Monday January 08, 2007

The E-Gate emirate

The lead product in the Java CAPS suite is eGate Integrator. Catchy name, eh? Apparently the Emirate of Dubai also thinks so, as Sun's own Christopher Saul recently discovered. I knew this e-thing would become a cliche.

Apparently it's also a popular meme in Canada and in Australia. Fortunately, some strategically-placed hyphens and capitals set them apart from us somewhat. Sigh. I guess I'll comfort myself by checking the stock price of SUN.

Thursday September 14, 2006

SeeBeyond and Accenture, together again

It's a little-known fact that Accenture was an early investor in the old SeeBeyond. It made sense then, and it makes sense now, as shown by this announcement by Jonathan of a new partnership between Sun and Accenture to develop vertical applications based on the Identity Management suite and Java CAPS.  Java CAPS is an ideal platform for developing enterprise composite applications, because it taps into the information flows that are already present in the enterprise. It's nice to see this long-standing relationship be revitalized.

Posted by davidleetodd ( Sep 14 2006, 12:01:17 PM PDT ) Permalink

Wednesday August 16, 2006

BusiinessWeek ranks Sun #2 in SOA market share

BusinessWeek has just published a must-read article on SOA, pointing out that the vast majority of CIOs see it as the Next Big Thing in enterprise computing. The article features IBM, but most of the things they say about IBM's strategy, and the dilemmas it faces, could be said of Sun as well. The article cites a research report ranking Sun as #2 in SOA market share, and predicting that the SOA market will grow from $630 million today to $17.75 billion in 2011. Big bucks! And since Java CAPS, of which I (ahem) am a team member, is a big part of Sun's SOA strategy, being ranked as #2 is very nice kudos indeed. Next stop, #1. Really a terrific, insight-packed article.

Props to Sun's own Michael Saintcross for alerting everyone to the article via the soawebservices@Sun.COM mailing list.

Tuesday July 25, 2006

Entire Java CAPS documentation available online

I've always felt that SeeBeyond turned out some of the best, most comprehensive documentation on its products that I've ever seen. Happily, Sun has kept us to that high standard. See if you agree with me: the entire suite of documentation for Java CAPS Release 5.1.1 has all been posted for free download at http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/prod/comp.app#hic .

I'm talking thousands of pages, folks. Check it out!

Wednesday June 28, 2006

Java CAPS on SDN!

After a lot of work by a lot of people, we now have a cool web presence for Java CAPS on the Sun Developer Network. Check it out!

Our new developer pages coincide with some cool videos on SDN about the benefits SOA can bring to your life. It may be a bit of a shock to see that there are actual human beings behind Sun's SOA efforts, instead of software gods, but the videos are definitely worth a look!

While you're at it, check out the new Java CAPS Forum, too.

Thursday June 22, 2006

Java CAPS Forum is up!

Got something you'd like to tell the world about Java CAPS? As part of our efforts to encourage a community to spring up around the suite, with an eye to our upcoming free download policy, we've opened up a forum on the Sun Developer Network. There's not much there yet -- it just went live yesterday. Be the first on your block to post a question or comment! Sun employees are encouraged to post, too. Find out what your brethren and sisteren in Monrovia are up to!

Friday June 09, 2006

A Java CAPS blog you need to read

Just found out that one of the absolute tech heroes at the the former SeeBeyond has a Sun blog!  Gopalan Suresh Raj is one of the most creative minds on the payroll, and he's one of the guys working on the next-generation stuff that I would basically describe as, well, voodoo. Gopalan is also author of several books, but you can see what he's up to on blogs.sun.com for free!

Monday May 22, 2006

Community entrepreneurship

One thing I like about watching a community grow is how entrepreneurship and creativity come out of the woodwork. As an example, a long-time eGate user, Jim Dolson, developed a product to help solve the problems he encountered on a daily basis working with HL7 (healthcare standard) messages. I discovered this product by reading the SeeBeyond listserve (STC-User@yahoogroups.com), a nifty example of community-building that grew up without SeeBeyond assistance.

Jim's product is Interface Explorer for HL7. I haven't used it, but I've heard about it for a long time, and it looks pretty slick. While it isn't specifically tied to eGate, it was designed by eGate users, and clearly makes the life of an eGate developer a lot easier.

Saturday May 20, 2006

Thirsty bloggers at Thirsty Bear

One of the highlights of my expedition to Horizons and JavaOne was the bloggers' social event at The Thirsty Bear, a trendy brewpub half a block from the Moscone Center. The event was packed with convivial bloggers, literally from around the world, and it was very cool to actually shake hands and hobnob with some true legends, including Simon "SunMink" Phipps (the host), Tim Bray, Lucas Hasik, John Clingan, and the author of Roller, Dave Johnson. Dave told me that my own alma mater up in New Haven has adopted Roller for student blogs. Way cool.  I also had the great pleasure of meeting the inimitable MaryMaryQuiteContrary! I have to report that she is much younger than I had imagined, and much thinner and blonder. Is this a great company, or what?

Friday May 19, 2006

The Sons and Daughters of Martha

Now that I'm on my way home from Horizons and JavaOne, I think my overall impression of both comes down to a strong feeling that the world runs on professional pride. I heard a lot of breakout sessions, and in each one the pride that the presenters took in their projects was evident. Some worked for companies, some worked for nonprofits, some worked for governments. They all had used Sun products to build systems that bettered the lives of thousands of people. I'm sure they were all well paid, but nobody was getting rich. It wasn't three days of free meals that brought them to San Francisco, I think, but the opportunity to tell their peers about what they had built.

Some of you may know Rudyard Kipling's poem, "The Sons of Martha," which celebrates the spirit of the engineer, toiling unsung so that an unknowing public can live in convenience and comfort. It's based on a Biblical passage,  and I think two of my favorite lines are these, that could have served as a theme for the conference:

“It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.”

Wednesday May 17, 2006

Our own little community

Today was the first day of Horizons, the Java CAPS (former SeeBeyond) users' conference, being held in conjunction with JavaOne. It was hosted by our Fearless Leader, Mark Bauhaus, and although it seems a little corny to say, I was actually quite thrilled and astonished that El Lider Ultimo, Jonathan Schwartz, actually dropped by to say a few words.

I was struck by how much of a community already exists among the Java CAPS users. Jim Demetriades, the former CEO of  SeeBeyond, did a good job of making the user base, about 2000 organizations, feel like family. Hanging out in the breakout sessions, it was great to see our users give their accounts of their experiences, both good and bad, in using our products. The users in the audience were quite active in asking questions of the user-presenters about the techniques they used to achieve successful implementations. There was definitely a collegial atmosphere. As we go forward with building an online community for the products, I hope we can build on this community feeling that already exists. It may be harder to do as we add more and more users, but we'll give it our best shot.

Tuesday May 16, 2006

Blogging from the floor of JavaOne

Several firsts for me today: first time at JavaOne, first time using a SunRay (now), first time seeing some of the luminaries of the software world that I've only read about: Mark Shuttleworth, Marc  Fleury, Rich Green, and a whole raft of Sun people who are household names in the software world.

It's all very cool. I was sitting in the ninth row of the opening general session, and got a great view of everything. A little too close to the band, perhaps. I am fairly sensitive to loud music at 8:30 AM, especially when I've been out with customers the night before. ;-)

I'm actually on the exhibition floor of JavaOne now, at a row of SunRays for the use of the attendees. There are lots of booths from different vendors, and it's fascinating to see how some are very crowded, and others not. Thankfully, Sun is one of the crowded ones! There's a lot of buzz around Sun this year, and a lot of open-source announcements were made this morning, much to the pleasure of the audience.

Tomorrow the separate Horizons convention will start, a few blocks from here. Our guys have been working their collective tails off for the last few weeks, polishing their demoes.  Should be good!

So much to see and do! I think I'll go have lunch now, to help me cope.

Friday May 12, 2006

Cowboy community

I ran into an old SeeBeyond buddy from another office yesterday, and he told me that a couple of ex-SeeBeyond developers, Edy Yang and Dan Cidon, are turning a nice chunk of change doing Java CAPS implementations. The old SeeBeyond would have frowned on this kind of cowboy systems integration outfit, preferring to work with people in white shirts and conservative ties, but I think Sun would say it's pretty cool. Once Java CAPS is freely downloadable, I think a lot of entrepreneurial cowboys and cowgirls are going to see that it's a system integrator's dream, and start using it in projects from small business to giant organizations. Edy and Dan are a couple of the smartest guys I know, and systems integration miracle workers, and I hope we'll see more of guys like them as we build our community.

Lubricating a community

Now here's the kind of community-building I can get used to. I see on Mary Mary Quite Contrary's blog that there will be a social opportunity for Sun bloggers at some gin mill adjacent to JavaOne! Hee-hee! Count me in on this one.

Thursday May 11, 2006

Building a community

We're going to be making a real effort to create a community around Java Composite Application Platform Suite, the former SeeBeyond ICAN. We're going to be doing forums, wikis, the whole nine yards, whatever will help people learn about the suite, use the suite, contribute to the suite, recommend the suite to their clients.

We're going to start with Horizons, the Java CAPS user group convention, which will be held next week in conjunction with Java One. We'll be listening to customers, telling them about our future plans, generally trying to find out what they're up to. I'll be blogging from the convention, and I'll try to be as honest as possible about how it's going.

I hope all of you out there, who are members of various communities, will let me know what you've seen that works in building a community. We don't have our forum set up yet, so feel free to use comments on this blog as a kind of proto-forum.

Also, you might be interested in looking at the independent SeeBeyond dicussion group that has existed on Yahoo for many years: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STC-User/