Web Development Live

Salesforce.com has extended its platform as a service offering with the addition of Force.com Development-as-a-Service - a new set of development tools and APIs that help enterprise developers harness the full potential of cloud computing. Force.com, which was first unveiled during the company’s Dreamforce conference in September, is built on the company’s proprietary Visualforce technology. It gives customers, developers and independent software vendors (ISV) the ability to create custom applications and user interfaces that can be accessed from desktop PCs, iPhones or retail kiosks using the Salesforce.com service.A new API will allow developers to access Salesforce metadata. Developers will be given full access to the platform, offering data that had previously been managed by wizards and setup tools. Salesforce also unveiled a new integrated development environment, and a service known as 慍odeshare which allows developers to collaborate remotely on a project. A new ’sandbox’ option allows developers to test applications in a protected environment. The new tools are part of a larger campaign to bring third-party developers onboard. Salesforce plans to promote Force.com with a global tour dubbed ‘Tour de Force’.Salesforce.com has also released a new pay-per-login payment option for users to access applications developed on its Force.com platform.An enterprise building a low-volume, occasional use application through Force.com, such as an online vacation scheduling app, faces a list price of USD 5 for each user login, but will only be charged 99 cents through 2008 in an effort to promote use of the new platform. More frequently used applications will carry a fee of USD 50 per user per month for an unlimited number of logins.

JBoss a division of Red Hat announced the Enterprise Application Platform in version 4.3, which is upgraded with messaging and Web services technologies. Various JBoss.org components have been integrated into JBoss Enterprise Application Platform v4.3 and are fully supported for use in both development and production.The platform provides open-source technologies for the development and deployment of Java Enterprise Application Services and integrates the JBoss Application Server with Hibernate Seam and for the development of Web applications. JBoss Messaging serves as a messaging architecture for JBoss 4.3 and 5.0. JBoss Web Services, another part of the platform, now supported, according to a press report JAX-WS (Java API for XML Web Services), a Web service API, the JAX-RPC 1.0 in the Java stack.

Microsoft has tapped a former executive at Walt Disney to fill its CIO position, a move that shows the company continuing to fill top executive positions from outside the company.Tony Scott, 56, will start as CIO in February and report to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner. Scott’s most recent experience was as senior vice president and CIO at The Walt Disney Co. He has also been chief technology officer at General Motors Corp. and vice president of operations at Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co.As CIO at Microsoft, Scott will oversee an IT staff that oversees security, infrastructure, messaging and business applications and supports Microsoft product groups, corporate business groups, and the global sales and marketing organization.”More than any other company, Microsoft knows how important it is to leverage IT for strategic business advantage, and I look forward to building on this success in my new role,” Scott said in a statement.Tony Scott replaces former chief information officer Stuart Scott, who was ousted several months ago for “violation of company policies.” Microsoft wouldn’t provide details about what policies were violated or how. The two men are not related, but Stuart Scott was also an outsider, joining Microsoft in 2003 from General Electric.In the past two weeks, Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes, mergers and acquisitions chief Bruce Jaffe, and Windows development VP Rob Short have all disclosed plans to leave Microsoft.

In a surprise move, Sun Microsystems said it’s acquiring privately held open source database vendor MySQL AB for approximately USD 1 billion.Called the largest open source software deal ever, the merger makes Sun the owner of a critical part of the popular LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL Perl/Python/PHP) open source software stack. Sun already has been offering up its own software to open source, even basing its development tools strategy on the open source NetBeans platform.Following completion of the proposed transaction, MySQL will be integrated into Sun’s Software, Sales and Service organizations and the company’s CEO, Marten Mickos, will be joining Sun’s senior executive leadership team. In the interim, a joint team with representatives from both companies will develop integration plans.With the move, Sun takes a big leap into the USD 15bn database market, which brings it into competition with companies such as Microsoft, IBM and Oracle. Acquiring MySQL also gives Sun entry to customers that may be interested in buying more equipment and software; MySQL counts Facebook, Google, Nokia and Baidu as customers.Open source CRM vendor SugarCRM, PHP tools vendor Zend Technologies, and SpringSource, makers of the open source Spring Framework for Java development applauded the deal. “I think open source has gone mainstream,” and Sun has put its stamp on it, said Zend CEO Harold Goldberg. “We think it’s a great day for open source, and we think it’s a great day for the LAMP stack.”As part of the transaction, Sun will pay about USD 800 million in cash in exchange for all MySQL stock and assume about USD 200 million in options. The transaction is expected to close in late third quarter or early fourth quarter.

GigaSpaces, provider of solutions for infrastructure software, has launched OpenSpaces.org. It is a community web site for developers to utilize and contribute to the open source OpenSpaces development framework.OpenSpaces extends the Spring Framework for enterprise Java development, and leverages the GigaSpaces eXtreme Application Platform (XAP) for data caching, messaging. It is designed for building scale-out applications in distributed environments, such as SOA, cloud computing, grids and commodity servers. OpenSpaces.org projects include an instant messaging platform, integration with PHP, configuration via JRuby, an implementation of Spring Batch and a scalable dynamic RSS feed delivery system.GigaSpaces announced the OpenSpaces Developer Challenge, a developer competition with USD 25,000 in total prizes and a USD 10,000 grand prize. The prizes will be awarded to the most innovative applications built using the OpenSpaces framework or plug-ins that extend it. The Challenge deadline is in the first week of April, 2008 and prizes are available for submitting the concepts by mid February, 2008.

Trolltech, the creator of application development platforms for desktop computers, has congratulated free software project, K Desktop Environment on the successful launch of KDE 4.0. KDE 4.0 brings new ways of viewing applications and widgets, a new start menu, a revamped file browser, as well as a new look to some entertainment apps and others. Practically, KDE 4.0 introduced for example the Plasma desktop shell, which replaces the conventional panel and desktop with interactive widgets. KDE programmers also created a new smart theme engine and icon set called Oxygen, which increases the visual consistency of the desktop environment along with new vector-based artwork. The KWin window manager was as well brought compositing support and advanced graphical effects.The improvement is not limited to the user interface, as beneath the surface, the new desktop environment includes also a wide range of important architectural changes. For example, the DCOP interprocess-communication system was completely replaced with D-Bus, which is a standard IPC framework created through the FreeDesktop.org project.KDE 4.0 includes also some new applications, such as the new Dolphin file manager and a new desktop configuration tool.”We are convinced that the new release of KDE 4 will be a great foundation for innovative new developments”, said Eirik Chambe-Eng, Chief Troll and founder of Trolltech. Founded in 1996, the KDE project brings into its ambit several standalone applications and smaller projects based on KDE technology, such as KOffice, KDevelop, Amarok, K3b.

Escalate Retail, a provider of solutions for catalog, retail and e-commerce, announced version 9.5 of the Escalate Blue Martini(R) E-Commerce Suite, an e-commerce platform that allows retailers to engage their customers.Blue Martini version 9.5 will be shown for the first time at the NRF 97th Annual Convention and Expo, Jan. 14 and 15, 2008. Blue Martini v 9.5 includes support for a retailer full cross-channel environment including web, call center and store from order capture through fulfillment all delivered on a common Java foundation.Features: Improved support for the latest third-party standards including IBM(R) AIX(R) 5.3, Red Hat Linux EL 5, WebSphere(R) Application Server-based JMS as an alternative to IBM MQ Series and J2EE deployment Support for PayPal(TM) payment processing through PayPal Merchant Services Simplified JSP development via a new tag library for the Webconnect API, reducing the complexity of Blue Martini JSP developmentVersion 9.5 will be available for a beta release on January 31, 2008 and generally available on March 15, 2008.

An Italian researcher has identified a flaw in Apple’s QuickTime media application that can allow an attacker to perform a DoS (denial of service) attack or take control of an affected PC.Security researcher Luigi Auriemma reported that a buffer overflow condition exists in version QuickTime 7.3.1. According to Auriemma’s advisory, the problem is a buffer-overflow, which happens during the handling of the HTTP error message and its visualization in the LCD-like screen that contains info about the status of the connection. The buffer overflow could lead to arbitrary code execution or a denial of service attacker (DoS), he said. Alfred Huger, the VP of development at Symantec Security Response, has further backed the fact of the presence of the worm. Hugar notes that in testing, the proof-of-concept code only managed to crash the product; however, 搃t a safe assumption that if you can do that you may be able to execute remote code, he says. t very serious.FrSIRT, the French Security Incident Response Team, has ranked the flaw 揷ritical, meaning that it can be exploited from a remote location. US-CERT also warned end-users about the flaw, providing a number of workarounds and advising users to avoid links including URL encoding, IP address variations, long URLs and intentional misspellings.The flaw is the latest in a series of bugs that QuickTime has had to address. Polish researcher Krystian Kloskowski detected another QuickTime stack-based buffer overflow error November 2007, which affected version 7.3. Attackers shortly thereafter targeted the flaw with an active, “in-the-wild” exploit.

SpringSource also known as Interface21, open source software for building and deploying enterprise applications released Spring.Net 1.1, an application framework for building .Net applications. The design of Spring.NET is based on the Java version of the Spring Framework.揃y offering an expanded feature set and leveraging the modular design and component-based nature of the Spring Framework, Spring.NET 1.1 provides a unique, powerful solution for the development challenges faced in the .NET environment, said Mark Pollack, principal consultant of the Spring.NET project.Features Inversion of control container Aspect-oriented programming framework Aspect library ASP.NET framework ASP.NET AJAX integration ADO.NET framework Declarative transaction management Declarative middleware services NHibernate integration NUnit integration testingThe Spring Framework is licensed according to the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0 to distribute software and documentation, to accept regular contributions from individuals and corporations, and to accept larger grants of existing software products.

Microsoft Corp. changed course on an update to Office 2003 that blocked certain older file types from opening, after receiving a flurry of criticism from users and online publications.Office 2003 Service Pack 3, a free package of updates and fixes released in September, blocked users from opening files created by older versions of Word, Excel and Power Point, mostly programs launched in 1995 and earlier. The change also kept users from opening some files made in Corel Corp.’s CorelDraw.The Microsoft team blamed at first the insecure file formats, not only of other developers software, like CorelDraw, but their own: 揝ome older file formats, including some form Microsoft, are insecure. The decision to block the formats is strictly to protect your machine from being compromised, said Viral Tarpara from Microsoft in a recent blog.Now this self-deprecating statement seems even more unusual as Microsoft has changed its mind and its official stance. Microsoft announced last week that the company had erred in blocking the files. David LeBlanc, senior software development engineer for Microsoft Office said in his blog: 揥e stated that it was the file formats that were insecure, but it is actually not correct. A file format isn抰 insecure it the code that reads the formats that more or less secure. The parsers we use for these older formats aren抰 as robust as the code we抳e written more recently, which is part of our decision to disable them by default.To correct its mistakes, Microsoft has now posted on its website a number of files that would help make the registry changes automatically. The company has also altered the support document in question so that users are now able to unblock different file formats that had earlier been blocked, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Corel. Microsoft was compelled to release a statement that Corel files were safe to open in Windows Internet Explorer or Corel products. The blocking only occurred when a Corel document was embedded in an Office 2003 file. Microsoft acknowledged it took a slightly backdoor approach to blocking this specific Corel content, and acknowledged it did not clearly communicate its attentions to Corel. The company has also made available other downloads that would help unblock the file formats in question.