Attendees of
IBM's Information On Demand conference in Las Vegas will be
bombarded by a rash of product and service announcements and a lot of
discussion about how to create an "Information Agenda." IBM
launched the IOD strategy, which pulls together a wide range of data
management, storage and analysis technologies, a few
years ago. Since then, the company has made a string of acquisitions to
support the strategy, including its purchase early this year of business
intelligence vendor Cognos Inc. Announcements at
this year's conference are expected to include the following: Foundation
Services, consisting of a one-day workshop followed by 12 weeks of follow-up
consulting, that are meant to help customers create an internal Information
Agenda. IBM hatched the latter phrase in September when it announced a set of
tools, services and industry-specific data models for helping companies use
information "as a strategic asset across their businesses."The C3000 and C4000 editions
of the InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse. These data
warehousing appliances aimed at small and midsize businesses now include Cognos 8 BI. Seven new performance management and
financial offerings based on Cognos technology.
Among them are Clinical Resource Planning, for pharmaceutical makers to use
in modelling and forecasting, and Earned Value Management, which federal
agencies can use to monitor capital spending. IBM is also expected to discuss
news around master data management, enterprise content management and a range
of releases due before the end of the year as part of its Optim
product line, which the company acquired last year through its purchase of
Princeton Softech Inc. The Optim
products focus on data archiving, classification, data privacy and test-data
management. About 7000 attendees are expected at this year's conference,
compared with roughly 6000 last year, according to IBM. IBM's IOD strategy is
broadly relevant simply because so many companies "have bet the business on a large swath of IBM solutions,"
said Forrester Research Inc. analyst James Kobielus.
In a weak economy, customers may consider consolidating their data management
technology "down to fewer, but
more strategic and comprehensive, vendors, such as IBM," he added. As
far as the BI portion of its arsenal, IBM could be in a better position to
innovate in coming years than rivals Oracle Corp. and SAP AG are, according
to Forrester analyst Boris Evelson. Oracle still
has a good deal of work to do to integrate products from its Siebel and
Hyperion acquisitions, while SAP, which bought BI vendor Business Objects SA
in January, has "some tough
decisions to make on how to help their customers migrate from NetWeaver BI to the new product line," Evelson said. Meanwhile, the IBM-Cognos
merger saw few product overlaps, and Cognos "already took the time a few years ago to
streamline and upgrade the platform," he said.
BillGates trabaja en un
nuevo proyecto empresarial llamado bgC3 LLC.
BillGates está preparando un nuevo proyecto empresarial con
el objetivo de supervisar la marcha de sus actividades filantrópicas y de
investigación a nivel mundial. Esta compañía, cuya creación saltó a los
titulares gracias a una información publicada por TechFlash.com en la que se
alude a fuentes no identificadas, no tendría ánimo de lucro. La nueva empresa
del fundador de Microsoft se llamaría bgC3 LLC, que
significaría BillGatesCatalyst (con el número 3 identificando éste como el
tercer proyecto empresarial del multimillonario). La actividad de la
compañía, que según TechFlash.com tendría su sede cerca de Redmond, sería actuar de thinktank científico-tecnológico.
Microsoft
releases dev tools for parallel computing, concurrency.
The hardware you're
deploying across your enterprise is capable of powerful and impressive
things. The multicore technology available from
Intel Corp. and AMD Inc. lets software run on multiple processors. The mobile
devices your IT department supports can do amazing things both locally and
with remote connections to enterprise resources, and special-purpose
equipment with distributed processors can serve custom needs. Too bad your
software doesn't take advantage of most of it. "Anyone who tries to write multithreaded software discovers that it's
just too hard," says Tandy Trower, general
manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group. It's not that writing asynchronous
applications is so difficult, he says. But developers (and their code) have
to coordinate all the different things going on and orchestrate them to play
together. It isn't for the faint of heart or the inexperienced developer. "We want to make this simple enough for
every developer," says Trower. That's a
necessity as the hardware becomes more complex and distributed. Before long,
developers all will need to write for multicore
systems, he says. Microsoft's new CCR and DSS Toolkit (not the sexiest of
product names) or Concurrency and Coordination Runtime and Decentralized
Software Services Toolkit (that's not much better) is
a set of .Net and Compact Framework class libraries. As Trower
describes it, the CCR and DSS Toolkit is a small .Net library that helps
developers write asynchronous programs. It handles the locks and semaphores,
and it helps developers avoid creating deadlocks (the dreaded "blue screen of death" for
asynchronous applications). The Microsoft DSS tool kit enables developers to
write software that runs across multiple processors, literally distributed
across several devices or computers or gizmos. It's based on the REST
protocol, expanded with a notification publish/subscribe model. In addition
to the core runtime technology and associated tools, samples and tutorials,
the library (available now for $399) includes a visual programming language.
Developers can lay out blocks and link them. The tool kit generates the
proper C# code. Developers can also write in a .Net language if they prefer. Sound
useful? Sure. But this isn't exactly a brand-new tool kit. In a way, this is
the third release. It's just that, previously, it has been hidden in an
unlikely sounding tool: Microsoft's Robotics Studio Platform. Anyone
developing robotics software knows that exercise is about parallel computing,
concurrency and coordination. It's just a hard sell to management. (Yeah,
boss, we need a robotics library to build the next banking application.
Honest.) That hasn't kept Siemens AG from using the robotics tools to support
artificial intelligence agents and hardware for analyzing and correcting
addresses for a postal mail application. Nor did it keep MySpace.com from
adopting it for its gadzillion distributed servers.
But it might be tough to justify on your expense report. The Microsoft CCR
and DSS Toolkit 2008 is an add-on library today. Eventually, says Trower, it will become part of Microsoft's .Net Framework
in the future.
Continuará la fuerte demanda de determinadas
habilidades TI pese a la crisis.
La incertidumbre económica estará sin duda generando
preocupación en muchos profesionales de las TI por la potencial dificultad de
encontrar empleo, pero una reciente investigación muestra que, a pesar de la
crisis, seguirá existiendo una importante demanda de trabajadores con
habilidades específicas en determinadas áreas de alta tecnología. El estudio,
realizado por RobertHalfInternational, sugiere que no sólo los salarios TI
continuarán aumentando, aunque ligeramente, en 2009, sino que los
profesionales con habilidades claves pueden ser objeto de intensa demanda en
los próximos meses. Esta investigación estima que el próximo año los salarios
TI aumentarán una media de en torno al 3.7%, en parte debido a la escasez de
profesionales cualificados. En cuanto a las capacidades más demandadas, MaxMessmer, presidente y CEO
de RobertHalfInternational, asegura que “las empresas valoran mucho a los empleados capaces de identificar
posibles mejoras de la eficiencia en costes, desarrollar estrategias de
negocio a largo plazo y maximizar el aprovechamiento de la tecnología
disponible”. Por otra parte, Messmer señala la
tendencia de muchos profesionales a no arriesgarse a dejar sus actuales
empleos pese a que se les ofrezcan mejoras en un clima económico
impredecible, lo que supone un reto adicional para los responsables de
contratación de otras empresas interesados en atraerlos. RobertHalfInternational
identifica, en cualquier caso, tres áreas profesionales de especial demanda y
que probablemente experimentarán los mayores incrementos salariales durante
los próximos meses. Una de ellas es la de los desarrolladores Web, cada vez
más requeridos como consecuencia del aumento del networking
social y de las iniciativas Web 2.0 en general dentro de las empresas. También
disfrutarán de especial demanda, según la firma, los analistas de
programación o los profesionales TI con conocimientos en entornos .Net, SharePoint, Java y PHP, especialmente requeridos en
determinadas industrias, como las de salud, finanzas y facturación. “Este tipo de trabajadores se necesitarán
para escribir código, probar y deputar aplicaciones software, y analizar
requerimientos en aplicaciones de negocio para las distintas áreas
funcionales de las organizaciones”, indica RobertHalf en su informe. Finalmente, la tercera área de
mayor demanda serán los profesionales de help-desk, porque las empresas trabajan con una amplia
variedad de tecnologías, por ejemplo, la mayoría necesita soportar sistemas
antiguos al tiempo que desarrollar nuevos desktops,
requieren técnicos capaces de resolver gran diversidad de problemas sobre
muchas plataformas hardware y software diferentes. En otra investigación
independiente, la firma especializada en contratación GlobeOne, en una investigación patrocinada por Axios, estima que los salarios de los profesionales TI
con habilidades específicas ITIL pueden llegar a ganar hasta un 40% más que
aquellos que no disponen de ellas. La base de clientes de Global One prefiere siempre candidatos con certificaciones ITIL
y están dispuestos a pagar por ellas sueldos un 40%
superiores, lo mismo que por diez o quince años de experiencia.
New versions of Ubuntu Linux for desktops,
servers to launch Thursday.
Ubuntu Linux will make
the latest version of its separate desktop and server operating systems
available for free download. The updated Version 8.10 desktop operating
system will add a host of usability features for users, including improved 3G
wireless support for easier detection and connection to wireless networks. Also
included is a new "guest" capability that allows a user to lend his
machine to another user to check e-mail and perform other tasks without
disturbing the existing programs or settings. Users will also be able to
install Ubuntu Linux on a portable USB drive so
they can carry the operating system with them and use it on any machine. A
major benefit of that capability is that users will also be able to save new
data to the same thumb drive that contains the operating system. Another
useful feature is integration of multimedia content from the BBC that was
previously available only on computers running Microsoft Windows Media Player
software. Under the 8.10 version of the operating system, some selected, high-quality
streamed BBC content will be available free of charge to Ubuntu
users through the built-in Totem Movie Player and Rhythmbox
applications. The server version of the operating system includes the
following new features: Virtual Machine Builder, which allows virtual
machines to be quickly built from the command line. The new tool
"provides a key component to a dynamic provisioning process for
businesses using virtualization environments," according to Ubuntu.A complete Java stack, with Apache Tomcat 6.0 and OpenJDK
fully supported for developing and deploying Java applications. Improved RAID
support for SATA software RAID controllers via dmraid.
Encrypted private directories that can keep sensitive data secure even if a
system is stolen. Jane Silber, chief operating
officer and head of online services at London-based Canonical Ltd., the
commercial sponsor of Ubuntu Linux, said the new
features for both versions add usability and flexibility for desktop and
corporate users. "The availability
of content from the BBC is significant," she said of the new desktop
version. "The BBC recognizes how
much mainstream adoption of Ubuntu and Linux there
is." Ubuntu users who want to access BBC
content will be able to view it using the Totem player, and not have to view
it on the BBC Web site using a browser, she said. "I think it's a signal, a sign of breaking service providers and
content out of the browser," Silber said.
"If users are able to access
content like this in the application and tools they are most used to using,
then we think it's significant." The addition of the full Java stack
to the server edition is a boon for many enterprise users, she said. "We've had pieces of it before, but not the
complete stack," she said. "The
thing that's different this time is that we are including both OpenJDK and Tomcat." "Ubuntu 8.10 Server Edition is a terrific milestone that underlines the
value in our twin track release strategy," Silber
said in a statement. "The server
edition embraces cloud computing, virtualization, mail server enhancements,
Java development and deployment, as well as a range of services to help
system administrators and developers.
Tras fracasar el acuerdo publicitario con Google, el portal retomó las negociaciones con AOL. El blog especializado AllThingsDigital.com apunta a que las
negociaciones progresaron y estaban enfocadas en determinar cómo se vería una
firma combinada y dónde se podrían ahorrar costos, dijo la fuente, que no
estaba autorizada para hablar públicamente porque las discusiones son
confidenciales.
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