Just finished watching the superbowl - as did many of you I would expect.  I am a football fan, and a big user of my DVR to skip commercials.  But not today - not on Superbowl Sunday.  Given what the advertisers pay, I have to see what they believe is worth $2.5M / 30 second slot!!

Quickly - my top 10.

10. Coke: Black History - perfect for a game with two black head coaches

9. Snickers: Mechanic - sharing a snickers ... and a kiss

8. GoDaddy.com: Marketing - hot chicks

7. Revlon: Sheryl Crow - just because it is Sheryl Crow

6. Bud Light: Faceoff - rock paper scissors, rock wins!

5.T-Mobile: My Favs - fitting for Charles B

4. Blockbuster: Mouse - using a mouse to go online for movies, a real mouse

3. GM: Robots - just awesome, machine w/feelings

2. Bud Light: Hitchhiker - you know he picked up the chainsaw guy too

1. Sprint: Broadband - connectile disfunction

Oh - and the worst, Van Heusen. Why did they spend the money???

So there.  If you didnt' actually see the commercials.  Here is a link.

http://sports.aol.com/nfl/superbowlads

It is amazing how companies are evolving in their use of software - especially in the enterprise.

There is a spectrum of use ranging from big heavy mission critical enterprise software to light weight less critical mashups.  Companies are looking for the fastest way to deliver solutions and are often looking to developers for help on the use of some of the latest technologies in delivering these solutions.  This is all being driven by two phenonemon.  The speed at which companies are needing to deliver these new solutions.  And the technology that is becoming available.

Looking at the first, there is more than ever the need to quickly act or respond in order for companies to compete.  Everyone that I talk to, regardless of whether they are in healthcare, telco, financial services or any of the other industries.  They face incredible competitive pressure to reduce cost and generate more revenue.  It all comes down to being agile.  Delivering quickly.

The other side of this is technology.  With open source and communities, new technology is being developed and maturing at a rate never seen before.  And with SOA, we are seeing for the first time the kind of reusability that we have talked about for years - with the kind of reliability that big enterprises expect.

We are bringing the best of these together in ways not long ago impossible.  With our open sourcing of our middleware stack and all of the capabilities of SOA, together with many of the web 2.0 tools and languages, the future is very bright for our customers!