Web Development Live

Google has been courting software developers to entice them into a money-making relationship built on turning its array of online widgets into a global infrastructure.

At a conference in San Francisco, said to be the biggest yet for net developers, the search giant made clear that the Web is the future for application development.

It wants its own bit of web infrastructure the Google Cloud to be more accessible to developers and spent two days wooing them to build and run applications on it.

To encourage them aboard, Google invited the 3,000 developers to mash-up Google’s online services, like Gmail, Docs, Maps and Search, with their own applications.

To show client-cloud connectivity, it showed off Google Gears, a browser add-on in the Adobe Flash mould that allows for richer browser experiences, to improve search in MySpace email.

It then showcased the new Google Web Toolkit, so rich net applications can be Java-built, and the hosting of new Ajax libraries, which enhances applications via JavaScript tagging.

Top of its agenda, Google wants the web browser the enabler of its cloud to have more functionality, interaction and to evolve so it becomes as powerful as its desktop counterpart.

“These diverse tools and technologies might seem loosely unintegrated and targeted at different areas,” said Ovum analyst Madan Sheina.

“In fact they’re all cogs and wheels of a more meaningfully connected web that hosts Google web services powered by the Google App Engine. Importantly some of these web services and applications aren’t written just by Google, but by an entire market of independent developers.”

The analyst believes most of these third-party developers no longer build ‘cool’ web applications just for the sake of it; rather they want a slice of Google as a lucrative advertising business.

“Google likes to separate its web development technologies from its advertising. But the two are inextricably linked,” Ms Sheina said.

“Google’s monetisation strategy is simple. Invest in advancement of the web by allowing users to do more on the internet. That makes the Web a much bigger market for Google to monetise services like search.”

Technology giant IBM has announced new initiatives for the emerging unified communications market including a wide range of investments, product and technology advances and collaboration with leading clients and business partners.

There will be a USD 17 billion unified communications market for the taking by 2011, and the Big Blue is planning big inverstments to meet the demand, said the company in a statement. In a near future major technological changes would reshape the way business communicate and collaborate worldwide across the private and public sectors and IBM is investing significantly in a range of resources meet the demand for these shifts, it said. IBM Research is currently exploring a growing number of social and collaborative software projects with over 70 researchers dedicated to this work in eight labs worldwide. In 2008, over 1,300 IBM software developers and technical experts will make innovative contributions to unified communications. New technical skills programmes for IBM developers are being used to help accelerate software development, including the teaching of Eclipse-based development.

In addition, IBM’s Venture Capital programme is working to identify and fuel promising new innovations in unified communications.A part of this investment also covers an expansion of IBM Lotus Sametime software products. The new IBM Lotus Sametime Advanced software, to be available from 28 March 2008, includes community tools that enable users to spend less time trying to figure out who can help solve a problem, by reaching out to a community of colleagues or experts instantly. Lotus Sametime Advanced also features persistent group chat and instant screen sharing capabilities. The company is also making full investment in training its engineers, consultants and services professionals in IBM Global Services Method and Reference Architectures.

Apple also said it will unveil new iPhone features aimed at businesses, potentially stepping up competition with Research In Motions popular Blackberry devices.
Apple will detail the software road map for the iPhone on March 6 at its Cupertino, California headquarters, the company said in an invitation sent to reporters.
Shares in Apple were up 2 per cent at $US121.50 in afternoon Nasdaq trading. The stock has fallen 30 per cent in the past three months on concerns that a slowing economy could hit sales of its Mac computers, iPods and iPhones.
When Apple launched the iPhone last June, it only allowed outside software developers to make Web-based programs, not ones that could be installed and run on the device itself.
The policy sparked an outcry among developers, who quickly found ways to crack Apples restrictions and offer unauthorized programs. Within months, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs backtracked and promised to open the phone up to outside software.
Apple has understood the importance of local applications and they are responding to that, and it will help them sell more iPhones, said Tim Bajarin, principal analyst of Creative Strategies.
It should release a plethora of creative applications and it will make the iPhone much more practical as a mobile applications tool, Bajarin said.
UNLOCKING CONCERN
Analysts have expressed concern in recent weeks over iPhone sales and the practice of unlocking them to run on networks other than that of AT%26amp;T, the exclusive US carrier.
Bernstein Research last month estimated that more than a quarter of iPhones were unlocked, pressuring Apples business model since the company does not collect a portion of carrier fees from those users.
Cracking down on unlocked phones could scare some users away and cause Apple to miss its sales target for the device, whereas allowing them could erode profitability and make it tough to sign more carriers to similar revenue-sharing deals, Bernstein said.
Apples invitation did not indicate whether it would address the unlocking issue at the March event.
Apple also gave no hint of what enterprise features would be unveiled, but many professional users have clamored for push e-mail that sends full messages from a corporate mail network to the phone.
That is how Research In Motions Blackberry devices work, but iPhone users must manually pull the messages down from their accounts.
Apple has acknowledged that there has been great interest in the enterprise community for the iPhone, Bajarin said. Theres no question it has great potential in enterprise given the right application.

Nokia announced at the end of January that, pending regulatory approval, it was to acquire Trolltech. The Norwegian company makes a cross-platform application-development framework called Qt, which is used in the KDE desktop Linux environment and in applications like Google Earth and Skype. Qtopia is a mobile version of Qt, and has already been used in many mobile Linux-based handsets in the Asian market.

On Monday, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Trolltech announced that version 4.3 of Qtopia would be able to run on touchscreen-enabled devices and support data synchronisation with Microsoft Outlook. Qtopia’s start-up time is also now “50 percent” faster and its audio and graphical capabilities have been improved, Trolltech claimed.

Nokia’s acquisition of Trolltech is seen as a way to help it become an application provider whose products are able to run not only on mobile devices made by a wide range of manufacturers, but on all desktop operating systems as well.

The buyout will also give Nokia a point of entry into the LiMo Foundation, of which Trolltech is a member. LiMo is a consortium of operators, manufacturers and software developers that aims to create a shared mobile Linux platform, although it notably uses GTK+, rather than Qt, as its development toolkit.

InfoWorld has awarded CodeGear JBuilder 2007 as the best Java Integrated Development Environment (IDE) in its 2007 Technology of the Year awards.The InfoWorld awards recognize significant technologies of the past year that assured to make the greatest impact on enterprise IT strategies.JBuilder 2007 is an IDE built on the open source Eclipse framework, which makes development of Java and Web-based collaborative applications faster and more reliable. JBuilder 2007 combines the advantages of the Eclipse framework with Builder innovative rapid application development (RAD) functionality. t a great honor to receive this award and thrilled by the success of the product in just one year. JBuilder 2007 offers unique graphical tools, performance tuning capabilities, and collaborative development features on top of Eclipse which are translating into real productivity and costs benefits for developers and development teams, said CodeGear CEO Jim Douglas.CodeGear from Borland Software Corporation delivers development tools for a wide spectrum of software developers ranging from individuals to enterprise teams. CodeGear products enable developers to freely develop on their platform of choice while focusing on simplifying complex technologies and tasks so they can concentrate on application design, not infrastructure, to enable on-time project delivery.According to Andrew Binstock, senior contributing editor at InfoWorld 揓Builder 2007 is very smooth, robust IDE with many innovative features. It safe to say that CodeGear decided to throw everything it had at this release and succeeded brilliantly.

InfoWorld has awarded CodeGear JBuilder 2007 as the best Java Integrated Development Environment (IDE) in its 2007 Technology of the Year awards.The InfoWorld awards recognize significant technologies of the past year that assured to make the greatest impact on enterprise IT strategies.JBuilder 2007 is an IDE built on the open source Eclipse framework, which makes development of Java and Web-based collaborative applications faster and more reliable. JBuilder 2007 combines the advantages of the Eclipse framework with Builder innovative rapid application development (RAD) functionality. t a great honor to receive this award and thrilled by the success of the product in just one year. JBuilder 2007 offers unique graphical tools, performance tuning capabilities, and collaborative development features on top of Eclipse which are translating into real productivity and costs benefits for developers and development teams, said CodeGear CEO Jim Douglas.CodeGear from Borland Software Corporation delivers development tools for a wide spectrum of software developers ranging from individuals to enterprise teams. CodeGear products enable developers to freely develop on their platform of choice while focusing on simplifying complex technologies and tasks so they can concentrate on application design, not infrastructure, to enable on-time project delivery.According to Andrew Binstock, senior contributing editor at InfoWorld 揓Builder 2007 is very smooth, robust IDE with many innovative features. It safe to say that CodeGear decided to throw everything it had at this release and succeeded brilliantly.

InfoWorld has awarded CodeGear JBuilder 2007 as the best Java Integrated Development Environment (IDE) in its 2007 Technology of the Year awards.The InfoWorld awards recognize significant technologies of the past year that assured to make the greatest impact on enterprise IT strategies.JBuilder 2007 is an IDE built on the open source Eclipse framework, which makes development of Java and Web-based collaborative applications faster and more reliable. JBuilder 2007 combines the advantages of the Eclipse framework with Builder innovative rapid application development (RAD) functionality. t a great honor to receive this award and thrilled by the success of the product in just one year. JBuilder 2007 offers unique graphical tools, performance tuning capabilities, and collaborative development features on top of Eclipse which are translating into real productivity and costs benefits for developers and development teams, said CodeGear CEO Jim Douglas.CodeGear from Borland Software Corporation delivers development tools for a wide spectrum of software developers ranging from individuals to enterprise teams. CodeGear products enable developers to freely develop on their platform of choice while focusing on simplifying complex technologies and tasks so they can concentrate on application design, not infrastructure, to enable on-time project delivery.According to Andrew Binstock, senior contributing editor at InfoWorld 揓Builder 2007 is very smooth, robust IDE with many innovative features. It safe to say that CodeGear decided to throw everything it had at this release and succeeded brilliantly.

InfoWorld has awarded CodeGear JBuilder 2007 as the best Java Integrated Development Environment (IDE) in its 2007 Technology of the Year awards.The InfoWorld awards recognize significant technologies of the past year that assured to make the greatest impact on enterprise IT strategies.JBuilder 2007 is an IDE built on the open source Eclipse framework, which makes development of Java and Web-based collaborative applications faster and more reliable. JBuilder 2007 combines the advantages of the Eclipse framework with Builder innovative rapid application development (RAD) functionality. t a great honor to receive this award and thrilled by the success of the product in just one year. JBuilder 2007 offers unique graphical tools, performance tuning capabilities, and collaborative development features on top of Eclipse which are translating into real productivity and costs benefits for developers and development teams, said CodeGear CEO Jim Douglas.CodeGear from Borland Software Corporation delivers development tools for a wide spectrum of software developers ranging from individuals to enterprise teams. CodeGear products enable developers to freely develop on their platform of choice while focusing on simplifying complex technologies and tasks so they can concentrate on application design, not infrastructure, to enable on-time project delivery.According to Andrew Binstock, senior contributing editor at InfoWorld 揓Builder 2007 is very smooth, robust IDE with many innovative features. It safe to say that CodeGear decided to throw everything it had at this release and succeeded brilliantly.

InfoWorld has awarded CodeGear JBuilder 2007 as the best Java Integrated Development Environment (IDE) in its 2007 Technology of the Year awards.The InfoWorld awards recognize significant technologies of the past year that assured to make the greatest impact on enterprise IT strategies.JBuilder 2007 is an IDE built on the open source Eclipse framework, which makes development of Java and Web-based collaborative applications faster and more reliable. JBuilder 2007 combines the advantages of the Eclipse framework with Builder innovative rapid application development (RAD) functionality. t a great honor to receive this award and thrilled by the success of the product in just one year. JBuilder 2007 offers unique graphical tools, performance tuning capabilities, and collaborative development features on top of Eclipse which are translating into real productivity and costs benefits for developers and development teams, said CodeGear CEO Jim Douglas.CodeGear from Borland Software Corporation delivers development tools for a wide spectrum of software developers ranging from individuals to enterprise teams. CodeGear products enable developers to freely develop on their platform of choice while focusing on simplifying complex technologies and tasks so they can concentrate on application design, not infrastructure, to enable on-time project delivery.According to Andrew Binstock, senior contributing editor at InfoWorld 揓Builder 2007 is very smooth, robust IDE with many innovative features. It safe to say that CodeGear decided to throw everything it had at this release and succeeded brilliantly.

Apple also said it would let people rent films over the web with upgrades to its iTunes online media store, a technological challenge to a movie industry still largely focused on DVDs.
Shares of movie rental firms Netflix and Blockbuster fell sharply in response, and Apples own stock lost 5.5 per cent since the announcements were widely expected and Chief Executive Steve Jobs failed to conjure up any big surprises.
Jobs set a high bar last year by unveiling the iPhone. In addition, many times he ends presentations with by saying, One more thing… as a prelude to something unexpected. This year there was none.
Still, Jobs talents as a showman were on display when he took the stage at the annual Macworld convention in San Francisco to cheers and applause from a few thousand software developers, customers and Apple employees.
He detailed a series of new products and services but saved the laptop, dubbed the MacBook Air, for last, drawing it out of a standard manila envelope to emphasize its slim dimensions.
Jobs said the new notebook was the thinnest available, measuring 0.76 inches at its thickest point and tapering to just 0.16 inches.
Priced from $US1,800 ($NZ2280), the Air bridges the gap between Apples entry-level and high-end laptops, but analysts voiced concern that it could steal customers away from pricier products.
Its not really clear how many more incremental buyers you can drive, and there could be some cannibalization, said Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research.
MacBook laptops have been one of the companys strongest products, with sales rising 37 per cent on the year in the fiscal fourth quarter ended last September.
NEW APPLE USERS SOUGHT
Phil Schiller, Apples vice president of marketing, said the new laptop could appeal to a large swath of customers, including business travelers, those in education and people who wanted a more attractive computer at home.
The goal overall is to continue to grow the business, so having another product in the line helps to do that. If the mix (of customers) changes a little bit, it doesnt matter as long as we grow everything, Schiller said.
Apple stock has nearly doubled since last years Macworld, and in late December topped $US200 for the first time, driven by market-share gains by Mac computers, continued iPod strength, and enthusiasm over the iPhone, which Jobs said had sold more than 4 million units since its release last June.
Jobs showed off new iPhone features such as displaying a users location on a map and a way to customize the main screen with icons linking directly to specific parts of a website.
The iPhone is not standing still. We keep making it better and better and better, Jobs said.
But the company has struggled to find a big audience for Apple TV, a product originally designed as a Mac accessory for watching internet video on a television and unveiled alongside the iPhone a year ago.
Its not what people wanted. We learned what people wanted was … movies, movies, movies, Jobs said.
A new version of Apple TV will be able to connect to the internet directly and download TV shows, movies and music through iTunes. Viewers will be able to choose movies directly from their TVs and Apple said viewers could start watching within seconds if they had a fast Internet connection.
Jobs announced deals with all six major movie studios and several smaller ones to offer movies for rental through iTunes in the US, with new releases costing $US3.99 and library titles $US2.99. High-definition movies will also be available.
The revamp of Apple TV hardware combined with a broad selection of movies would give Apple an edge over competitors such as Amazon.com, Netflix and Microsoft, American Technology Researchs Wu said.
News Corps 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney, Time Warners Warner Bros, Viacoms Paramount, General Electrics Universal, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, MGM and New Line have all signed on to Web rentals, Apple said.
Its too early to declare that this is going to be a big hit but this is arguably the best offering out there right now, Wu said.