very old technology... sort of like FrontPage which MSFT retired last year.

uhhhh... you're going to risk an injunctive remedy with THAT as a defense?

Stupid is as stupid does. I thought MSFT had some brains earlier when I assumed what I was seeing was a company able to come to terms with the past and move on for a greater competitive advantage.

Now, we get to see the 'business dance'. The one that's satisfied with being mediocre to prove the view that management is right and has been right all along.

Seems some people have a real need for that kind of thing.

That may have worked back when Linux was a distant rumble on the horizon. Until Microsoft feels cocky enough to actually sell products that can compete with what their competitors will be able to field in public, Linux and Google will be determined to acquire those tools and a superior and free reign to take Microsoft out.

I'm just speaking from my own view, but I think this is where Microsoft miscalculated the impact of not settling and what ultimately will cost them the company as a monolithic entity.

I don't see any integrated content/format/functionality management in the NewsFlash items on the level discussed by the SiteFlash patent. I see no arbitration capabilities in NewsFlash. I see no interoperable environment. And saying the word "WebOS" doesn't mean you can 'have' a WebOS, does it Surgy?

Just because I don't see it doesn't mean it's so. I guess we'll have to watch the Judge's reaction. I would suppose he's already studied up on the case. This one will be a great profile for Groklaw, won't it?

Remember, the web has become MUCH much more social and interverbed since the last big clash Microsoft management went through. All those little incremental weakenings of your control over the environment spell greater risk. Discounting those changes increases the likelihood somebody else will to your detriment.

What would Google give to say they can now put out their vaunted WebOS instead of eveeryone waiting until Longhorn 2008? Maybe we'll get a chance to find out what kind of capability GPLv3 could give to a webified Linux.

So this move by Ballmer may be akin to sitting on your fuzzies in a church pew. Let's just say you would be better off being in a Holy Roller church where they excuse demonstrations of sheer foolishness.

If VCSY follows through with a suit for infringing on the XML Agent patent, I think they are going to go for a cooperative effort with Microsoft. I know that sounds crazy. But everybody's got a favored plan and they sometimes push for that against all odds.

On the other hand, wise people also have a counter-plan and that would be what I would think is probably the more favored plan here as it would provide the greatest potential benefit aka The World instead of The Microsoft.

If VCSy does NOT follow through with a suit for infringing on the XML Agent patent, I think they would be going for the throat. No need to press on any other legal remedies as Microsoft will just drag it out as CDC dragged their case out.

A turn of 180 degrees would provide the remedy. Open source the VCSy IP and provide proprietary web tools to carry it off. I'm sure IBM and Adobe would love to help a project like that.

Adobe and IBM-Red Hat would be a scizzors on Microsoft's legs. Google's attack alone ('unhindered' shall we say?) would cut out the Office platform in short order. That would leave a crippled Microsoft still viable for a time but just long enough to morph into neatly packaged acquisitions.

I would remind everyone, it's probably pretty dangerous to gamble against somebody who's controlled a giant company for many years.

At the same time, I believe it is decidedly more dangerous to gamble against somebody who's willing to outwait and outsmart even his friends to get to you.

(Voluntary Disclosure: Position- Long; ST Rating- Strong Buy; LT Rating- Strong Buy)

(Voluntary Disclosure: Position- Long; ST Rating- Strong Buy; LT Rating- Strong Buy)

When the last wisecrack dies out...

2007-07-08T11:27:00.000-07:00

Yes, Virginia. We're the ones who loosed this on the land.

SOA Editorial — The Rise of the Machine
By: Sean Rhody
Jun. 22, 2007 04:30 PM

Many recent science fiction novels deal with the concept of nanites - tiny bits of computers than can aggregate themselves to form new larger composites to assist their host. These concepts typically relate to making human cells self-healing, but they also have their sinister aspects, like the terminator, made out of liquid living metal in the last movie, who could reconfigure himself at will into any shape, and recover from any injury.

While this may seem like fantasy at the moment, there's a quiet revolution going on in the computing industry that makes this dream (or nightmare) one step closer to reality. Oddly enough, it's all a part of service-oriented architecture.

The underpinnings of any SOA are based on a service-oriented infrastructure, which basically creates callable, configurable services out of the lower-level components that make up an application infrastructure. Many of these services are familiar as system services - single sign-on, auditing, security management, reporting, etc. But what is fascinating in this world is the change that is taking place in the guts of the hardware.

Space in a data center is always at a premium, as is computing power. The natural tendency to try to pack more computing into the same space has been taken to its extreme conclusion with recent advances. Multi-core chips put two, four, or even more CPUs in the space previously occupied by a single CPU. Processing power is exploding like never before, and with cheaper memory and disk costs, the machines of today under the average user's desktop pack more processing power and capacity than many supercomputers of the previous decade.

All this would be trivial, except that with this rise we've also seen some very interesting services developed along with the silicon. Virtualization is a key part of the new wave of computing. With the ability to share resources down to as little as a 1/10th of a CPU, virtualization provides an amazing degree of flexibility.

Many developers and project leaders will tell you that the infrastructure costs for disaster recovery and testing are prohibitive. It is frequently impossible to fully fund multiple environments to support such requirements. With the advent of virtualization, the DR environment can be the testing environment under normal conditions, and then, at a time of emergency (or even just a request for increased capacity), can reconfigure itself quickly, ratcheting back or eliminating testing completely to become a full production environment, much like our terminator changing from one form to another.

The key to all of this is a service-based approach that allows for definitions of environments to be modified in response to changing environmental conditions. Theoretically no human intervention is even necessary - fail over at the router or load balancer will trigger a service call that can make the transition happen automatically. Similarly, with the return to service of a primary site, the fail back of the environments can reconfigure the disaster recovery site back to a testing environment.

Nor is this a binary condition - testing comes in different flavors and it's easy to imagine having multiple virtual environments to switch to - some with additional horsepower to support performance testing, others with less capacity to support functional testing instead. With automated testing tools, this can even take place in the complete absence of human intervention. At night the machines run themselves; in the morning, the humans analyze the results and plan the next evening's run.

Hundreds of other possibilities exist, from automating existing processing assignments, to reconfiguring networks, to adding additional disk capacity from a farm, the ability to morph and change the infrastructure is increasing rapidly.

Fortunately we're a long way away from sentient machines, and time travel still appears to be a fantasy with no real hope of ever happening. But the rise of SOA is certainly upon us.

What's it like to get kicked in the Webelos?

2007-07-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

Hello. just dropping these off for safe keeping. I want to dig a little further into these threads as we prepare for possible intransigence. It's the boy scout motto: Be Prepared

The history of efforts against VCSy have taught that we should always be prepared to rub a couple sticks together.

189137
So we continue to see the predictions of the scen
yo-eleven
06 Jul 2007 1:00 PM EDT

189136
Just to give the readers a chance to see what a r
yo-eleven
06 Jul 2007 12:55 PM EDT

189135
Sounds a lot like:
yo-eleven
06 Jul 2007 12:46 PM EDT

189134
This IS the question, isn't it?:
yo-eleven
06 Jul 2007 12:43 PM EDT

189133
I just can not get over that interview with Mark
yo-eleven
06 Jul 2007 12:39 PM EDT

189132
Sliver - I think the emPath technology and the ena
yo-eleven
06 Jul 2007 12:14 PM EDT

The right understanding at the wrong streetcorner...

2007-07-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

Our guy here does know what Microsoft's big mistake was back in the day that allowed Linux to rise so quickly and so decidedly.

"Microsoft's brass blew an important test when it failed to get XP's replacement ready for the market. While XP ranks as a stable product, it took too long to carry the Longhorn project over the goal line."

But...

What this guy (and most of the industrial world) doesn't know is Microsoft's salvation.

VCSY technology can turn all of this to Microsoft's favor leaving the 10% that have already left to be the attrition MSFT would have faced with going toward a component/web-application developer approach.

The remainder will be retrained to facilitate systems similar to Project Zero... componentized application building. The Current paradigm is still tilted more heavily toward developers than Anny Mae Admin. they have to have somewhere for all these current paradigm developers to go.

This is a sea change and if you know the concept of those words as Shakespeare intended them you know the 'developer' community will be unrecognizable over time. They will cease to be what everyone considered them to be and place them closer to information admins than code wizards. The wizardry will be in the arbitrated ecology.

Now they can take the next couple years to educate those who are loyal and capable to build larger abstractions toward general purpose use and use the technology license (excluding Linux users not aligned with Novell) as a strangle-hold to starve off the 10% who fled (those are going to be the most business savvy developers lost as they were able to read the movement at the time but did not know the desktop v web information theory realm as well as they might.) for not sticking with MSFT until this next generation technology they've been working on since 2001 became mature and ready to produce.

All this is going to take some time, but, I believe the results will be seen surprisingly fast, further dissolving the traditional developer base down to specialists and hobbyists. Yes, I mean the demise of programmers as a large culture. They see a new pasture working on Linux desktops, but they will soon realize they've been closed off from behind like a heard of buffalo that have crossed a dry lakebed only to have the lake waters return and stranding them on their green island.

The excitement will be on the web and they will have to toe the IBM community line or they won't be 'developers'. They will be coders... and THAT will become about the worst thing you could be called in future world.

How much time? Perhaps improvements on the order of ten times the amount of time needed to do traditional product development and deployment. The main bottlenecks in software development have to do with determining the user requirements (interviewing the users, mocking up their requirements, evaluating feedback, redesign and loop until users are happy - interrupt: users are never happy begin at do) and testing. The toy-like method IBM is putting out is an expression of abstracted complexity being reduced into few steps with less 'data matter'. As innovation extends the offerings will become more and more useful and robust as the re-use ethic and an ecology to achieve re-use is central to the SiteFlash concepts.

Innovation takes time is right - invention takes an instant followed by a mountain of real work. Innovation requires mountains of invention in bits of work accumulated.

What's nice about SiteFlash is the ability to maintain all the knowledge in cultures and communities and repurpose it elsewhere.

Innovation begins on this and other like platforms in small steps. If they are successful, they will accumulate and proliferate and be repurposed into cultures in verticals rather than 'consumer bases'.

Hopefully soon we will see what Scorpio and Flex will come up with for the Adobe community.

If Google ever joins the advance, Gears can be installed on any platform to tie Google's search, advertising and community capabilities into any application.

See where the power goes? This is why it's so odd none of the big guys have the upper hand except IBM and it's acting like a shepherd rather than a cattle roper.

I gotta say, if Ballmer is smart, he'll take that approach. I don't know how smart Ballmer is so anything is possible.

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9739643-7.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=NewsBlog
If you're Steve Ballmer, don't read this
July 3, 2007 4:42 PM PDT
Posted by Charles Cooper

Instead of kicking back for the July 4th holiday, Steve Ballmer should be going batshit crazy right now.

If you're Microsoft's CEO, the finding by Evans Data of a falloff in the number of developers writing apps for Windows desktop computers makes for grim reading.

The study, which reports a 10 percent drop in the number of developers writing software applications for Windows, also forecasts another 2 percent decline this year. The big winner--this hardly comes as a surprise--is Linux. Evans Data says the percentage of developers writing Linux applications is up 34 percent from last year.

I suppose Microsoft can satisfy itself with the "to be sure" clause that about 65 percent of developers still write for the Windows desktop. True as far as that goes. I don't know anybody of right mind willing to suggest Microsoft is headed for bankruptcy court. But Ballmer can connect the dots as well as anyone, and he understands that the trend points in the wrong direction.

Ballmer: Happy July 4th
I remember how a (now former) Microsoft exec tried his best making side-by-side comparisons between the Windows OS stack and Linux, hoping to convince me of Microsoft's inherent advantage. Why didn't I just see? Sort of reminded me of the warden in the movie Cool Hand Luke telling Paul Newman that he needed to get his mind right. Happily, Microsoft's minions aren't running that jive anymore--or at least not with a straight face.

Operating system development obviously is a fraught process, but Microsoft's brass blew an important test when it failed to get XP's replacement ready for the market. While XP ranks as a stable product, it took too long to carry the Longhorn project over the goal line.

Microsoft is rightfully proud of the Vista operating system, but it came at a cost. During the interminable runup to Vista, Apple one-upped Microsoft by getting out more timely updates to market while Linux successfully rooted itself within the corporate enterprise community.

Microsoft's hopes now rest with Ray Ozzie, the company's chief software architect. But not even the Great White Wizard can turn back the clock.

Uhhh... No but the clock can be payed for the time.

Looks like a whale... a giant white whale...

2007-07-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

For those of us who thought we would never see a SiteFlash intallation in public with Emily programming capabilities, here are ProjectZero (a SiteFlash-like web-application ecology) and Groovy (an Emily-like dynamic programming language).

http://www.projectzero.org/wiki/bin/view/

http://www.projectzero.org/wiki/bin/view/Documentation/CoreDevelopersGuide

http://groovy.codehaus.org/

Linus, dude, give it a rest already...

2007-06-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

If software patents aren't supposed to exist I'm sure the toothfairy will give you some quarters for each tooth that gets pulled.

Linus Torvalds: Microsoft Just Made Up The Number
http://www.efytimes.com/efytimes/fullnews.asp?edid=20044

Linus Torvalds shares with EFYTimes his views over Microsoft's claim that Linux infringes on 235 of its patents.

Saturday, June 30, 2007:

ET: How concrete are the claims made by Microsoft that Linux infringes on approximately 235 of its patents, which have not been named?

Linus: How concrete? Since Microsoft hasn't named them, there is no ''concrete''. For all we know, Microsoft just made up the number. (LOL I bet a chair just got levitated.)

ET: The US Supreme Court recently ruled in favour of Microsoft in its dispute with AT&T. Ironically, could that be used against Microsoft?

Linus: I agree that the recent Supreme Court ruling seems to weaken patents (and they actually left it open whether 'intangible' things like software can be patented at all!) (shame they didn't just go ahead and pronounce them invalid! heh heh), but I actually suspect that Microsoft too is really happy with that ruling. Microsoft is likely to have many more patent problems than Linux could ever have, and in general, most high-tech companies actually dislike patents; so I suspect Microsoft felt relieved that the Supreme Court limited at least some of the insanity of the current patent system.

And it doesn't seem to impact the point of the Microsoft posturing with respect to open source: they seem to be in it for the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), rather than for any actual legal reasons. (...said the skier looking up at the huge overhang above his head.)

ET: How secure/protected should a Linux user feel in the wake of these allegations?

Linus: Personally, I think it's just posturing. (Uhhhh, I wouldn't say that when a Rhino is pawing dust. Rhinos don't understand 'posture'.) And if it results in more companies doing patent cross-licences with Microsoft, I think Microsoft will be happy - that may well be the primary motivation. (If we're lucky.) But I'm not a lawyer, nor do I intend to start playing one on TV (or in the tech press). So this is just my personal interpretation. The fact that Microsoft didn't actually name any of the patents makes me think it's just FUD and hot air. (I hope I hope I hope)

ET: How is the Linux community preparing to defend itself?

Linus: Again, none of the patents were named. We actually have much better IP rights controls than anybody else in the industry, thanks to everything being out in the open. There's no question that we'd ever have any hidden thing that secretly violates somebody else's patents or copyrights. (No question? I guess that remains to be proven, wouldn't you say?)

ET: What do you think Microsoft wants to achieve through this threat? What are the prospects Microsoft may sue the customers using open source?

Linus: I really cannot speak for Microsoft. I suspect they are noticing that they have a hard time competing on technical merit or price, and are trying to muddy the waters (uhhhh I think all that's about to clear up real soon). I think they've already stated that they aren't in it to sue people, but again -you're asking the wrong person.

(So why are we even printing this as news?)

Swapnil Bhartiya

Muy Importonto con Chili

2007-06-30T21:06:00.000-07:00

OK Little children, the ground is beginning to shake.

Wade may be able to keep quiet but Microsoft's competition will make the old girl sing like a saw. Microsoft Office (Business Office, that is) has suddenly sprang forth interoperable. to what degree the interoperation extends to third parties remains to be seen from here but this is a roll out for Denver next month.

Microsoft Trumpets Virtues of Office Business Apps
By Kevin McLaughlin, CRN 6:21 PM EDT Fri. Jun. 29, 2007

Microsoft is gearing up to show its partners how Office Business Applications (OBAs) can help organizations squeeze extra productivity out of their line-of-business apps.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant Friday published three reference application packs (RAPs), which include whitepapers and Virtual PC images that illustrate how OBAs can be used to boost efficiencies health care, manufacturing and the public sector.

Microsoft is positioning OBAs as a way to bridge Office front ends with backend CRM and ERP applications, allowing organizations to give access to these traditionally underused apps to a broader range of employees, said Daz Wilkin, program manager for Microsoft's Platform Strategy group.

Microsoft is using OBAs as the prime example of its Software + Services strategy and plans to barrage its partners with information on OBAs next month at its worldwide partner conference in Denver.

ISVs and enterprises are expected to be the key drivers for innovation around deployment of OBAs on the Office platform.

Microsoft and SAP last year teamed up to develop Duet, an OBA that links Office apps with SAP's back end ERP apps. Duet makes it possible to peer into an SAP application, take an invoice and analyze it, and reinsert it into the SAP workflow, all without impacting performance.

(I would say Duet is most probably similar to emPath - see the Duet Architecture below.)

In manufacturing, OBAs can be used to organize mountains of business intelligence (BI) data emanating from plant floor operations and deliver it to a foreman's mobile device or a CEO's PC screen. "Usually BI is aimed at senior executives and sales, but OBAs allow this data to be used in different scenarios," said Wilkin.

In health care, companies could set up a Sharepoint portal for employees to navigate corporate medical programs and get information on quitting smoking or joining a gym, with OBAs triggering backend workflows, Wilkin said.

OBAs can be sophisticated data warehousing and workflow management tools within the walls of Microsoft products, but companies that don't have all Microsoft infrastructure may not find them as useful, says David White, vice president of client strategy and enablement at Beacon Technologies, Madison, Wis.

"Microsoft is notorious for not wanting its products to be called out through APIs, so they are building a complete cosmos of their own systems," said White.

(Now, read this and tell me if this agent setup doesn't sound familiar.)

Duet Architecture Overview
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/2005dee8-02c4-2910-f08c-85f1ffe5fb12
PDF

The basic architecture consists of the following major components:

•(1) A client add-on module (aka distributed agent) for the Microsoft Office environment
•(2) An SAP add-on (aka distributed agent) for the back-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) software
•(3) The Duet software server, which facilitates deployment and communication between the twoDuet is designed to take advantage of the open, Web services–based enterprise services architecture of the SAP NetWeaver platform.
(This is what I believe emPath does. The Collaborative Agents (1) (2) (n) are the VCSY patent technology in USPTO 7,076,521 . (3) is the operating framework the agents work in.)

The services-based architecture of Duet allows direct calls from the client to the Web services. Microsoft Exchange Server is used as an asynchronous message router, which eliminates the possibility of Exchange Server becoming a system bottleneck.

Moreover, no installations or modifications to Exchange Server are required because of the use of a services-based architecture.

(1) • The Client Add-On

This module (The Client Add-On) houses several important components to support integration with the Microsoft Office suite, including the following:

• A runtime engine
• A secure cache storage for data, query assembly, and metadata
• An output queue

The runtime engine serves several purposes.
It interprets user-interface metadata, using that metadata to represent the Duet software components – toolbars and task panes – on the user’s action pane in Office.

The secure cache stores metadata and application data. This way, frequently used application data, such as drop-down list values, remain local.

A persistence feature permits the cache to be used as offline storage and automatically triggers updates via the output queue when the user comes back online.

The client add-on is installed as a typical “plug-in” with standard remote installation tools, such as Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS). Once installed, the applications, such as leave management, time management, and so forth, are automatically delivered to each client, based on the user role. Also, any subsequent application modifications will be propagated in the same way and become automatically available on the client desktops.

(2) • The SAP Software Add-On

The SAP add-on encompasses the following:
• An engine for bundling service requests to SAP™ Business Suite applications
• Configuration tools and metadata repository

The add-on consists of functions that are consistent with the enterprise SOA framework of SAP NetWeaver. These functions include a Web-services adapter for connecting to underlying SAP applications, a service-bundling component for handling service calls directly from the client, application metadata storage, and several others.

The service-bundling component is designed principally to support asynchronous service calls. Web Services are exposed through this interface, which serves the client calls sent by the client message queue. The component bundles several services as needed.
The SAP add-on architecture is designed to leverage the metadata storage in all Duet components to ensure that Duet delivers not only the user’s query response but also the SAP-resident process logic, business rules, and configuration parameters.

This ensures that there is no adverse impact on the underlying SAP applications and no need to recreate the upper-level process logic. The metadata repository provides tools to configure the metadata of the SAP Duet software and map them to Web services, as well as to the existing configuration tables of the underlying SAP software components that Duet relies on.

(3) • The Duet Software Server

This software serves as the deployment and communication facilitator for the client and the SAP applications (As enabled by the attending agent add-ons).

The server contains the following:
• A runtime metadata repository
• A module for formatting and routing information to Microsoft Exchange Server
• A deployment module for propagating updates to client systems

The runtime metadata repository contains the metadata that describes the application user interface, configuration, and routing information for each Duet role. This component enhances scalability for growing numbers of users, since it off-loads the processing load that would otherwise go to Microsoft Exchange Server.

Freeky deeky femtocell outreach from horn to horn...

2007-06-30T19:57:00.000-07:00

Because you need to be aware of other technology in the chute and how that technology would impact the overall plan for networking the globe, I give you the femtocell concept.

Remember 3G is Hutchison's spearpoint into the telco/internet divide.

Netgear's announcement below tells me Longhorn's intentions are alive and well.

My BOLDS.

The age of the femtocell?
Ubiquisys gets set to startle the market
By Guy Kewney, Newswireless.net → More by this author
Published Friday 9th February 2007 18:48 GMT

There's nothing quite as hard for a venture capitalist as not gloating. When they "execute" on their exit strategy (sell off a company they launched) it seems they just can't help telling someone how clever they were - and from such a boast, it seems, comes the strong rumour that a new technology has hit centre stage.

The new technology is "femtocell" - smaller than a mobile cell, smaller than a microcell, and smaller even than a nanocell; usually, a mobile phone cell in the privacy of your home.

...news is good for Ubiquisys, ... and will startle the market, because while femtocells are seen as "the big new little thing" in mobile, nobody expected Ubiquisys backers to be able to execute on their exit strategy for another couple of years.

Best guess for who is providing the $150m plus to buy the out VCs is Avaya, the VoIP market leader in corporate comms, which is known to see femtocells as a threat to its current business model. Avaya needs to expand into the smaller business sector.

It (Avaya) recently announced plans to expand in the South Pacific SMB sector; an area where mobile phone usage has started using 3G technology, which is notoriously bad at penetrating buildings.

Femtocells provide a way of making 3G phones reliable inside buildings.

The technology puts a very small, low-power transmitter/receiver inside the building. The walls of the building prevent the signal from "leaking out" into the streets in exactly the same way they prevent the signal getting in in the first place; and the undoubted good security of the mobile phone network prevents hackers from using it to gain access to the corporate LAN.

And the internet sends the phone traffic to the cell.

Eventually, most femtocells will be in private homes, subsidised by the big operators, because of the "lock-in" they provide....

(And it can be argued there is no greater lock in for the home than Microsoft which makes the following article very much interesting in the greater scheme of things.)

Netgear promises 3G femtocells by end of year
Still hedging bets with Wi-Fi included, too
By Bill Ray
Published Tuesday 26th June 2007 16:25 GMT

Netgear has announced it will be using technology from Ubiquisys to embed 3G femtocells into a home gateway product by the end of the year, though the box will also have Wi-Fi; in addition to being a DSL modem and VoIP router.

Femtocells promise to spread 3G connectivity into homes, allowing your 3G handset to connect to your own local cell and have calls routed over your ADSL line, when you're at home; but that's only the beginning of what they can offer.

The femtocell also connects to the home network, enabling content on the phone to be streamed to devices around the home, such as TVs and stereo systems, as well as giving the user access to all the normal 3G services at up to 7.2Mb/sec (assuming their handset supports HSDPA).

Wide scale deployment of femtocells has the potential to make Wi-Fi networks redundant: why use a power-hungry, short-range, technology when the addition of a femtocell provides all the same functionality without the drawbacks?

Of course, such technology will only be available from network operators; they own the licences covering the frequencies that 3G operates in, and network operators are surprisingly conservative when it comes to new technologies, not to mention business models.

This announcement from Netgear puts the femtocell firmly in the consumer-electronics bracket and presents a real opportunity for network operators to unbalance the dominance of Wi-Fi. But if they have the nerve to take advantage of that opportunity remains to be seen.

When a bird drops a seed...

2007-06-29T09:39:00.000-07:00

Hmmm hmmm hmm hmmmm ... Oh. Don't mind me. I'm just transplanting an Azalea.
Dum dee dum dum dum ...

http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=VCSY&read=188501
By: yo-eleven
29 Jun 2007, 12:35 PM EDT
Msg. 188501 of 188501Jump to msg. #
I was having a chuckle going through some of these guys' old posts. I thought I might as well give you some reading for the weekend. It's going to be July 4 before long. God bless America. Isn't that right kantuc?

http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=VCSY&read=140143

http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/viewreplies.cgi?board=VCSY&reply=140136

http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=VCSY&read=188313

Sometimes you have to wait a long time to be shown to be right: http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=VCSY&read=140043 http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=VCSY&read=140029 http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=VCSY&read=141033

These posts cluster around the date in 2004 when the SiteFlash patent was granted. reflect-on-this aka mirror aka kantuc etcetera: http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/memalias.cgi?board=VCSY&member=reflect-on-this aka http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/memalias.cgi?board=VCSY&member=mirror_shmuck

These are my posts during that time: http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/memalias.cgi?board=VCSY&member=Portuno_Diamo

It wasn't like all this was hidden off under a box somewhere. It was just being smothered by people who didn't want discussion about anything VCSY was doing. They wanted to foster the 'dead VCSY' image. They facilitated Wade's plan to make all the outsiders believe they had a clear shot at the prize. That's why they all worked at the same time during those periods. That's why you can see the same hiccups in their programs around certain dates. If you're going to dig, dig. (Voluntary Disclosure: Position- Long; ST Rating- Strong Buy; LT Rating- Strong Buy)

Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later

2007-06-28T11:51:00.001-07:00

The question for the entire industry is the state and estate of the patent system and whether the Next Generation buildout is going to be a cooperative collaboration enabled by new tool dimensions and community empowerments through hardware and software democratization.

We know some would like to sidestep the patent process and throw the world of development and innovation open to giant wolves feeding on the altruistic brains and passion of the communities. Some go so far as to store up the knowledge necessary for future litigation and review: http://blogs.govexec.com/techinsider/archives/2007/06/patent_office_sells_patents_to.html
Patent Office, Google Provide Patent Database
By Daniel Pulliam
Wednesday, June 27, 2007 08:14 AM

But, the question among all others at present and for the foreseeable future is, if we're to respect patents, shouldn't we all agree to? I think the consensus must be 'yes', thus the apparent lawyer's squaredance appearance to the rollouts of the next generation tools and product betas from Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Google et al.

It appears we're watching all the players hashing out their own contentions about their own IP boundaries in conjunction with what places we're concerned with. Big strategies are happening now and some will make some huge steps forward and some will make some terrible mistakes.

If Microsoft is smart, an alliance with Novell AND Red Hat would bring all other Linuxes to heel.

An interesting bit of information about the past and a curious response about current time from Red Hat:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062703108.html
Red Hat CEO says he talked patents with Microsoft
By Jim Finkle
Reuters
Wednesday, June 27, 2007; 11:52 PM

BOSTON (Reuters) - Red Hat Inc. (RHT.N) Chief Executive Matthew Szulik said his company last year held talks with Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) over a patent agreement that broke down before the software giant signed a deal with Red Hat rival Novell Inc (NOVL.O).

The developer of Linux software, has yet to sign such a deal which could see Novell, its biggest rival, woo customers away from Red Hat and work on product development and sales with the world's No.1 software maker.

In an interview with Reuters, Szulik declined to say whether his company is now in negotiations with Microsoft over signing such a patent agreement.
"I can't answer the question," he said.

Officials with Microsoft couldn't be reached for comment.

What Apple could do to the worm...

2007-06-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

I know it's more effort but this blog post from a couple weeks ago is well worth the read to jog thought about other countermanding strategeries that may be applied by Microsoft competitors (will we emerge from all this still a Microsoft competitor or a Microsoft partner?) who obviously won't sit still waiting to be mowed down by Microsoft in October.

If you're really in this to make money in the stock market, you can analyze the strategies with the current public thinking and then add the VCSy component into the equations. If you see who's winning and who's losing, you will be one step ahead of the skreet. At least with those stocks you don't have market makers trinking out the audience with their macho head games.

June 12th, 2007
Is Jobs planning a hostile takeover of the Windows desktop?
Posted by Ed Bott @ 3:06 pm

Let’s just get this out of the way right at the start: Steve Jobs is a genius and rarely makes stupid decisions. If you accept that statement as gospel, then you have to assume that Jobs has a brilliant master plan behind yesterday’s announcement that Apple’s Safari browser would be available for Windows. The full details didn’t come out in his remarks at the Apple developers conference yesterday, but it must be there.

Meanwhile, pundits are falling all over themselves to declare this the stupidest idea to come out of Cupertino since John Sculley fired Steve Jobs way back in 1985. My colleague Adrian Kingsley-Hughes yawned. Larry Dignan thinks it’s about monetizing the search box and scoffs at its financial potential, calling it a “rounding error.” Leander Kahney, who runs the Cult of Mac website, offers this critique from the other side of the aisle:

Safari sucks. A lot of Mac users won’t run the browser (I’m one of them), so why would anyone run it on Windows?

Why would anyone run it on Windows? Wrong question. The real question that we all should be asking is, “Why does Steve Jobs want Windows users to run Safari?”

For the answer, consider the fact that Apple is a hardware company with a tidy side business in services (music and TV shows). Yes, they write some pretty good software, but the real money comes from Macs and iPods and the iTunes store. Now, no one is going to pay for a browser in 2007, so why spend all that money on development and support? It makes no sense. Unless…

Unless Apple is planning to start selling its own hardware with Windows preloaded alongside OS X, and they’re planning to customize the Apple version of Windows by replacing as many Microsoft-branded middleware products as possible. There’s a hint of that strategy in the Safari press release, in which Apple boasts about the performance of Safari on Windows:

Safari has always been the fastest browser on the Mac and now it’s the fastest browser on Windows, loading and drawing web pages up to twice as fast as Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Mozilla Firefox 2.*

That little asterisk at the end leads to this footnote:

*Performance will vary based on system configuration, network connection and other factors. Testing conducted on an iMac 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system running Windows XP, with 1GB of RAM.

Hmmm. I’ve seen an awful lot of Macbooks running Windows lately. I personally know at least two senior Microsoft developers who happily run Windows Vista on Macbook Pros, and at a recent tech conference I noted that roughly 50% of the Macbooks I saw were running Windows XP or Vista using Boot Camp. In every one of those cases, the owner had to buy their own retail copy of Windows from Microsoft, install it themselves, and turn over half the system to an environment that Apple had not designed or approved. So what would happen if Apple began selling Windows as an option on new Macs?

1. The customer would save money. An OEM copy of Windows costs about half of what a retail copy costs, giving Apple room to pocket the difference.

2. The user experience would be better. The user wouldn’t have to go through the rigmarole of a side-by-side installation. Apple could tweak the installation, add custom drivers, and basically tune the system for maximum performance and reliability instead of allowing the Windows defaults to rule.

And here’s the part where Safari comes in:

3. Apple could replace virtually every bundled Microsoft application with its own equivalent. Windows Media Player? It’s out, in favor of iTunes. Internet Explorer? Buh-bye. Safari is the new default. Windows Movie Maker? iMovie. Windows Photo Gallery? iLife. The only missing piece is Microsoft’s e-mail client, Windows Mail (the successor to Outlook Express). And how hard would it be to port an Apple-branded e-mail client to Windows?

The best part, from a Jobsian perspective, is that Microsoft is legally prohibited from complaining about any such changes:

[T]he settlement prohibits Microsoft from retaliating against any OEM (original equipment manufacturer) because of an OEM’s participation in promoting or developing non-Microsoft middleware or a non-Microsoft operating system. This provision takes the “club” out of Microsoft’s hand and prevents the company from using anticompetitive means to discourage OEM’s from promoting or preventing rival software from being developed or installed on the Windows desktop.

Does any Windows user want Safari on their current system? Unlikely. Does Steve Jobs want as many Apple logos as possible on the Windows desktop when it’s running on Apple hardware? Absolutely. Think of it as a hostile takeover of the Windows environment by someone who is an acknowledged master at the art. Just ask the music industry.

So, my prediction: Come October, when Leopard ships, Apple will announce that anyone buying a new Mac can order an Apple-customized version of Windows Vista preinstalled on the same system. If I’m an Apple stockholder, do I care that those machines aren’t running OS X full time? Absolutely not. Windows can hang on to most of its market share, while Apple cuts a huge slice out of the hardware market currently owned by less nimble, less cutthroat competitors.

I’d consider buying an Apple-branded box if it came with Windows preinstalled. Would you?

Lawyers Virtually Call the Tune in Redmond

2007-06-26T13:42:00.000-07:00

Now who could it be...... holding Microsoft back? And why?

Obviously somebody else owns the IP to make this virtualization happen. The time is coming soon for the

decision of MSFT to move ahead or get left behind! MSFT

has a lot to lose and much to gain so "Let's Get This Party Started"! Time to *#*! or get off the pot!

http://weblog.infoworld.com/gripeline/archives/2007/06/lawyers_virtual.html

June 26, 2007Lawyers Virtually Call the Tune in RedmondFiled under: None
You can usually divide tech companies into two groups: those that are basically run by their engineers and those that are run by the marketeers. But the current squabble Microsoft is having with itself over the virtualization language in the Vista EULA demonstrates the Redmond giant seems to belong in a third category: those companies that are run by their lawyers.

As Eric Lai's excellent analysis details, virtualization presents Microsoft with some unique problems as far as how its DRM and EULAs work, or don't work, with each other. After all, not only does virtualization make it easy to get around Vista's plethora of anti-piracy schemes, it also will be easier for the Vista-run home entertainment systems that populate Redmond dreams to sidestep the DRM of the music and movie industries.
But corporate customers have some serious plans for virtualization, so Microsoft's original compromise was to use the Vista EULA to prohibit use of virtualization for Vista Home Basic and Home Premium editions but to allow it with Vista Business, Vista Ultimate, and Vista Enterprise. But no doubt there were many in Redmond, both engineers and marketeers, who were unhappy with that solution.

It's inevitable that one of the main uses of virtualization technology in the coming years is going to be by Linux and Intel Mac users who need to run a Windows app or two and don't mind the performance hit of a virtual system. Microsoft had to choose as to whether to punish such people for their choice of operating system or to treat them as a market opportunity. They've chosen the former, it appears.

Which is pretty stupid. After all, anyone who wants a virtual PC running Vista basically has three choices. You can buy a full retail version of Vista Business, which costs at least a hundred bucks more than Home Basic (and far more if your system came with a Window OEM license). You can buy Vista Home Basic (or use or upgrade your OEM license), but then you'll be violating the Vista EULA by using it in a virtual system. Or, since you're going to be illegal in Microsoft's eyes anyway, you can just acquire a Vista-enabled virtual PC and just not pay for it at all.
Sure, some are going to opt for pirating it no matter what choices they have, but why push the rest in the same direction? Clearly, last week's aborted attempt to give the Vista EULA more lenient virtualization language shows that many in Redmond recognize it's silly to keep the EULA this way. Engineers understand that Microsoft has to make its peace with virtualization, while marketeers are going to recognize that encouraging legal use of virtual PCs could be a way to try to win back those who've soured on Windows.

So where did the pressure to keep the Vista EULA unchanged come from? It's got to be the lawyers. Who else is going to think that the solution to fighting a form of piracy that DRM can't prevent is to have a prohibition against it deep in the fine print? It's not the first time that Microsoft has allowed its very large and influential legal team to influence its thinking in the wrong direction, but it might be one of the dumbest.

What were we talking about when you butted in?

2007-06-23T14:29:00.000-07:00

Picking Nits With the Wits.

If you take the time to read this, you will subtly realize Apple finds itself in the unhappy place of having to call "nuh unh, me too" on Vista. It was a thing Microsoft advocates said for years when Microsoft was accused of "copying" Apple features.

Now the tables are turned and, the odd thing, nothing has publicly happened to do this. A couple months ago Apple was bold, confident and pushing to become a real "out of the box" computer. Now, they can't write home in ZFS and they can't tell anything outside of Apple code what to do.
So, as monkeys do groom one another (mayhaps Mister Hoffman will like to pick my nits one day), I shall assist Mister Hoffman here with some notation I hope he shall find helpful and I caution technogy writers everywhere to look up outside the cubicle once in a while. Could be there are some people beyond your telephone and the internet that could benefit your understanding greatly... and for free.

My comments in blue.

---

http://dotnet.sys-con.com/read/388486.htm
Mary Jo Foley Thinks Leopard is a Photocopy of Vista - Film at 11
OK. Bottom line here is I'm dissapointed. I've considered Mary Jo's articles to be unbiased and relatively objective in the past

By: Kevin Hoffman
Jun. 17, 2007 08:00 PM

Kevin Hoffman's Blog

Let's take a look at Mary's points one by one, shall we?

1. New desktop. I'm not sure why she thinks this looks like Aero... Vista's sidebar doesn't do nearly the amount of stuff that Leopard's dock does. The sidebar is not a place for maintaining current tasks and open documents... in short, Vista's sidebar has NOTHING to do with Leopard's dock - they serve two different purposes.
:-( But, they are both stuck in the same technological paradigm unable to reach out and interconnect and interoperate with other systems. They are simply widgets and whatsits. Odd pieces of functionality yearning to be used in a larger scheme as modules in a composite application. Where's all THAT Mister Hoffman? You wouldn't be trying to BS your readers, now, would you?)

2. Coverflow looks identical to Flip3d. Obviously Mary Jo Foley doesn't spend too much time looking at user interfaces. With Flip 3D, I can see one item clearly, and all the rest are obscured. With Cover Flow, I can see one item clearly, and many nearby items clearly, with a hint at what is on the outskirts. One is a really painful UI paradigm (Flip 3d) and one is a really enabling UI paradigm (Cover Flow).
:-( Apparently our author spend too much time loking at UI. he should look into functionality one day and explain why we're not seeing web-based functionality on Leopard. Wasn't that supposed to be one of the "secret" things Jobs had planned for you guys? I think what you guys might as well expect is something from another set of Jobs upstream your knowledge level.)

3. Thumbnail preview capability in Vista is NOT interactive. With Quicklook, you can interact with the preview, including turning on and off media, flipping through pages of PDFs, scrolling through web pages, and much more. A really common thing for people to do is look at the surface, make a snap judgement, and then become closed-minded. Obviously Mary Jo didn't do her homework on these features, otherwise she would have noticed that Quicklook is insanely more powerful. Quicklook is also an enabling feature in iChat theater, which does not exist in Vista in any shape or form.
:-( Wow. Do tell. "A really common thing for people to do is look at the surface, make a snap judgement, and then become closed-minded." So I've noticed. Thanks. Our friend here is a freaking scholar. "...insanely more powerful..." Really. Can it interface with web services to allow for searching across multiple Macs? Can it provide information to other applications so they can become more 'insanely powerful'? Now THAT would be insanely powerful. What this guy is talking about is another set of search tools stuffed into a proprietary box unable to virtualize the consumables or the products for processing forward to other applications. Another smart rat in a shoe box.)

4. 64-bitness. She totally missed the boat here. The point here is that with Leopard there is a single version for all hardware. This means that a single version of Leopard will work on 32-bit machines and 64-bit machines and run 32-bit apps and 64-bit apps. This is not how Vista works, and the 64-bit experience on Vista has been notoriously bad, everything from unexplainable bugs to lack of driver support.
:-( It doesn't mean squat if you have a 128byte machine if all that machine can do is talk to itself or others like it. If Microsoft had enabled proprietary data with XML they would have WinFS and they wouldn't need proprietary device drivers anymore. If Apple had enabled proprietary data with XML they would already be interconnecting iPhone with Mac and every other computer on the planet. Strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.)

5. Core Animation. She thought the developers in attendance didn't seem all that impressed. She's wrong. What Mary Jo might not realize is that 99.99% of the attendees are ADC members, which means they've all been eating, living, and breathing Leopard (including Core Animation) since before January 2007. They all know how powerful it is. Granted, people were looking for more "new" stuff, but like one person said: at least there was enough new stuff to not have to cancel WWDC :) (dig at MS for cancelling PDC)
:-( And I quote: "They all know how powerful it is. Granted, people were looking for more "new" stuff, but like one person said: at least there was enough new stuff to not have to cancel WWD" This is why you don't let defendants represent themselves in front of a thinking breathing inquisitor. Looking for more "new" stuff? You mean, as in 'you know how powerful an XML enabled machine SHOULD perform but you didn't see that here either'? "...enough new stuff to not have to cancel WWDC..."? It was already paid for. Why cancel when it's in June? I don't get the comparison or am I missing something?)

6. Boot camp - I'll certainly grant her this point. I'm running Visual Studio 2005 Orcas in my Vista partition on my Mac. Why? Because the Mac monitor actually makes Vista look better than any Dell or IBM laptop I've used.
:-( Have you ever seen what a Mac monitor does? It softens everything to make it look less hard. They institutionalized soft-focus into their monitors like a playboy spread and they think nobody can photo nudies like they can. Honey, wrappers are IN with the virtualized world. You folks can understand that, can't you? Making things look glossy and soft is a graphics trick that can be emulated in software. Are you betting your entire future on people not seeing virtualized MAC-like GUI's running Linux and Microsoft? Bad bet.)

7. Spaces. Again, lack of apparent awe from the audience comes from this being not all that new to the attendees. They've all known about it for a long time.
:-( They've all known Leopard was not going to deliver virtualization and Web-OS and webapplication capabilities? So they all went to the convention to cheer each other up and rally the flag?)

8. Dashboard widgets are not anything like Vista gadgets. You show me a Vista gadget that has FULL access to the entire power of the OS, and then I'll say this is a valid comparison. Until then, I wave the BS flag.
:-( What about FULL access to the entire power of the OTHER OS? That's what virtualization allows for and, what the heck, virtualization is virtually free, isn't it? Isn't it?

That is what should be feely available if virtualization is freely available, get it?

I agree you should wave the BS flag. It's flying over your BS fort.)

9. Vista's meeting space working like iChat theater?? You've GOT to be kidding me. Mary Jo herself claims not to be a Mac user, but I'm beginning to think she's not a Vista user either. I've used Meeting Space multiple times, including several times with cameras, and I've never had the experience of iChat theater. This is another one (like searching) that looks like a photocopy feature but actually provides more value than Vista's equivalent. The keynote could have made it more clear, but the real power behind iChat theater isn't the gee whiz effects (though they do look fun)... the power is in the ability for application programmers to use iChat theater as an enabling technology to broadcast content to buddies, basically its "nearly free collaboration" add-on capability for every Cocoa developer. Meeting Space isn't programmable. Trust me - I can quote lines of the OCS and UC SDK from Microsoft, and there ain't jack about Meeting Space programming.
:-( Funny our man on the skreet can pick out the following abstraction: "...the power is in the ability for application programmers to use iChat theater as an enabling technology to broadcast content to buddies, basically its "nearly free collaboration" add-on capability for every Cocoa developer..." and he can't figure out what's missing from Leopard or Longhorn.

The real power is in the ability to enable proprietary data so it may be used by ANY XML consumer. Do that first [again with the patent numbers? USPTO 7,076,521] and then you can transport and interoperate freely. Then, that's where you run into the other two foundational columns: SiteFlash and Emily. I do wonder when people will start writing about them instead of staring up at the sky and wondering why God would hit them with a rubber chicken.)

10. Time machine - granted. This is a valid point, Vista can automatically back-up, and if you want some really powerful stuff there's the "Windows Home Server" stuff coming out that'll not only do your back-up stuff but it'll work as a central media storehouse as well, and integrates with Xbox 360, etc.
:-( Notice our guy is impressed with Longhorn features [Windows Home Server - they're going to try to cram that bull in your closet. You'll need an electrician to put an Edison plug in... that's as close as you'll be able to say you're employing "inventor class" technology.] which he should say DO NOT APPEAR in Leopard as of yet. Perhaps October?)

OK. Bottom line here is I'm dissapointed. I've considered Mary Jo's articles to be unbiased and relatively objective in the past. What I'm looking at in her article is basically a piece of imflammatory nonsense. If she had taken the time to do some more digging, she would have found the depth that would have made many of her arguments appear as weak as they truly are. She took the lack of response of the audience to mean that they were unimpressed. I, however, went and talked to a couple people at random and asked them, and they all confirmed my suspicions - they'd seen it all before. It was still just as impressive as last time, but people didn't feel the need to hoot and holler about it. They were waiting for the iPhone announcement (which was arguably dissapointing for many developers... though I'll bet good money that less than a year from the iPhone's release we'll see a real SDK for it). She also compared a couple of features at a really cursory level without doing the homework to figure out how the features work.
:-( Quite frankly, I'm disappointed in both of you. Furtermore, the both of you should take a course in information system architecture for the 15000 footer and maybe you can drop some of your proprietaristic prejudices and begin seeing the technology world as a broader more agnostic ecclesichasm.)

Sure, I'll grant you that on the surface a lot of what Steve showed at the keynote might appear like a "me too" set of features. But, as I mentioned in my previous blog, Apple doesn't simply catch up, they do what the competitor is doing, and they try and do it better. For example, in addition to the improved finder providing search for all computers on a local network, it also incorporates dynamic DNS features and allows you to search office PCs, remote PCs, other PCs on the internet - something that you need third party software on Vista to accomplish and even then it won't be integrated with search (at least I have yet to see this in any packages).
:-( "a lot" is ""me too""? The question at root is not whether the two operating systems look and feel the same. They do. It's time to get over that and answer the question: What do each do extraordinary out of the range of individual proprietary computers today? The overwhelmingly disappointing awareness is that they don't. They don't DO anything with other applications as the school of interoperation says it should. They don't perform beyond the boundaries of the OS and the Browser as the XML theories said computers should and THAT interactivity is what the entire concept of all the various ideas discussed around the subject of XML spring from. It's simply the ability to work with others not of your kind. The fundamental capability of the next generation concepts is enablement for virtualization anybody's data with anybody... and Microsoft and Apple STILL can't get there fully as indicated in their stalled next generation pushes.)

I have no problem with the notion that Leopard is adding features that Vista has - I can think of a couple of features that really do look like "catch up" features. There's nothing wrong with Leopard catching up to Vista in some regards. The more competition there is between the Operating Systems, the better. If Leopard can be point-for-point competetive with Vista, then perhaps Vista will improve as a result and Leopard will then improve and so on - that's how free commerce is supposed to work.
:-( Our boy is not an idiot. He figured out they actually do both look and feel alike and perform functional elements of the traditional computer paradigm and he's OK with all that. He makes his living in that paradigm and the business for the new paradigm has not yet reached his area yet, so he must swim with the strokes he knows.)

There's nothing wrong with pointing that out in a clear, concise, objective manner. But when you use cursory, if nonexistant, research and myopic viewpoints to back up your arguments, you're spin-doctoring, not debating with fact.
:-( There's nothing wrong with pointing out that your opponent skunked you and you agree with him but at least give somebody the grace to save face. But if you can't see a deficiency in Apple capabilities in light of the kinds of things XML taught publicly as far back as 2000, neither of you should be throwing glass paperweights in a tastefully exhibited glass office. You should instead ask your editor what financial reason he can see for sticking with the status quo.)

Alas, IT has begun.

2007-06-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

And to think it all arises from the humble little interoperation enabler.

http://soa.sys-con.com/read/393650.htm
SOA Editorial — The Rise of the Machine
By: Sean Rhody
Jun. 22, 2007 04:30 PM

Many recent science fiction novels deal with the concept of nanites - tiny bits of computers than can aggregate themselves to form new larger composites to assist their host. These concepts typically relate to making human cells self-healing, but they also have their sinister aspects, like the terminator, made out of liquid living metal in the last movie, who could reconfigure himself at will into any shape, and recover from any injury.

While this may seem like fantasy at the moment, there's a quiet revolution going on in the computing industry that makes this dream (or nightmare) one step closer to reality. Oddly enough, it's all a part of service-oriented architecture.

The underpinnings of any SOA are based on a service-oriented infrastructure, which basically creates callable, configurable services out of the lower-level components that make up an application infrastructure. Many of these services are familiar as system services - single sign-on, auditing, security management, reporting, etc. But what is fascinating in this world is the change that is taking place in the guts of the hardware.

Space in a data center is always at a premium, as is computing power. The natural tendency to try to pack more computing into the same space has been taken to its extreme conclusion with recent advances. Multi-core chips put two, four, or even more CPUs in the space previously occupied by a single CPU. Processing power is exploding like never before, and with cheaper memory and disk costs, the machines of today under the average user's desktop pack more processing power and capacity than many supercomputers of the previous decade.

All this would be trivial, except that with this rise we've also seen some very interesting services developed along with the silicon. Virtualization is a key part of the new wave of computing. With the ability to share resources down to as little as a 1/10th of a CPU, virtualization provides an amazing degree of flexibility.

Many developers and project leaders will tell you that the infrastructure costs for disaster recovery and testing are prohibitive. It is frequently impossible to fully fund multiple environments to support such requirements. With the advent of virtualization, the DR environment can be the testing environment under normal conditions, and then, at a time of emergency (or even just a request for increased capacity), can reconfigure itself quickly, ratcheting back or eliminating testing completely to become a full production environment, much like our terminator changing from one form to another.

The key to all of this is a service-based approach that allows for definitions of environments to be modified in response to changing environmental conditions. Theoretically no human intervention is even necessary - fail over at the router or load balancer will trigger a service call that can make the transition happen automatically. Similarly, with the return to service of a primary site, the fail back of the environments can reconfigure the disaster recovery site back to a testing environment.

Nor is this a binary condition - testing comes in different flavors and it's easy to imagine having multiple virtual environments to switch to - some with additional horsepower to support performance testing, others with less capacity to support functional testing instead. With automated testing tools, this can even take place in the complete absence of human intervention. At night the machines run themselves; in the morning, the humans analyze the results and plan the next evening's run.

Hundreds of other possibilities exist, from automating existing processing assignments, to reconfiguring networks, to adding additional disk capacity from a farm, the ability to morph and change the infrastructure is increasing rapidly.

Fortunately we're a long way away from sentient machines, and time travel still appears to be a fantasy with no real hope of ever happening. But the rise of SOA is certainly upon us.

Indications along the way.

2007-06-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

The following tells me Acropolis ( http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=72386ce5-f206-4d5c-ab09-413b5f31f935&displaylang=en ) is adhering to a common limitation placed on "evaluation" software (i.e. a limited use package to allow the user to try the software capabilities without being able to build full blown applications). This kind of limitation is usually applied to closed beta where 'partners' are given full use and the general public gets the limited use:

http://dotnet.sys-con.com/read/393857.htm
Issues with Acropolis...
I have been poking around inside Acropolis for a little while now and have been attempting to make it work for some sample apps
By: Kevin Hoffman
Jun. 22, 2007 07:15 PM

Here's the rub: I can't create windows outside the Shell that contain parts. That's right. There's no such thing as File -> New -> Acropolis Window. A forum poster suggested that one workaround might be to create a standard WPF window, drop a partpane into it, and then programmatically, at runtime, use the pipeline manager to obtain an instance of a Part and stuff it into the part pane in the new window. Sorry - I don't buy it. If I have to hack in order to pop open a simple dialog box with a couple parts in it, then the framework is broken. Note to Microsoft: Beta 1 or CTP2 of Acropolis needs to have a Visual Studio "Orcas" template for creating a new Window that is a top-level part pane container. Period. This is a showstopper. While it might be nice to assume that in a perfect world all interaction with a user takes place in a single framed window, that's not how reality works. I can't think of any desktop apps that I've written in recent history that performed all their work in a single window.
Ok, I'm done ranting. Time to go back and spend some more time coding.

--------

So isn't that strange?

I don't know what you're thinking but I'm thinking this is like Apple's half-baked ZFS or like Sun's kinda-sorta JavaFX license. Looks to me like somebody is holding the leash up short and not letting the users get too far with the goods before buying.

So if this is a "free download" from Microsoft, it comes in the guise of 'crapware' - that stuff you get to try for 90 days then you have to buy it.

But, this is worse. If you don't get the "full" Acropolis, you can only build single window gadgets widgets and wowies.

So, who is putting the evaluation limit on Acropolis here as it's being sent out to their echelon of independent developers?

Probably the same who kept Sun from being able to issue a license for JavaFX.

Probably the same who told Apple they were only going to be able to use a read-only version of ZFS.

Now, the skeptics around us will say we're crazy. They'll say the companies hold up development issues based on many licensing issues and they may not want to put out . Darn tooting because no self-respecting developer or architect or project team would put out something half-baked.

The only people that do that are desperate market guys or clever lawyers.

But marketers wouldn't do this. They would have awhole bunch of flowery language about their licensing strategy and blah blah blah survey for feedback and duh dit duh dit duh dah community adoption and yada yada yada 'not enough time in the day' or SOMEthing beyond a shove it to the developer and listen to him yodel for the sheep.

Nope. This looks like Microsoft got bit with the same licensing snake Apple finds itself with ZFS and Sun finds itself with javaFX. Almost but not quite. Snakebit.

Yeah. Licensing. Lawyers are holding them back. Lawyers are holding Microsoft clients from exercising the full power of 'Acropolis' the VCSY technology clone.

So the skeptics are right. Bless their little hearts. I just wonder how long it will take before they themselves realize they are right.

Oh my! How did THAT get in there?

2007-06-22T09:01:00.000-07:00

Microsoft was blipping and flipping all over the place yesterday.

First they say they will virtualize the Home Vista versions. Then they said they won't.

Then they say Ubuntu Linux is great for desktops and servers. Then they say 'mmmmphhh'.

You're undecided now, so what are you going to do?

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2007062209235346
Microsoft's Windows Marketplace: "Ubuntu is perfect!" -- Eek!
Friday, June 22 2007 @ 09:35 AM EDT
This is too funny not to show you. Microsoft has a site for downloads of various software products, not just their own. It's called Windows Marketplace. Yesterday, for a brief shining moment, you and 10,000 or so other people could and did download Ubuntu Linux from a link on that page -- thank you, Google Cache -- which sent viewers to CNET for the download.

According to that page, Ubuntu is perfect:

Note: This is the desktop version of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a community developed operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops, and servers. Whether you use it at home, at school or at work Ubuntu contains all the applications you'll ever need, from word processing and e-mail applications, to Web server software and programming tools. Ubuntu is and always will be free of charge. You do not pay any licensing fees. You can download, use and share Ubuntu with your friends, family, school or business for absolutely nothing.Version 7.04, named "Feisty Fawn," adds the Ubuntu Studio, a multimedia editing and production suite, to the distribution.

Heaven only knows that's true, simply perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. The part Microsoft got wrong is it says the license is "Free" and "No limitations". Actually, the GPL does set some limitations, like what you are responsible to do if you redistribute.

read more (40 words) 49 comments Most Recent Post: 06/22 11:57AM by Anonymous

UPDATE

It took me a few readings and a few peeks at the Google cache page but I finally figured out what is missing here. The word 'Linux'.

It says "Ubuntu is a community developed operating system". That's exactly the tactic they used in avoiding the use of the word XML. Redefine by vocabulary replacement.

I believe one solution Microsoft could use is to commoditize the business version of Vista (thus the virtualization) while maintaining family home systems in a different league and a different environment.

With Vista + "community supported server" technology, they could claim to be extending Vista without actually doing so.

That could be done for a number of strategic, economic or 'get something out of the negotiations' reasons.

So the Debian Linux is absorbed except for Ubuntu and they have a slot all set up in the Microsoft Marketing department for a punch this button distro.

It takes quite some doing to pull that kind of thing off. I would think it takes signoff from at LEAST a department manager or two to do that sort of thing. So this was no 'technology' goof on generation. This was a goof as in 'let the cat out of the bag'. More like let the car out of the garage and it rolls out into the Linux traffic.

Very funny. Very funny. The best laid plans of mice and men.

I wonder what has them in charges at MSFT all so flustered this week?

Moo moo, moooo moo moo, moooo mmoomppphhh...

2007-06-21T19:30:00.000-07:00

It was bound to happen. Once Microsoft felt they were secure enough in their own IP relationships they were going to more than likely start applying IP law to their own IP concerns.
So the Longhorn resurrectors will be shutting down and Microsoft will go after others from this point. I wonder what made them confident enough to stand on a righteous view of patent law?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=530
June 21st, 2007
Windows Longhorn won’t be reloaded, after all
Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 5:43 pm

One month after a team of Windows enthusiasts hit Milestone 1 of “Longhorn Reloaded,” Microsoft has put the kibosh on the project.

Longhorn Reloaded — an initiative of a handful of members of the Joejoe.org site to take up where Microsoft left off with its Longhorn client development in 2004 — is no more, according to a posting on the Joejoe.org site.

In late May, the core team of Joejoe developers working to resurrect the old Microsoft Longhorn client code, managed to deliver Milestone 1. But the project subsequently attracted the attention of Microsoft’s lawyers.

According to a mid-June posting on the Joejoe site:

“Dear Members and developers,

“It is with sad news that I have to inform you that today due to a (cease and desist) letter we recived from microsoft we are no longer able to provide you with a download link to longhorn reloaded. It deeply saddens me that although microsoft have known about this project for many months they only issued us with this notice a few days after we started to distribute the iso via torrents and ftp server.

“From now on any links posted or any requests asking for a download link to LHR the post will be deleted and the thread closed.

“I am just as sorry as you guys are about this, but we got to think about the community as a whole first.

“Many regards,

“cr1t1cal.

“Joejoe.org founder and senior administrator.”

Jean-Marie Houvenaghel (Jemaho), the founder of Joejoe.org and supervisor of the Longhorn Reloaded project, posted on June 12:

“As per request by Microsoft, Longhorn Reloaded is DISCONTINUED. Thread Closed.”

In late May, when the Longhorn Reloaded developers hit Milestone 1, I asked Houvenaghel whether the team had been contacted by Microsoft’s lawyers. His response, at that time:

“We haven’t currently suffered any threats from Microsoft, maybe because Longhorn is considered abandonware, I don’t know,” Jemaho said. “Also I’m (not) a 100% sure that they are aware of the LHR (Longhorn Reloaded) situation.”

Contributors to the Longhorn Reloaded project, predictably, are not happy. A couple of contributors suggested that the team might be able to build “a standalone exe/msi installer to run on top of an existing install of (Longhorn Build) 4074.” But it’s uncertain whether Microsoft might attempt to crack down on such a project.

I’ve asked Microsoft for an official comment on the Longhorn Reloaded situation. More to come when and if someone responds.

It's the eyepatch, I tell ya. I can't see a thing with this...

2007-06-21T17:21:00.001-07:00

Oh, uhhh, hello guys and gals.

I'm just dropping off an old Magazine morrie is going to want to see when he gets back from his vacation to a beautiful island in the Wango Pangy keys called Pooka Poky. Great place for tribal ritual practical jokes and buggery.

Anywho, don't mind the pictures of the natives in this. They're harmless enough.

What is very interesting is the wording in one of the commercials about VCSY's subsidiary NOW Solutions, Verizon and SaaS.

To Wit:

http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=VCSY&read=188015
By: yo-eleven
21 Jun 2007, 07:44 PM EDT
Msg. 188015 of 188024
Jump to msg. #
I don't know why we didn't see this earlier when we were first looking.

Apparently others are able to search better than the original bunch of us. It's the third link for a google of Verizon + SaaS.

http://whirmagazine.texterity.com/whirmagazine/200702/?pg=14

blurbs:
"The application service provider model never gained broad user acceptance because the ASPs positioned themselves as resellers of traditional software applications that were fundamentally flawed. The ASPs also had to make tremendous up-front investments in their service delivery infrastructures and showcase operations centers, which created tremendous cash flow problems. As a result, nearly all of the original ASPs disappeared during the dot-com downfall."

"In January, Verizon Business announced an agreement to support NOW Solutions new emPath service, a new web-based version of NOW SOlutions human resource management, payroll and benefit administration software. According to the agreement, Verizon Data Center Services will support the EmPath application with carrier-class data infrastructure, redundant power supplies and network connectivity, physical and data security and 24-hour monitoring and management."

Please note:
"...a new web-based version of NOW SOlutions human resource management, payroll and benefit administration software..."

Please also note:
Verizon Data Center Services will support the EmPath application with:
1. carrier-class data infrastructure
2. redundant power supplies and network connectivity
3. physical and data security
4. 24-hour monitoring and management

When the first news was out about NOW Solutions SaaS the skeptics like desertfox, tp and mirror claimed that Verizon was the outfit providing the SaaS components.

They were wrong then and they are still wrong today and tomorrow.

We see here NOW Solutions didn't need any help with SaaS, thank you. The web-based version of their business IS SaaS and they built it with their own tools and technologies. They could have simply built their own SaaS center but it's better to let Verizon do with infrastructure what you do not need to do so you can apply yourself to what you're good at, SaaS for human resources and any other disciplines or technologies.

So, to be clear so there is no further waste of time with their "opinions":
Verizon is hosting NOW Solutions SaaS with 1. computers 2. power and internet feeds 3. a secure place 4. around the clock

NOW Solutions brought their own SaaS of their own creation. That is what they are presenting on Verizon and what Verizon invites to join. VCSy is sitting there ready to do the same thing NOW Solutions can do for others by extending what emPath does from the initially configured and purposed package to the new vertical use.

That's why they call it Vertical.

(Voluntary Disclosure: Position- Long; ST Rating- Strong Buy; LT Rating- Strong Buy)
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Wise Man Buy VCSY Says the Yo Yo Man...

2007-06-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

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By: yo-eleven

20 Jun 2007, 10:48 PM EDT

Msg. 187916 of 187916
(This msg. is a reply to 187915 by kantuc.)
Jump to msg. #

http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=VCSY&read=187916

Hey, folks, here's a prediction for you from kantuc aka legofeel aka mirror aka reflexshun etcetera: (IF)"...MSFT settles, there is no doubt that VCSY will be able to go after many other companies from an even stronger position. I'd say that there is (very roughly) a 1 in 4 chance of this happening, and if it does it isn't hard to imagine a ten or 20 fold increase in the pps..."

So, a 1 in 4 chance Microsoft will settle and that would provide a 20x increase in shareprice to about 40 cents.

We'll, let's think about that. February 7, 2007 MSFT received a cease and desist on anything they were doing like what is described in the SiteFlash patent.

I must say Microsoft exercised remarkable restraint (as did Google) in that they pulled in their horns regarding the subject of Web-based operating systems (what SiteFlash actually is - a markup based operating system. Ain't THAT wild?). If you would like the journalist articles I can provide that.

It was like that with all of Microsoft's marketing. They pulled in and delayed Longhorn. They delayed Viridian which likely infringes the Agent Patent. They were a model outfit showign restraint and courteous regard.

Then, they changed course.

As of several weeks ago, Microsoft suddenly changed their behaviour and we see Microsoft began fielding their next generation stuff in a very measured and thoughtful manner. They have increased the types of system features being introduce lately to encompass the more 'iffy' Intellectual Property issue at question and that is that of Emily. Acropolis is microsoft's interpretation of the kind of markup language programming facility described by the Emily patent application.

Essentially Emily is a dynamic markup programming language (as is Microsoft Acropolis) which runs on a micro-server which runs markup language to accomplish interactive transactioning between proprietary systems and markup environements (Microsoft DLR and VCSY MLE).

And here we are Acropolis is just now coming out in Alpha, VCSY's Emily is still not patented... why doesn't Microsoft slit VCSY's throat? They've been working on these systems for seven years. Why would they not rush something into the market and just squash the patent effort? I mean, if they're going to fight, aren't they going to fight?

Where's this big out of 4 chance fight? Looks like the chinchilla judging event at the local church social.

If Microsoft are inclined to fight VCSY, they are being very gentlemanly and I find that VCSY, under such siege of combative pacifism, have stood their ground and given MSFT a requested 60 day extension to respond.

That Dick Wade. He's such a nice guy! We'll kill them with kindness, that's what we'll do. Gosh all shucks.

You're right, mirror. A 1 in 4 chance that Microsoft will fight the patent out in the open with infringement obvious to a fourteen year old kid (but, of course, not to IT 'professionals') and their competitors under remarkable restraint waiting, as it were, to see what Microsoft was going to do.

Yeah. Sure.

I would reverse those numbers to 4 in 1 chance of Microsoft settling.

There are a whole host of reasons why that makes more sense than your scenario.

What happens when the patent for a next generation software system and business is validated by an agreement to work with VCSY? Twenty times is peanuts for the next generation software technology, lego.

It was that way in 2000. It's that way today. What's the ratio HERE?

We're tiny but we own the field. The crowd is large and they don't own anything. How does that sound for ratio?

More Common Sense from "the Bull"...

2007-06-20T06:41:00.000-07:00

By: yo-eleven

19 Jun 2007, 02:09 PM EDT

Msg. 187795 of 187829
Jump to msg. #

http://ragingbull.quote.com/mboard/boards.cgi?board=VCSY&read=187795

It's interesting to see the habitually absent all cluster around waiting for something they know is coming all the while denying the possibilities exist.

They can't deny the changes they see happening with IBM and Microsoft and they think the reason is certainly something else other than what's been described in post after post with reference material supplied. VCSY technology is implacable and must be dealt with. The stumblers and trippers want you to believe we won't know that for 18 months until 'the trial' is done (and then there are months of appeals after THAT). They want you to know it's DAYS until June 30. And even WEEKS until July 13. 'And how can you wait for an answer from the company even one day longer!' is what they want you to think.

when you've waited over 7 years for something a few more weeks or days doesn't really matter any more. You get this dull 'It's almost over' or 'at least we'll find out something and go from there'.

Why are we so calm in our waiting and it's the people so obviously against the company and the stock that are havign a hard time with the time we have ahead?

Have you thought about what's going on in announcements by Google, Microsoft, IBM, Sun and the others?

The rest of the technology world is scratching their several heads at what we've all seen over the past month. They have many fragmented ideas as to what is going on.

But, we here seem to have the most cogent view of IBM Microsoft and the rest of the minor planets orbiting around something that sure looks like a set of intellectual property claims that run tire tracks smack over everything these companies have been trying to build out for years.

That is, if you've read. These haven't and they think today is like any other day in technology land, but for some reason today is important enough to rouse pops out of his long nap. Again, why now?

Why now when we have only a few days to go? If they are so convinced as to the result will be more waiting, why are they so anxious about it?

IBM and Microsoft are very open and confident about what they are announcing... a 180 degree difference in the way this subject was playing out only a few weeks ago. Odd that IBM would foster Microsoft SOAP in this day and age but July 13 is when THAT little bit of unimaginable showed up.

Small things like these tell us much about what seems to be happening in secret. Taken together, it explains the silence while the anti-vcsy crowd keep asking the same questions and giving the same answers.

And if you can't see the coincidental timing of this law suit and these negotiations at this time in tech history, and the coincidental movements of the announced technologies (made more unusual by what the same companies said they could or could not do only six months ago) during this same timeframe, you simply haven't looked.

More Emails from the Edge; SOAP on a Rope.

2007-06-17T22:57:00.000-07:00

Howdy Morrie. Buenos nachos.

Danny found the following URL which at first glance appears to present concern that may not be so remote given the hardball nature of the IBM Microsoft VCSy tango. It would look like IBM is aiding Microsoft in marketing a past generation system for interoperation using XML. But, after some reading and thinking, the concerns quickly turn into satisfaction for me as it shows me IBM has placed Microsoft in a perfectly new business profile. Gift? Requirement? Strategic business deployment?

Brilliant if you ask me. It's a classic win win for very many.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/techjournal/0706_elhilaly/0706_elhilaly.html

SOAP is Microsoft's early means (see MSFT marketing SOAP XML 2000-2001-2002) of employing XML interaction between applications and operating systems. It turned out to be a disappointing method for conducting distributed transaction processing over less than ideal networks and platforms during attempts by to roll out SOAP based systems.

Sun's Tim Bray voiced the culminating frustration when he said SOA (Software Oriented Architecture) was "vendor bull$#!@" (wouldn't it just irk the heck out of you to have said something so useful to a particular faction who will just not give it a rest - Sorry Mister T. We can't rest until we come to rest.). The time and subsequent activity by Sun indicates to me Sun realised they SOAP efforts they had been trying to forge in JAVA and Microsoft efforts simply didn't span the breadth of integration requirements embodied in a typical scatter-brained business.

First, note the article is about SOAP as deployed in a pharmceutical information document system. The reason it is in pharmaceutical and not in retail is because SOAP is a "brittle" language which sends Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) to applications on servers pointed to by UDDI then they wait for a reply. Hangups can cause timeouts and it's a stop-everything proposition until that connection is reacquired, the previous transaction rolled back reliably and then the transaction cycle being executed again.

RPC is a work around agent architectures. RPC depends on applications and/or procedural components and objects residing on servers and being accessed by other servers. The RPC component is a procedure that sits on a server and runs when called. The server then may run operations within itself (or more likely send its own SOAP packages out for a service to respond to the requested command) and then report the result to the calling site also via URL. As you might imagine, this kind of immediate interdependency on the trusted callback caused these kinds of system to not tolerate fools or funk very well and entire strings of complex operations could be put at risk with momentary dropouts.

REST is a more tolerant and more easily managed method using agent capabilities and transaction capabilities to present a knowable state description to any interested authorized consumer. Thus, the information about the delay and the ultimate point of the delay for full description is available to the servers interacting with the agents. REST allows for repair on the fly as various backup contacts can be made available more easily than a SOAP system would provide.

In order for you to feel confident about being able to comprehend what SOAP is and what it can be used for and (more painfully for past vendors and clients) what it can not achieve you will have to google REST + SOAP. REST is a method of making the determined state of the entire framework to be known, thus providing a means of "clocking" the various activities in a web-distributed framework and knowing them to such a degree that the entire assembly can be made to be a loose-coupled processing computer built on interconnected machines.

SOAP is the next stage of engagement with the legacy technologies using XML after EDD (Electronic Data Deliverable) which made interconnected proprietary data platforms (via EDD) interconnectable in a universal language (XML).

You'll learn what that is. It's not really that hard to understand. SOAP OK but REST BEST.

We need to consider that Microsoft poured great money into SOAP and I would suppose that means they may not want to field their new stuff overseas (they need to sop up the interoperable market needy among the outside US market where they get a quick (and dirty) foothold with their users without having to deal with royalty patents to any VCSY agreement (SOAP would be the absolute worst strategy for Microsoft to market in the US while fighting about the patents with VCSy as SOAP complaints are real world stories and the technology is not considered viable in commercial interops or business interops not able to guarantee absolutely connected systems all the time. Today, they could use the MLE method to come up with their own agent methods to ameliorate the more brittle aspects of SOAP. That can also be done in deliberately crafted SOAP systems [and there are industries which would prefer a SOAP system and the phramaceutical systems are typical of those kinds of industries as they work in closed information systems using highly centralized resources.]).

I'm sure the skeptics are lining up their ah haaaasss. But I must burst their happy bubbles of doom.

First, I don't think this has anything directly to do with the patents but may be a result of the current negotiations. It is a perfectly good signal to me to say IBM and MSFT understand each other on XML. This is where they both started on the road to interoperability back in 2000.

Microsoft is not afraid of SOAP methods crossing VCSY XML claims, I think although there may be some annealing work done that may - it would only be reasonable for them to use last resort
stuff to try to save inefficient system work.

They certainly didn't show they were shy about SOAP as Microsoft tried with all their might to make SOAP systems that would keep working.

They worked on SOAP as a high profile campaign from 2000 until, as I see it, Microsoft IBM and SAP shut down the main test-case UDDI among them in December 2005 - only a week after VCSy returned from the pink death.

UDDI is a central element to a SOAP architecture. Those of you who know the dateline on the UDDI episode know what it appears to be.

SOAP still exists and serves a variety of clients but the idea of SOAP as a next generation XML interoperable platform from MSFT just never gelled and was stomped into irrelevance by the AJAX fever.

Ajax is the next platform about to get shaken as Linux has. Google has the most to lose with a bad rap on AJAX. Scrubbing bubbles.

Again, this is a way for IBM and Microsoft to make some money for both, but may be a greater way for Microsoft to recoup losses in R&D while they struggled with SOAP. Maybe they need more money to pay VCSy's demands and this is a way IBM can shepherd Microsoft into foreign infrastructure systems which can be guaranteed to be up 24/7 (did anybody say critical server centers local to and serving and employing foreign nationals and governments and industries?) and interoperable with their clients and suppliers.

To these clients THIS will be next generation.

You know, I thought about doing a post kind of dooming and glooming this whole thing like Microsoft and IBM were going behind VCSY's back and getting one up on us in foreign markets outside of US IP laws. And then coming back with the facts and the conclusions. But, It's hard to make a doom and gloom case like that other than playing on superficial uninformed fears.

I like what's happening here.

SOAP doesn't violate VCSY patents as far as I would think. I would be willing to bet it's UDDI that would have infringed. Maybe it did infringe. It's an XML based RPC system of which thousands have worked well enough for industries in the US for some decades.

It's just RPC systems are difficult to build, difficult to tune, difficult to manage and difficult to govern. That's a historical fact and XML's inclusion into the SOAP structure simply makes it a universal RPC.

So SOAP works in some areas like fixed resource systems quaranteed to be secure. Some governments are able to enforce such security in ways that would make American server centers as secure as Fort Knox. Plus, such systems employ a heck of a lot of programmers and business process designers and THAT will be a primary concern for any country attempting to maximize a technical population to build toward a future model.

I would say we're going to be selling our last generation tech to the under-developed world (who have an option, for example, of making the developmentgateway community model interoperable using SOAP) and keeping the true SiteFlash/Emily+otherIP model for the US for now.

In this way, SOAP becomes a defacto global standard which means it should be open-sourced and the infrastructures of the common third world system will be more easily interconnected with next generation architectures (while arbitration can be done, interconnecting with a standard is always easier and preferred).

Various aspects of that country's IT structure could then be upgraded to the next generation architectures and languages as specified and their growing IT personnel base could then be milked for the cream to build on the next generation systems (made cheaper by commoditization after a few years of adoption in the US where patent law protects us - then into the outside world which, by then, would hopefully have learned the value of inter-relationships of service as opposed to privateering and pirateering. Harrrr.) and thus a global interconnection is fostered inexpensively, advancing IBM and Microsoft's interests in providing business contacts in many various countries without worrying about seeding the areas with IP they would have to be responsible for.

As touching the Linux systems out there who can not, will not or will not be allowed to secure an IP package of which I surely believe VCSy is a large part; they should be given an option to interoperate with their various proprietary systems and SOAP gives them a way to pick up from 2001 just like their commercial couzins are expected to do with their own implementations of the next generation systems.

There are quite a few leverage points here for IBM advancing their interests while saving Microsoft's R&D buttocks from savvy investors who will recognize the architectural roadmaps and timeframes once the systems come out and the patent likenesses appear. Microsoft might as well send their techs and SOAP IP into these countries to attempt at the very least to isolate, quarantine and remediate significant pockets of MSFT product misuse.

They will be setting up for interoperation a variety of legacy systems of which many will employ Microsoft applications, no doubt.

An interoperable SOAP system would allow Microsoft to identify and track product use and perhaps stand to recoup money they've lost from abuse.

There are numerous reasons why this is good for IBM Microsoft AND VCSY and maybe I can categorize them and write on them later.

In the US, the companies who use the next generation licenses will probably never mention Vertical except for the license agreement PR. They will also likely not be able to use those products beyond various areas. They will be competing with many of Vertical's partners so no mention by anyone of Vertical would be more the norm for this kind of technology fit.

I think it's apparent Wade has infrastructure desires and bravados of his own (someone in his organization having said they had a choice of building their own SaaS facility or working with Verizon. He said Verizon's economy of scale made it a less expensive choice to host on Verizon [note: NOW Solutions said they could have done their own SaaS center. I wonder who tepe thinks is "hosting" SaaS and whether he could even explain how one WOULD host SaaS. LOL]) and the state gateway and countygateway concepts along with their exclusivities in the security product suite can evolve very quickly with seed funding as all the various legacy systems could be absorbed easily into VCSY's .Net/Emily technology as demonstrated by NOW Solutions.

Adoption could be fostered rapidly, working toward a position as a standard in the future for these forms of next generation technologies to be deployed out into the nations.

Emily can interact with SOAP systems easily enough. Just another platform/framework arbitrated into the SiteFlash ecology. VCSY can do SOAP or REST but prefers REST.

What this tells me is that IBM is welcoming Microsoft into the XML handling fold and being quite gracious about it, giving Microsoft a way of pointing at a body of R&D that will pay off in embedding Microsoft solutions in the regulated and governmental interoperation sites and facilities of foreign companies. IBM would surely provide the server centers to host these SOAP interop centers. I would think EMC is going to pipe up here somewhere and become storage centers for interop systems.

Then you have consolidations of the various commodity service systems as a market for interoperable commerce and infrastructure service fosters and develops. The key to democratic or at least non-totalitarian reform everywhere is open information. The key to open information is open standards. The key to open standards is arbitration technology that can abstract the various standards unable to make a SOAP interconnect into a globally known (while remaining operationally private) provider and consumer of information.

Some SOAP systems will naturally gravitate toward REST architecture more tolerant of broken connections and more descriptive of a loose-coupled architecture which may pass the interconnected device conversations across a variety of platforms to achieve an end. SOAP is loathe to do such things.

So sorry to those of you who shared Danny's shock and felt good about it. It went the other way and we win again. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyahhhh. I'm feeling decades better already and ready to tool my tricycle down basher boulevard.

This shows me IBM and Microsoft have climbed into the same XML boat and this is their earnest effort at building a cooperative structure to further aims for all concerned (SOAP systems are great systems when contained in centers and secure communications. They just don't work well if your car is going into a tunnel or the mountains. They don't work well if you can't settle on one specific platform and families of applications. It can be made to work well with various platforms but the work to interconnect these situations adds complexity and time to development. It also complicates maintenance and scaling up. But, that's something you use to its efficacious effect in generating training for trades and professional nationals who would build the company's or countries or city's or town's IT infrastructure so they could provide a means of joining into the kind of industrial and business information productivity many American businesses have been running on quietly over the years as consensus grew about where SOAP was appropriate and where it was not.

If anyone disagrees with my characterizations of SOAP please feel free to comment here or at #2 and #3. I don't want to be spilling bilge but that's my impression from the news regarding SOAP since 1999. I welcome an opinion from anyone.

As for some of the resident board skeptics and critics, they should give it a rest as they're demonstrating their ignorance of the technology and the business and the government interests involved.

They attempt to scare away those who don't have any technology knowledge. They only make those who do understand the technology laugh and more determined to teach those who don't know.

Their choice. They've done nothing for themselves but forge an organized front and phalanx of longs and encouraged digging for information to prove them wrong. We've been doing that since 2000 and will continue to demonstrate it to anyone who wants to listen (read).

Long and rambling. Please and Thank You.

Microsoft Unveils New Version Of IPTV Platform

2007-06-17T21:44:00.000-07:00

And a very BIG Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200706180016DOWJONESDJONLINE000007_FORTUNE5.htm

June 18, 2007: 12:16 AM EST
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) unveiled the latest version of its Internet television software platform, which it promises will offer features that will set the telecommunications companies apart from the cable providers.
The Redmond, Wash., software titan is the key vendor to the highest- profile Internet protocol television, or IPTV, deployment in the nation: AT&T Inc.'s (T) U-verse service. But the rollout has met with frequent hiccups, and Microsoft has largely been blamed for the problems.
Microsoft is changing the name of the platform to Microsoft Mediaroom from Microsoft TV IPTV Edition. It's the third version of the software platform. With the latest edition, the company believes its problems are behind it.
"It's all brand-new technology," said Microsoft spokesman Jim Brady. "All that fine-tuning is behind us. Now the platform will really start to flex its muscles and show its capabilities."
Microsoft unveiled the new version of the platform Monday at the NXTcomm telecom industry trade show.
Microsoft's carrier customers will start installing the new version over the next few months. AT&T is spending $4.6 billion to upgrade parts of its network with fiber-optic lines, which enable the delivery of U-verse.
AT&T's IPTV deployment is seen as an indicator of where future rollouts from other telecom companies will go. Qwest Communications International Inc. (Q), among others, is looking to AT&T as a trailblazer in the area.
The appeal of IPTV is the ability to layer upon the basic television service additional features that could give it a significant edge over the traditional cable providers. Cable companies have been steadily encroaching on the telecom companies' phone business, forcing them to fight back with a competitive television offering.
Among the new features is a personal media-sharing function that allows consumers to view digital photos or listen to music stored on personal computers around the home. The feature, however, won't run copy-protected files, so songs downloaded from Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iTunes store can't be played.
Another feature is the use of multiple angles on programs such as sporting events - angles that consumers can control via their remote. The multiple-angle viewing option extends to different channels.
It also allows the television to access Web-based services and programs, potentially leading to the development of video-on-demand portals or video games.
Mediaroom also opens the platform up to third-party vendors looking to create new features and services for the carrier.

IBM Red Hat Linux Validation for Government Service

2007-06-16T17:07:00.000-07:00

IBM + Red Hat Linux has been successfully validated for for government security requirements per The Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme.

In my view of validation, security is the first piece of paperwork to finish and the last to complete execution.:

http://www.niap-ccevs.org/cc-scheme/st/?vid=10125

Validated Product - IBM Red Hat Enterprise Linux Version 5

Certificate Date: 07 June 2007

Validation Report Number: CCEVS-VR-07-0037

Product Type: Operating System

Conformance Claim: EAL4 Augmented with ALC_FLR.3

PP Identifiers: Controlled Access Protection Profile, Version 1.d
Labeled Security Protection Profile, Version 1.b
Role Based Access Control Protection Profile Version 1.0

http://www.niap-ccevs.org/cc-scheme/vpl/

The following products have been evaluated and validated in accordance with the provisions of the NIAP Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme. Products on this list have been evaluated and accredited at licensed/approved evaluation facilities in the U.S. for conformance to the Common Criteria for IT Security Evaluation (ISO Standard 15408). Products that have been evaluated and granted certificates (up through EAL4) under CCRA partnering schemes are recognized by the CCEVS; US Customers (accreditors, integrators, etc) may treat these mutually- recognized evaluation results as being equivalent. For the complete list of products which have received Common Criteria certifications, please visit the Common Criteria Portal .

Common Criteria certificates issued for IT products apply only to the specific versions and releases of those products.

Certificates are not endorsements of the "goodness" of an IT product by NIST, NSA, or any other organization that recognizes or gives effect to the certificate. A certificate represents the successful completion of a validation that product met CC requirements for which it was evaluated/tested.

Readers are advised to carefully read the Validation Report and Security Target of the product to determine what was included in the evaluated configuration.

---------

http://www.niap-ccevs.org/cc-scheme/vpl/

This comment to this blog entry noteworthy because it is reasoning properly but not successfully. His error is in not factoring IBM into the mix. I believe it mat be seen the market is beginning to catch on.

I think Sun is going to retrench with Academia and Science.

All moving to neutral corners for the official beginning of all things next generation October with many previews by the already valid players until then. That's what it looks like to me. Lots of maneuvering and squirming on Linux's part (amazing how things have flipped around?), plodding intent on Microsoft's as they pick up specific blockages to a clean road to pick up Ubuntu.

The Apple 'deer in the headlights' look toward MSFT/Linux and getting skunked by Sun by leaving Apple with a read-only ZFS has relegated Apple's approach to the micro markets. BUT there are micro-Linuxes there and now that Vista = Apple, virtualization and interoperation is the only key to functional relevance. Once somebody looks like a Mac and feels like a Mac, the Apple mistickue will be hanging from a rear view mirror.

After June 30, I would expect, I think Red Hat will sport its own 'open-commuity' version of the required XML technology through IBM by which it will be putting these operating systems to work (they don't need a GUI if they function machine to machine - the human needs a GUI and may carry her own - GUI security is the most vulnerable point of the system). This commentor does not watch IBM's capabilities.

MS is maneuvering to envelope Linux companies and extend corporate patent protection as any agreement with VCSy will likely extend to whoever uses this technology in partnership with Microsoft (one would think VCSy patent attorneys would not have factored such in) thus encouraging Microsoft to maxime the reach of their operating system made interoperating system market by includng Linux and the future markets available to Linux.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/14/linspire-joins-microsofts-any-one-but-red-hat-group/

Monty

June 14th, 2007 at 3:57 am

I think the patents thing is a red herring. It looks like MS are trying to kill off Red Hat by making sure that it’s the only distro not to have additional MS features - Media Player compatibility etc. Red Hat will become seen as a “lesser” Linux and die off. Then MS can withdraw support from the others and leave them to die off too.

Rub a Dub Dub...

2007-06-16T16:13:00.000-07:00

And this makes our scenario even brighter:

http://software.seekingalpha.com/article/38396?source=feed

Now there are two ways to read these Microsoft-Linux pacts. Duncan Riley at TechCrunch writes that Microsoft is creating an anybody-but-Red-Hat club to outflank the Linux bellwether.

If that’s Microsoft’s strategy against Red Hat it doesn’t seem to be working. The consensus seems to be that Microsoft isn’t denting Red Hat at all by inking pacts with lesser Linux providers. In a research note dated June 7, Jeffries analyst Katherine Egbert reports that Red Hat likely landed JP Morgan in the May quarter. Meanwhile, Novell customer wins at Wal-Mart (WMT), Home Depot (HD) and Bear Stearns (BSC) were largely because Red Hat held the line on pricing, says Egbert.

An alternate theory–and one detailed in Egbert’s note–is that Red Hat could do a deal with Microsoft. Egbert writes:

Several industry sources have indicated that Red Hat has opened talks with Microsoft re: patents. These talks are especially relevant in light of the recent, final release of GPLv3, which extends any two-party patent protection to all users of v3 licensed software (there is a grandfather clause that excludes the Novell-Microsoft agreement). Microsoft recently signed patent cross-license agreements with OSS provider Zimbra and with LG Electronics. While there has been only minor progress to date with Red Hat, we find the talks encouraging.

A Red Hat pact would be quite a coup for Microsoft and in theory could shelve future interoperability concerns for customers looking to mix and match Linux and Windows. The one major hang-up in talks will be virtualization technology. Don’t hold your breath for a Microsoft-Red Hat partnership, but if it’s going to happen it’ll happen real soon.

It's All a Game...

2007-06-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

It's all a game of 'what fits the scenario' versus 'what does not fit the scenario'.

http://www.smartmoney.com/Techsmart/index.cfm?story=20070615&afl=yahoo

"...In a report dated June 7, Egbert said she heard word that Red Hat is currently in patent discussions with Microsoft. Whether or not the two companies reach a deal is anyone's guess, however....

...proof that Red Hat and other open-source players have not been wasting their time. For investors, Red Hat's stock is probably the best way to play this industry. While the shares tend to be somewhat volatile, the price — at a recent $23.33 — is at an acceptable level to buy in before the company reports its earnings later this month.

...There's little doubt we are witnessing a revolution in the software industry. As these mythic events unfold, it may be a good time to make some money."

Too Many Linuxes...

2007-06-15T23:03:00.000-07:00

A very important reason why consolidation of all the smaller Linux distributions is an important objective for Red Hat and Novell:

http://content.zdnet.com/23 47-12554_22-668 18-66819.html?seq=1

More Popcorn in the Sky, Spun Sugar in the Eye

2007-06-14T06:39:00.001-07:00

Mo Mo Mo.

Mary Jo took another shot at it and it's as we suspected: Vista=Leopard. So what? Missing secrets are the same on Microsoft side as they are on the Apple side. It's all simple math. Nought from nought is nought. Cipher, Jethro!

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=509
June 13th, 2007

Leopard vs. Vista: Take two

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:12 am

"Instead, what I was attempting to ask was whether users out there, especially those who’ve had a chance to play with the closed Leopard betas, believe there are features and functionality in Leopard that will leapfrog what’s available in Vista. I was curious because I often hear Apple officials and users assert that Leopard will be light years ahead of Vista once Leopard ships. Yet in the demonstration I saw on Monday, I didn’t see much of anything — other than the beautiful eye candy, as noted by LifeHacker — that seemed to go beyond what Microsoft is doing with Vista."

More at URL

More Peninsula Pal Chronicles; Popcorn in the Sky, Spun Sugar in the Eye

2007-06-13T21:30:00.000-07:00

Moooooooorrrrrrrrriiiiiieeeeeeeee -

I love that feel when the Good Lord puts something right in front of you just when you've about had enough. Heh heh heh. Oh Truth. Divide on.

Well, well, well... isn't THIS an interesting result? We didn't have the energy or scope to watch Apple as closely as we've been watching Microsoft, but isn't it very strangely coincidental Apple shows the same feature sump as Microsoft fans and experts have been expecting.

Isn't it also coincidental our theory regarding VCSY intellectual property issues cropping up elsewhere fits very neatly into the scenario as though someone had control of some issue preventing these separate companies joined only by technological desires to fulfill what must be a deep yearning by now... how delightful.

Of course it isn't coincidental. It's how things work when a Sheriff comes to a rowdy town.

"Guns? We ain't seen no guns. You see any guns, Larry? Larry don't see no guns. Nope. No guns."

"Can ya tell us where we can dump all these bullets?"

June 13th, 2007

Finally! An Apple web strategy
http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=359
Posted by Alan Graham @ 10:03 am

Any time I write something critical about Apple the fanboys and girls come out of the woodwork to call me an Apple basher who doesn’t have the intelligence to find his way out of a paper sack.

As a 20 year Mac user who has 6 Macs in his house running everything from wikis & web servers to entertainment hubs…I always find it humorous that people are so fanatical about Apple they can’t for one second take a step back to be critical and expect more from an already great company.

If you don’t ask for anything more from your favorite companies…that’s what you’ll likely get. Nothing more.

One of my biggest pet peeves with Apple has been their seemingly stubborn inability to play in the web space. From Safari to iWeb to .Mac, the company seems determined to stay behind the wisdom of the crowds and fall hopelessly behind. I’ve been harsh on them because of this, going as far as to say I’d be leaving .Mac this year if the new OS didn’t bring some significant improvements.

Well at first glance from the WWDC keynote, it looks like I might stay after all. Apple may have just created the next internet killer app.

One of the big features that Jobs talked about during his keynote was a tighter integration between .Mac and all the computers in your life. In case you missed it, the next iteration of the OS includes the ability to search for files across every machine you own, regardless of it’s location. By incorporating dynamic DNS technology (something I’ve been using for 7 years), Apple’s .Mac service will keep all of your Macs connected and searchable, regardless of their location or firewall. Using .Mac as a secure gateway, you can now access your home machines from the office, and your office machines from the road…look for files…and even move them from location to location.

I’ve been writing about wanting this since 2000. Previously I’ve had to hobble together my own solution using DYNDNS.org and port forwarding. I’ve used VNC, Apple Remote Desktop, and others, but this new Apple solution is the most graceful execution of this I’ve ever seen.

Just think about this a second…regardless of where you are, you can access every file you have, transfer files from one location to another, etc. It makes other web based storage solutions seem rather silly because you aren’t limited by the storage they give you, but only limited by the storage you already have on your own computers. And I guarantee you’ll see iPhone included somewhere in this.

But this is only one aspect of the web strategy we’re starting to see come out of Apple. With the advent of the iPhone, web clip, their close ties to Google, and the Safari web app development kit, Apple is clearly telling us where they are heading…and where they are heading is into the world of Web 2.0.

I have made many predictions in the past (I’d say I’m about 75% right) and my prediction here is that with the iPhone and the new OS, we’re going to see an explosion of web app development pushed forward by Apple and other developers which will be good for both Mac users and Windows Mobile users as well.

Don’t be surprised if we see a Windows Mobile version of Safari in the next 6 months.

It seems to me that while it took Apple a very VERY long time to get into this space, they are about to burst into it with the force of a multi-billion dollar giant determined to change the web landscape.

All I can say about this is it’s about time.

Emails from the Edge; Hej Torvald, hur mur du...?

2007-06-13T17:56:00.000-07:00

Halooo Morrie -

And the hand off goes to Torvalds and we're look at 4 and Goal to go for the Sunbirds, Larry. Whadya say they make it an even 10 yards to the Goal and we'll call this one a corker. Am I mixing my metaphors?

You been mixing something, Joe. Looks like the Linux line got weak in the knees suddenly. They were pretty boastful there with that GPLv3 bravado but that was when Microsoft was weak and wobbly. They apparently have something stiffening their resolve and it looks like the Linux team suddenly realized the need for organization and frontal competence and competition.

Ohhhh... dat had to hurt.

Yes, Joe, looks like the Sun quarter back got clocked by a cheerleader and we can't figure out who's side she's on...

She could be on my side anytime... heh hee he

Behave yourself Joe we got kids at home. Kids. You go tell your mom uncle Larry's watching out for her interests... and her ham, if you know what I mean. Har har har...

click

Looks like the Linux partnerships are being aligned. Rapid like, no? Microsoft gets Novell and Xandros along with LG for devices.

IBM gets Red Hat.

Sun and everybody else called Linux.

Apple? I think they get to stick with their read-only version of ZFS.

They got skunked by Microsoft plain and simple. Read this from Mary Jo:

Instead, what I was attempting to ask was whether users out there, especially those who’ve had a chance to play with the closed Leopard betas, believe there are features and functionality in Leopard that will leapfrog what’s available in Vista. I was curious because I often hear Apple officials and users assert that Leopard will be light years ahead of Vista once Leopard ships.

The truth is Apple and Microsoft will arrive at the "finish line" (namely productization of the real appeal on both Vista and Leopard) at the same time.

And this is not an accident. Somebody with sufficient power to make both companies kowtow to an arbitrary (it looks arbitrary to most as it is a usual fiscal year turn-over point for many companies. A place where management figures leave 'to pursue other interests' or 'to spend more time with the family' and the company announces a 'fresh new approach' to the business. That's what I think October is. A time to launch after taking a summer of samples to gauge real market.

As far ahead as Apple is, if Sun has a read-write ZFS as opposed to a read-only ZFS system on Leopard and if Microsoft has a read-write WinFS on Longhorn, then Apple is relegated to only reporting file system parameters with no opportunity to modulate the factors within the reporting file system. This means Apple OS is going to be relegated to non-commercial aggregation of computer units over internet or network. Games, essentially and entertainment.

The heavy lifting in OS/hardware platform file system use will be in system management methods probably creating huge computation platforms from aggregated Vista/Linux machines on Microsoft's part and Solaris/Linux machines on Sun's side. Apple, tossed. Google, in trouble and all within a few short weeks have the situations turned. Amazing to watch. Like a mountain rising up and snatching the crown jewels. Mountanous slow motions but so fast.

I suspect an Apple/Yahoo hookup. Seems like it would leverage Google's isolation and provide an attractive base for independents (small fry linux and desperates) to island out the Google/Microsoft war.

I think Sun got a head start when Bray realized Microsoft SOA tools were crap and bunked up with IP issues. Did McNealy get drop kicked through the goal posts of life and Sun took on an early relationship to heal their virtualization "issues"... just like Oracle, in fact? Both very low key, both scrambling for the bigger scraps.

We wait to see what Oracle's play for Linux will be. In the meantime it's fun to watch the antics and "mysteries".

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9729019-7.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=NewsBlog

June 13, 2007 8:26 AM PDT

Sun CEO to Torvalds: Let's work together

Posted by Stephen Shankland

Days after Linus Torvalds discussed the possibilities of Linux and Solaris joining forces as open-source projects, Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz has invited the Linux leader to dinner to allay his suspicions about Sun's motives.

"We want to work together, we want to join hands and communities," Schwartz wrote on his blog Wednesday. "We have no intention of holding anything back, or pulling patent nonsense. And to prove the sincerity of the offer, I invite you to my house for dinner. I'll cook, you bring the wine."

Linux is governed by version 2 of the General Public License (GPL), which Torvalds considers superior so far to the GPL 3 that the Free Software Foundation is due to deliver in final form by the end of the month. Sun's OpenSolaris software--the open-source components of Solaris--is so far governed only by the Community Development and Distribution License, but Schwartz believes sees GPL 3 could let Sun "converge on a uniform license" for its open-source projects.

"We love where the FSF's GPL 3 is headed. For a variety of mechanical reasons, GPL 2 is harder for us with OpenSolaris--but not impossible, or even out of the question," Schwartz said.

That perspective shows some convergence with Torvalds' view, who said on a mailing list posting, "I don't think the GPL 3 is as good a license as (GPL) 2, but on the other hand, I'm pragmatic, and if we can avoid having two kernels with two different licenses and the friction that causes, I at least see the reason for GPL 3."

Torvalds expressed interest in one Solaris technology in particular, ZFS (the Zettabyte File System), which governs how data is stored on hard drives, with built-in features to span multiple drives and ensure data integrity. But in what he described as his "cynical" prediction, Torvalds forecast Sun would find a way to keep ZFS out of Linux.

Schwartz took pains to deny that possibility, saying Sun is "interested in seeing ZFS everywhere, including Linux, with full patent indemnity."

And more broadly, he said, "We should put the swords down--you're not the enemy for us, we're not the enemy for you."

Linux can benefit from ZFS and other Solaris software such as DTrace dynamic probe or Crossbow network virtualization, and Solaris could benefit from Linux driver software that gives it broader hardware support.

"It's not predation, it's prudence," Schwartz said. "Let's stop wasting time re-creating wheels we both need to roll forward."

Emails from the Edge, The Coming of Age of Vertical

2007-06-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

Hello Morrice, Sunny day. You should be out on your yacht, old man.

I find nuggets as I dig that indicate the same pattern that we happen to be seeing in the industry giants is replicating like pinpoints in some fractal equation.

Wow. Perhaps software creation really IS only math and we've reached a nexus in industrial software design where all the competitors have reached the same conclusions and decided on their own feature sets and release dates all on their own accidental trainwrecks of "research" and development$... and it all looks perfectly balanced!

Amazingly big ball of bull$#!$ is what it is.

Sorry for the crass language. I'm an old man and I got the RA. Might be the hormones, though as I'm not particularly POd by anyone in particular.

Anywho.

The longer this story rolls, the bigger the margin gets. Do they think we're all stupid and were going to just sit here and take the MBA games? What the hell do I worry about whether Sun can keep their pants or not. Tim Bray's the one that called bull$#!@ on the game. We call bull$#!@ on the current game. It's just that the story is being told only to a bunch of techno-kid newbies you could kindergarten in a medium size convention hall. And none of them are old enough to buy stock, apparently. Either that or they're scrupulously observing a blackout of some form. Either that or the Laughing Place #2 visitor numbers are way off. Strange goings on.

So it most definitely is a small crowd reading this stuff. Not many have known or there is a larger mass we can't know of copy and emailed posts to family friends and fools. Why is the crowd no larger? Why is the stock at 2 cents?

Opinions range through: The smart money and big boys are ignorant of the true story behind the screen, or they know but they don't believe what they see and hear and pass, or they know and they want but they can't.

I believe the majority of the pile are those who do know and believe have done so in varying degrees of depth for years and are probably scraping up pennies (I know it's the image of common working people digging into next month's budget) to “get in the game”. (They should not worry or hurry and should DEFINITELY understand what VCSy does and how they do it and what you're looking at to the best of your little technologically challenged little brains. )

Almost anyone today who would buy VCSy would do so as they believe the validity of one or more of their patents. People who know money but do not understand technology will slide right past this one.

Suggestion: If any friends or family miss this initial anticipated rise on news (no need to act like a religious convert – people spook easily like monkeys in a meadow. Talk to them gently and patiently. They're only in the foothills of man's morph to machine. (They'll get there... if we have to hack limb from limb for mechanical prosthetics. Resistance is futile.) Hang in there while you got the fingers to decide.

As VCSy grows and begins extending their own capabilities, there will be plenty opportunities in the future and I believe anyone buying VCSy stock now or a month from now will be buying a slice of a future technology that will revolutionize the world. Like buying VHS while the Beta guys made fun of you. Like buying Polaroid when people liked going to the drugstore to drop off film. Like buying Microsoft because you saw them putting out what the average guy could use to compete with the bigger guys.). I think the nature of the VCSy negotiations with MSTF actually brings a calming sense of order on the mob. American IT capabilities have lost some shine in recent years with multiple botches and gotchas and notyets. It's time somebody stuck The Fear of God into their little tight suppositoriums.

Tell me the truth, guys, what “real” professional traders and investors would have stuck with VCSy past 2000-2001? Why would a sane person do that? The only possible reason is because they can see the indications and wonder why no-one else sees them. Either that or they know the business plan and believe they're making headway. But, how would you know?

MY biggest question in the whole riggermayroll is: When will the industrial technology journalists figure this out... and should we shut up? Are we giving the game away? Remember when we wrote about the VCSy allowance for 7076521 and Vista ended up being delayed? Not because of that? Name something else that could have started the ball rolling back then to end up in perfect stalemate starting positions for Microsoft and local group competition. I've been waiting for someone to challenge all this but the staff here is rather weak. They're given to uncharacteristically Taoist bouts of petulance and pouting and angry lashing and condescendence.

Grasshopper not fit for garden. Fit for farm. Require learning. Read on.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199903281

Apple Says No Sun File System For Leopard
Despite claims by Sun's CEO, the 128-bit ZFS that appears in (Sun) Solaris (Solaris is a UNIX platform - it may run Linux but why? can't you afford a real operating system?) will not (NOT the person say) be spotted in Mac OS X. (do tell.)
By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek

Jun 11, 2007 11:38 PM

Update, June 12, 5 pm: This article is based on reporting the statements of an Apple representative who subsequently said he had misspoken about ZFS's role in Leopard. A second article reporting the complete, corrected details about ZFS can be found here: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=199903525

From the first article:
"Croll declined to comment on statements made last week by Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz, who said the use of ZFS would be announced at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Upon further questioning, Croll would only confirm that Apple had never said ZFS would be a part of Leopard."

From the second article URL:
"Apple has included a read-only version ZFS in Leopard as a future file system option for high-end storage systems."

You know how much I'm freaked on the WinFS Windows File System and the fact it was taken out of Longhorn some time ago and what I've said about the architecture requiring an architectural structure like the Enabler Agent which was patent July 2006 (right about the time when all these big industry players got the summer-tater bad salad hiccups). You may also know from reading past posts I believe WinFS could not be achieved without violating patent 7076521 (allowance issued March 29, 2006) owned by VCSy.

I think what we are seeing here is a rare sight. I'm reminded of the way bucks get their antlers tangled together when they fight... in some cases to such point as they are unable to untangle themselves. Antlers and skull of a long dead enemy are sometimes seen on live deer.

I think what we have here is something similar.

Microsoft had a great Operating System called Longhorn. Now, one of the central "secrets" in the Longhorn OS was something called WinFS which was an XML layer enabled between the proprietary data contained in the proprietary Windows NTFS and XML consumers.

I find it hard to believe a litigation/negotiation plan by the same guys who came up with the VCSy business plan would get sloppy and let the targets wander around the field while VCSy focused on only the largest of the target group. I believe VCSy is holding Sun and Apple and Microsoft in a tight arrangement allowing Apple to use a read-only "open-source" XML file-system system in the person of ZFS by Sun (which is apparently going to use a read-write version of Sun ZFS creation).

Could Sun be holding Apple back? There will be nuances within this time and feature framework that appears to be on hold or in a quiescent state right now waiting for the REAL unveiling October when Microsoft and Apple will be free... errr....able to produce their products for sale.

My view: This is going to be a shoot out between competitors based on a same starting line handicapped by VCSy's choosing. Microsoft will introduce Windows Home Server (aka Longhorn) apparently with WinFS in whatever name it might happen to go by in October and Apple will provide ONLY a read-only version of such an advanced File System.

So, any applications able to talk in XML will be able to read the file system parameters of both the Microsoft Vista Windows File System and the Apple Mac OS 10.0 File System, but, those applications will NOT be allowed to write back to that file systems on the Apple machine?

That sucks. I wonder why? Is Microsoft being rewarded for coming to the table early and Apple had to be convinced? Is Microsoft asserting unknown patents derived from their WinFS development against ZFS starting with Apple's version. It gives Sun and the open-source community plenty of time to consider the implications before Microsoft actually announces such.

I wonder if MSFT will announce the lawsuits after they announce the VCSy settlements?

Then MSFT will rule over Apple where Leopard was expected to be beyond Vista (SOMEbody is ushering Microsoft from the back of the line to the front of the line with these timed stages of technology maturing being enforced. I say "enforced" and I do wonder if any of you out there think that the current alignment of these 'stars of the industrial heavens' who chart their own course and move as the American Way gives them freedom has come to be by accident. If so, could you please drop us an anonymous comment outlining your assertions?). They will be in direct competition with Sun. Sun will have to address the enablement issues with VCSy patent 7076521. And they will be going after the small Linux distro crowd (Ubuntu first up I bet, better buy you some shorts cause the panty raid is going to strip you of your wardrobe.) for 6826744 and 7076521.

What does WinFS fully functional in read/write mode allow for? Suppose your machine could get in touch with the Microsoft Technical Security Notifications themselves and do its own diagnostics, repairs, user notifications, versioning... the works, and you never even have to know about it.

Yeah, that's what I said "Microsoft Technical Security Notifications". No no no not the "Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary " They did away with that on June 7, 2007. The new version "Microsoft Technical Security Notifications" can be subscribed to and you get Notifications you got problems maybe. One day (If what Microsoft has in Longhorn turns out to be a REAL WinFS enabled by VCSy IP) they could step up in stages to a fully interactive management system in Redmond data centers stepping geographically distributed Longhorn machines through their exercises keeping their file systems healthy.

----------------
This is the advance notification system:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms07-jun.mspx
Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for June 2007
Published: June 12, 2007
Version: 1.0

With the release of the bulletins for June 2007, this bulletin summary replaces the bulletin advance notification originally issued June 7, 2007. For more information about the bulletin advance notification service, see Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification.

To receive automatic notifications whenever Microsoft Security Bulletins are issued, subscribe to Microsoft Technical Security Notifications.

Microsoft is hosting a webcast to address customer questions on these bulletins on Wednesday, June 13, 2007, at 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada).
----------------
OR Microsoft could fight the patents and run their developments at risk they would lose the court fight at some point threatening all the work they are doing even today. And they would also be running against unleashed competitors who have demonstrated they weren't exactly sitting on their thumbs the past five years themselves. VCSy needs only one amongst this crowd to say "I'll buy the license" and VCSy can have that outfit up and running within very short order (I say that knowing the architecture VCSy and the licensee will be working, or I should say what the architecture will be working on them. Organization, redundancy identification and arbitration... the works come from the base claims of these IPs. There's plenty more to patent or we could settle all this globally and just throw the patents to the winds and hope our bread will return). The impact on Microsoft would be vicious as they will have a difficult enough time rolling out against the Linux developers who will assume the same "challenge the patents" tilt into the windmills and wreak havoc to all the chances Microsoft has to confront openoffice and open web-applications.

I think there's a better idea. Consolidate the Linux distro community into partnered open-source appendages mated with the proprietary market base to build web-applications for Linux AND Vista/LongHorn. I believe that's what VCSy and Microsoft negotiators will have in mind when the settlement is crafted. It works to VCSy's advantage to make each licensee uniquely competitive within a particular platform intended to be applied to VCSy vertical target industries. Sell to the buyers and vendors alike.

On the other hand; If Microsoft chooses not to negotiate, I would personally go to work for VCSy selling licenses to every Linux distro I could find anywhere. 'Better get my mucklucks on. Gotta trudge up to Newfinnland to sell some of them licenses. Better bring some extra screws and extra batteries for the screwdriver to 'attach' the license plates on their bumpers, too.'

I personally don't believe Microsoft would press too heavily on a re-examination of the patents as they're entire plan for not only recouping their payout to VCSy but developing their goldmine in open-source and other IP payments (facilitating the consolidation by absorption to absolve debt) for their super WinFS technology platform (Yes, Virginia. It's THAT important.) would hinge on the validity of VCSy's patents which will be licensed to MSFT.

Devilishly clever, what not?

Now, If MSFT will fight the patents and VCSy can throw all of them open to open-source, live off whatever meager earnings they can make working with IBM, Sun, Apple, Yahoo, Google and others teaching them how to do what Davison, McAuley, Valdetaro, Cruz and Wade et al can do and Microsoft will be a smoking charcoal brickette inside two years, I would say Microsoft would be in the middle of the nightmare scenario.

I do believe Microsoft will settle with VCSy and I do believe Wade will get what he actually wants, even if it looks like he lost. Such is the profile he must keep to convince the courts he was damaged by the Chinadotcom/Ross assault.

Now, let me point out, I do not believe VCSy to be the only victor in this patent scuffle with the giants (and the patent scuffle to come with the mice). The following indicates patents on network software that folds very neatly into the claims made by the Agent patent and the two together give each man woman child and object on earth their own separate internet connection to any number of automated network helpers. These are the Charles Northrup patents: http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2001oct/gee20011030008583.htm

It looks like the kind of patent Davison probably would have written had be been born a few years before.

Sorry for the ramble, Mo. You know I get like this sometimes. Fingers gotta dance.

(And, Yes, Virginia. Somebody did kill Santa Claus... AND the Easter Bunny. We got the whole bag and basket. heh heh heh )

reference: http://ajaxamine.tripod.com/index.blog?entry_id=1698349

Emails from the Edge; Peel the Leopard Skin

2007-06-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

Hey Mo, check it out:

June 11th, 2007

Leopard looks like … Vista

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 4:06 pm

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=505

Just a few observations about these two phrases by Mary Jo: "it was the excitement by the 5,000 WWDC attendees about many technologies in the forthcoming Mac OS X “Leopard” release that already exist in Windows Vista"

"A few Mac-show regulars said they thought today’s WWDC audience wasn’t as engaged and enthused as Apple’s developers and customers normally are for a Jobs love-fest. "

I submit this observation comes because the regular fans know the capabilities that SHOULD be in Leopard are not there. And Mary Jo is recognizing the stuff not there is basically the kinds of things people SHOULD be expecting in Longhorn. Microsoft got delayed on Vista Longhorn and Apple had a perfect opportunity to be extra-competitive and out produce MSFT. But, they succeeded very well in coming in dead even on the "secret" stuff. October, huh? Long way off while Adobe doesn't look like they're in any mood to wait. Sun? Who knows? They're locked in limbo along with Yahoo.

So, because Microsoft left "something" out of Longhorn, Apple ended up leaving "something" out of Leopard. It may be difficult to pin down just what these items have been held back from an announcement in October, but the original Leopard delay was rumored to be until October to allow Vista to virtualize for interoperation between the operating systems (but wasn't Apple "boot camp" supposedly shipped anyway? I get turned around in all the things-not-done.).

Now, the alert skeptic should immediately surmise that, since Apple OS and MSFT OS interoperation and virtualization is being done, one can assume there are no players involved.

Agreed. It should not be this way in a healthy mass of competiters unless they are all working to the same plan. Looks like there are plans afoot. Alignment of Microsoft Sun and Yahoo against Google. Google finding itself outside the technology envelope bull-riding AJAX with independent Linux distributors and no place to go but to IBM for help.

Which, to me, indicates one of the parties between this "elephant in the living room" cooperation insisted on exclusivity for this "interoperation" as the very act of 'virtualizing' means you can do so with anyone of like technology no matter who the supplier. So was it MSFt requiring Apple to not have others or was it APPL demanding nobody else? Or, was it someone else?

And, yet, these two partners are so coy. Are they feeling the AJAX waters? Are they confident they can swim in there? It's an amazingly "cautious" pose to strike especially since it's already being done and numbers are already registering the interests. Adobe and IBM have kicked the donkey in the maracas and it's up to the summit they go in search of their market niches.

Sun and Yahoo? Hanging back, oddly. Taking their time. Nothing to get all worked up about.

Meanwhile they're all being trumped by Adobe and IBM and it's like all the rest are coming out of surgery.

So Mary Jo realized that Leopard without all the enablement and interoperation and virtualization looks and acts like...well... like Vista. Yeah. The thing MSFT copied from Apple for the past five years is the same thing Apple delivered after those five years. Hey Apple? Where's the beef? Where's the secret sauce?

What's' the problem, bro? Groups can't get it together to agree on a feature list? Easter eggs rolling around so fast you're believing in the Easter Bunny again for the first time since sixth grade? Mom dropped a BOM on the TOM and the catfur is ten inches thick? Is that what's bugging you boopsie?

Then step right up and get out of that cruise down denial. Walk right up to that ticket window and say.... I would like to buy whatever I can from ten pop bottles and a movie ticket, please.

Where's Google? Going along their way as they did from the start with Mark Lucovsky providing the keys to dad's caddy. I guess they'll choose to ride out the wave. Maybe they'll come into the cul-d-sac to park a hunk of junk once they've gotten out-gurgled.

Well Hmmmm! Why is Xandros on the IBM DB2 Business Partner Directory?

2007-06-12T16:16:00.000-07:00

Just doing some digging here and noticed that Xandros is a partner with IBM

for DB2! What a coincidence! Looksee here:

http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/im/DB2+Business+Partner+Directory

Lessons about Surface and Visualization with Virtualization

2007-06-11T21:24:00.000-07:00

Morrie -

When you look at something like Surface hooked up with other technologies, you can see how valuable this bit of hardware is for Microsoft. Where they once rode on machines that were compatible with an IBM specification when they first leased out their operating system and programming software, they have an opportunity to dominate the future hardware platforms for computer services interaction.

The mouse and click method is so primitive and will hopefully disappear before long with ubiquitous voice and sight/sense interaction allowing the machine to take a place as an appliance rather than a "data processing machine".

Virtual buttons on the display (hardware buttons and controls disappearing) are a nice advance on touch screens so iPhone has a great future in the realm of portable devices, but the small display limited by what a human can comfortably carry. While in the presence of a Surface machine, the Apple method can act as an independent set of controls while the Surface handles the general needs of the local audience.

Surface takes the idea of large screen display and places it in a fixable plane the human can use as a part of the environment rather than a "station" for sitting and interacting. Surface provides the touch realm without having to touch the screen. Further enhancements of the platform can provide an ability to watch and listening to everything around it... and interacting with the humans in that space.

I said all that to say the following: Here's an example of what can be done to build a 3D experience in visual displays and it's not difficult from this simple sample to understand how the convergence of virtualized software can further involve the "hardware" of machine and human in defining the software's function and service rendered.

Items like the following example will translate well on a Surface machine.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=601
June 11th, 2007
Using a robotic arm to scan the Iliad
Posted by Roland Piquepaille @ 10:47 am

According to Wired News, computer scientists from the University of Kentucky (UKY) recently went to Venice, Italy, to scan ‘Venetus A,’ the 10th century manuscript of Homer’s Iliad. They’ve used a 39-mexapixel Hasselblad camera to take pictures of the famous manuscript and a laser mounted on a robotic arm to create 3-D images of the 645-page parchment book. As the text is handwritten, it’s not easily readable by ordinary people. But Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies plans to produce XML transcriptions of the text and to put them online.

And this will not be an easy task. You can see above the first lines of Homer’s Iliad photographed from the Venetus A manuscript. (Credit for photo: Center for Hellenic Studies) [This picture is the last one of set of eight which are included in this Wired News slideshow.]

Matt Field, graduate student, and Brent Seales, an associate professor working for the UKY’s Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments, were part of a team working to create a high-resolution, 3-D copy of the 645-page parchment book.

The idea is “to use our 3-D data to create a ‘virtual book’ showing the Venetus in its natural form, in a way that few scholars would ever be able to access,” says Matt Field, a University of Kentucky researcher who scanned the pages. “It’s not often that you see this kind of collaboration between the humanities and the technical fields.”

After the manuscript was — very carefully — photographed for the first time since 1901, using “a 39-megapixel digital camera, a Hasselblad H1 medium-format camera with a Phase One P45 digital back,” Field had to scan the pages to create 3-D images of each page.

But because the manuscript is so fragile, it was impossible to use an ordinary scanner. So Seales and Field decided to use the Laser ScanArm, sold by FARO Technologies Inc., mounted on a robotic arm.

Passing about an inch from the surface, the laser rapidly scanned back and forth, painting the page with laser light. The robot arm knows precisely where in space its “hand” is, creating a precise map of each page as it scans. The data is fed into a CAD program that renders an image of the manuscript page with all its crinkles and undulations.

Of course, as you have seen above, even if the images are incredibly crisp, they will not be easily readable by people like you and me. “So, this summer a group of graduate and undergraduate students of Greek will gather at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., to produce XML transcriptions of the text.” Then their work will be posted online.

Emails from the Edge; Mr. October or Zuba Tuba.

2007-06-11T17:40:00.001-07:00

Hello Mo;

Here we are poised on the precipice of the 21st century advance from traditional to new thinking in computers and BOTH Apple and Microsoft are sitting there almost about able to do what they've been working on since 2001 (at least). Both of them. At the same time. Without any notification to anyone sensible as to why that "October" deliverance is enforced on two players who, I would think, would be dying with anxiety and beating the slaves to get ahead of each other. And yet... low and cornholed, BOTH of them are locked in time like some action figure pre Hans Solo cast in carbonite. There's Zuba Tuba, chief bounty hunter of the Zith captured trying to steal Java the Rut's nuptials and bikini key. Over there in the corner is Nooka Pinko, gunfighter for the Federation caught with Java the Rut's bikini key around his neck. Both carbonized like cooked fossils on the barbeques of market time.

This is the "Hall of Heroes". Very funny.

A delay to October shows in the faces of the developers "today’s WWDC audience wasn’t as engaged and enthused as Apple’s developers and customers normally are for a Jobs love-fest. Some said they thought developers were let down by Jobs’ failure to discuss the geekier bits".

What are the geekier bits for Apple?

1. ZFS file system - Just like Microsoft's WinFS. Isn't THAT a coincidence. OK. No enabling yet.

2. iPhone software development kit - Why no micro runtime development? Why no .Net micro-kernel development available? Can't develop for a micro-kernel like MLE?

3. "Jobs told developers they could simply use existing Ajax and Web 2.0 development technologies to write to Safari" - Just like Microsoft's Atlas/Atlas AJAX ... both primitive precursors to something called Emily.

4. "since the Safari engine inside the iPhone will be identical to the one for Mac OS X today" - the same Microsoft has said to the common language runtime school

Know what I think? I think VCSY has licensing on Emily on hold until they reach a patent or October deeadline. I wonder if they can stall them further than October? Probably not without a whole lot of questions.

Portions of virtualization (stuff around USPTO 7,076,521 ) and arbitration (stuff around USPTO 6,826,744 ) can be done using versions of the kind of development regimes each of these companies have been using for the past five or so years. The true virtues of Emily won't be available to the traditional companies until it is patented and can come out of the closet. They can use what they've built using their billions in R&D until October at which time will the horses be let out of the gates?

When does this get to be a horse race?

I agree with Mary Jo here: "Why is Leopard so superior to Vista — other than the non-trivial fact that there will be just one version of Leopard that will be priced at $129 (as opposed to six-plus versions of Vista at a variety of price points well in excess of that amount)?"

June 11th, 2007

Leopard looks like … Vista

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=505

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 4:06 pm

I just sat through my second Steve Jobs keynote ever. (My first was MacWorld in New York in 2002.)

What struck me at the June 11 Apple Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) event wasn’t the glitzy demos, the rockstar-like worship of Apple CEO Steve Jobs or the “I’m Steve Jobs” parody video by the “I’m a PC” guy.

Instead, it was the excitement by the 5,000 WWDC attendees about many technologies in the forthcoming Mac OS X “Leopard” release that already exist in Windows Vista.

A few Mac-show regulars said they thought today’s WWDC audience wasn’t as engaged and enthused as Apple’s developers and customers normally are for a Jobs love-fest. Some said they thought developers were let down by Jobs’ failure to discuss the geekier bits, like Leopard’s use of the ZFS file system. others thought the crowd was subdued because they wanted more iPhone particulars and were let down by the lack of an iPhone software development kit. (Jobs told developers they could simply use existing Ajax and Web 2.0 development technologies to write to Safari, since the Safari engine inside the iPhone will be identical to the one for Mac OS X today.)

To this Windows-show veteran, however, the WWDC developer audience seemed positvely effusive.

I’ve sat through countless Microsoft demos of Vista at a variety of consumer and business events. I don’t remember ever hearing thunderous applause when Microsoft showed off Flip 3D or Vista’s ability to preview thumbnails of documents. The “wows” were few and far between. Yet when Jobs put almost identical versions of these features in Leopard through their paces, there were lots of oohs and ahhs.

But if you’ve seen Vista, there’s no way you could help but compare the feature-complete Leopard beta Jobs showcased with Windows Vista. And — surprise — Vista looked pretty darn up-to-date in comparison.

Jobs told WWDC keynoters that he would show ten of the best of the 300 new features coming in Leopard when it ships in October this year. Here’s what Jobs’ hit list looked like to this Windows user:

1. New Leopard Desktop: Not a whole lot different from Vista’s Aero and Sidebar.

2. New Finder: Many of the same capabilities as the integrated “Instant Search” in Vista (the subsystem that Google is trying to get the Department of Justice to rule as being anti-competitive). The new Leopard Coverflow viewing capability looked almost identical to Vista’s Flip 3D to me.

3. QuickLook: Live file previews — just like the thumbnail preview capability available in Vista.

4. 64-bitness: Leopard is the first 64-bit only version of a desktop client. Vista comes in 32-bit and 64-bit varieties. And most expect Windows Seven will still be available in 32-bit flavors. Until 32-bit machines go away, it seems like a good idea to offer 32-bit operating systems.

5. Core animation: Not sure what the Vista comparison is here. The demo reminded me of Microsoft Max photo-sharing application. The WWDC developers attending the Jobs keynote didn’t seem wowed with this functionality.

6. Boot Camp. You can run Vista on your Mac. Apple showed Vista running Solitaire in its WWDC demo. But I bet those downloading the 2.5 million copies of Boot Camp available since last year are running a lot of other Windows business apps and games.

7. Spaces: A feature allowing users to group applications into separate spaces. I haven’t seen anything like in in Vista, but the audience didn’t seem overly impressed by it.

8. Dashboard with widgets. Isn’t this like the Vista Sidebar with gadgets?

9. iChat gets a bunch of fun add-ons (photo-booth effects, backrops, etc.) to make it a more fully-featured videoconferencing product. The “iChat Theater” capability Jobs showed off reminded me of Vista’s Meeting Space and/or the new Microsoft “Shared View” (code-named “Tahiti”) document-sharing/conferencing subsystems.

10. Time Machine automatic backup. Vista has built-in automatic backup (Volume Shadow Copy). It doesn’t look anywhere near as cool as Time Machine. But it seems to provide a lot of the same functionality.

Granted, I am not an Apple user. So I’m sure I’m glossing over some subtleties regarding what’s new and cool in Leopard. But given how often I hear the “Redmond, Start Your Photocopiers” message, I was thinking that Leopard would be light years ahead of Vista.

So, Apple folks: What am I missing? I’m not trying to pull a Dvorak here and use this blog post for click bait. Why is Leopard so superior to Vista — other than the non-trivial fact that there will be just one version of Leopard that will be priced at $129 (as opposed to six-plus versions of Vista at a variety of price points well in excess of that amount)?

Emails from the Edge; Acropolis Now...

2007-06-11T06:40:00.000-07:00

Hey Mo;

Read this along with a copy of SiteFlash and Agent patents. A description of the Microsoft Acropolis environment for building web-applications.

My First "Acropolis" Application

http://java.sys-con.com/read/384433.htm

At this point, it feels as though Acropolis is a layer of abstraction on top of WPF itself

By: Kevin Hoffman

Jun. 10, 2007 01:15 PM

First, let me just say that the walk through for building an Acropolis application never actually tells you what the heck an Acropolis application really is. At this point, I'm still a little fuzzy on the entire concept myself. I assume the fuzziness will become more sharp and crisp as time goes by and I do more work with Acropolis.

At this point, it feels as though Acropolis is a layer of abstraction on top of WPF itself. Basically when you build an Acropolis (I'm going to call it AFX , since that's a crapload easier to type, and all the controls are prefixed as "AFX") you get an Application and a main window. Interestingly enough, AFX seems to have support for Document-style (MDI for you "old schoolers" like me...) applications, which WPF alone is sorely lacking. Inside this main window, you can put Parts. Each Part is essentially a re-usable bit of functionality. A Part View is associated with the Part (but is not a partial class of the part... the coupling is far looser than traditional WPF) and is responsible for defining the XAML to render the contents of the part, and can also contain code to dynamically respond to events and manipulate the view.

For example, in the application I just built (which is the RSS reader walkthrough in the CTP docs), there is an RSS Part and a Feed Part. The Feed part renders itself as a combo box of feed history, as well as a button to retrieve a list of RSS items from the feed. The RSS part is responsible for obtaining the information from a given feed, and rendering a list of RSS items.

A couple of things that I found interesting about Acropolis is that it is "skinned". In other words, an Acropolis application looks nothing like a default Vista application. It appears as though the skins are easily configured and you can probably dynamically change the look and feel of your application quite easily.

What I think it boils down to is that using the "part" metaphor, the goal is probably to make it so that client applications are easier to build, easier to unit test (with everything being loosely coupled parts and part views, test controllers should be quite easy to inject), easier to maintain, and more scalable. Only time will tell if Acropolis actually lives up to these goals, but from what I have seen of the CTP so far, those are the exact things that Acropolis is attempting to tackle. Parts have "connection points" and there are these things called command executions which create even more separation. There are also services (think WF services, not WCF or Web Services) that allow individual parts to get data, information, and business logic in a clear, concise way that actually respects separation of concerns.

Here is a screenshot of the application running in Windows XP SP2 on an Orcas build:

More at URL

---------

Notice the italics. Somebody is talking to somebody.

"respects separation of concerns" is a REST principle. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer

REST's client-server separation of concerns simplifies component implementation, reduces the complexity of connector semantics, improves the effectiveness of performance tuning, and increases the scalability of pure server components.

Emily and SiteFlash are most efficient as REST architected frameworks although they can be adapted for any circumstance.

We'll leave it there and focus on a couple things. First, it can be done on Windows XP. Second, it reduces the requirements of "programming" and it would be a natural logical construct of the capabilities and uses described in the patents.

If Microsoft wants to fight, they will have to deal with people like IBM who've been working with this stuff since at least 2001 unless you believe tepe and legofeel.

Would Microsoft really risk all their future on a probable outcome facing the MSFT directors of the board on something like irule's description of Microsoft's situation in the SiteFlash Patent. And then there's another patent to fight over. I don't think we're looking at a Microsoft that's crippled and paranoid. This looks like a bold and confident integration for efficiency's sake rather than a construct for dodging the ball.

It would be good to see Microsoft come up to speed.

VCSY, A Laughing Place, Part 3

Let's Do the RagingBull TOS Dance...

Where's Waldo? Where's D.B. Cooper? Where's Stuart Scott?

Two Emails. Port and POSCASH regarding General Atlantic

The Complexities of Obfuscation

Orgplus links up with Northern Health's Now Solutions emPath System

A layman's View of VCSY part 3 - arbitrary

A Layman's View of VCSY part 2 - virtual

A Layman's View of VCSY part 1a/b - background

IBM Patent 7,058,671 referencing VCSY 6826744

Reference: Inventors for 6826744 and 7076521

Applesauce, Applesauce, Pay Up MSFT...

For the record.

Just when I was getting good...

Yo Morrie the frig is on the blink...

Waiting for Guffman...

Request to RePost: The Good Gamble

Why you need to look up and out...

A Little Yo-Yo Wisdom from the Bull...

When the last wisecrack dies out...

What's it like to get kicked in the Webelos?

The right understanding at the wrong streetcorner...

Looks like a whale... a giant white whale...

Linus, dude, give it a rest already...

Muy Importonto con Chili

Freeky deeky femtocell outreach from horn to horn...

When a bird drops a seed...

Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later

What Apple could do to the worm...

Lawyers Virtually Call the Tune in Redmond

What were we talking about when you butted in?

Alas, IT has begun.

Indications along the way.

Oh my! How did THAT get in there?

Moo moo, moooo moo moo, moooo mmoomppphhh...

It's the eyepatch, I tell ya. I can't see a thing with this...

Wise Man Buy VCSY Says the Yo Yo Man...

More Common Sense from "the Bull"...

More Emails from the Edge; SOAP on a Rope.

Microsoft Unveils New Version Of IPTV Platform

IBM Red Hat Linux Validation for Government Service

Rub a Dub Dub...

It's All a Game...

Too Many Linuxes...

More Popcorn in the Sky, Spun Sugar in the Eye

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=509June 13th, 2007

Leopard vs. Vista: Take two

More Peninsula Pal Chronicles; Popcorn in the Sky, Spun Sugar in the Eye

Emails from the Edge; Hej Torvald, hur mur du...?

Sun CEO to Torvalds: Let's work together

Emails from the Edge, The Coming of Age of Vertical

Emails from the Edge; Peel the Leopard Skin

Leopard looks like … Vista

Well Hmmmm! Why is Xandros on the IBM DB2 Business Partner Directory?

Lessons about Surface and Visualization with Virtualization

Emails from the Edge; Mr. October or Zuba Tuba.

June 11th, 2007

Leopard looks like … Vista

Emails from the Edge; Acropolis Now...

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=509
June 13th, 2007