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June 03, 2008 | Johnathon Rademacher: Gartner Identifies Top Ten Disruptive Technologies for 2008 to 2012

At the recent Gartner Emerging Trends and Technologies Roadshow in Melbourne, Gartner identified the Top Ten Disruptive Technologies for 2008 to 2012.  This intriguing list is a compelling argument for IT professionals to revisit their plans for future application development.  Gone are the ways of heavy, expensive do it all applications.  By utilizing on-demand software and mashups you can create robust applications in days instead of months.  For organizations that prefer to keep their applications in house, more powerful multicore and hybrid processors powering virtual hardware will allow you to reduce downtime and better utilize resources.

April 18, 2008 | Paul Bourdeaux: Unmaintable Code - It doesn’t have to be this hard…

Two of my all time favorite authors, Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates, coined the phrase, “Code [your project] as if the next guy to maintain it is a homicidal maniac who knows where you live.”  I truly wish more people would take that to heart.  All too often I am working on a maintenance task, and I find that I spend more time trying to figure out what the hell the code is doing than I spend actually fixing the bug.

Take, for instance, the following real code snippet that a colleague of mine recently sent me…

March 11, 2008 | Paul Bourdeaux: Reflections from SD West 2008

SD West, one of the nation’s premier software development conventions, just concluded SD West 2008.  Yours truly was fortunate enough to be able to attend, and for an entire fun filled week I got to embrace my inner geek and participate in tutorials on Agile Estimating and Planning, attend classes on Test Driven Development, and visit expo booths to play Guitar Hero (Hey - we may be developers, but we’re aren’t total nerds!).  I even managed to go on a Segway Tour of San Francisco.  OK, that last one was a little nerdy, but still pretty fun!

January 23, 2008 | Paul Bourdeaux: Software Maintenance.  How Far Have We Come in 15 years?

In 1993, the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University published a study named A Study in Software Maintenance.  As part of this study, one task was to examine the development processes and the software tools used within maintenance (life-cycle support) projects.  Three pervasive themes presented themselves in the findings: Tools, People, and Software Process.

This is the first in a three part blog to compare the findings of that 1993 paper with the general climate of software maintenance today.  The first area of findings that we will look at is the area of Tools.

January 10, 2008 | Paul Bourdeaux: Shoeperstar Winner - A blog contest about… blogging

While this is a little off from my usual topic of Software Reliability and Maintainability, it was still too interesting not to blog about.  Big name internet marketers Ted Murphy of Izea and Jeremy Schoemaker of ShoeMoney are putting on a contest to determine the next Shoeperstar Winner.  To win, bloggers have to, well, blog about why they think they should be the Shoeperstar.  It presents a very interesting example of the power of viral marketing and SEO.  All of the blog entries will undoubtedly link back to both Izea and ShoeMoney, further bolstering there already impressive SEO rankings.

Former Sundogger and rising blogosphere star Max Pool of Code Squeeze has thrown his name into the ring with his entry, 10 Reasons Why I Am A Shoeperstar Contest Winner.

January 02, 2008 | Greg Ness: 2008 A Breakout Year For SaaS

No matter whose IT predictions you look at for 2008, software as a service (SaaS) looms big. For those not familiar with this term, SaaS is software that customers do not pay to own. Rather, it is an on-demand system usually hosted through a third party and customers access the software’s applications via the Internet.

The SaaS model has seen tremendous growth in the last few years primarily because it is easier and costs less to implement than large enterprise systems that reside on a company’s own servers. Some fast-growing SaaS vendors include companies such as Salesforce.com, RightNow, and NetSuite, but there are many companies charging hard to catch-up in this sector including software giants Microsoft and Oracle.

There are a number of stories that have surfaced in the last few months indicating SaaS has reached a crucial tipping point, and 2008 may be the year that it begins its breakout to become the norm for most companies:

December 30, 2007 | Greg Ness: Technology & Internet Trends

At least once a year, its helpful to look at Mary Meeker’s excellent PowerPoint presentation on Technology and Internet Trends. Meeker is a managing director at Morgan Stanley and a leader of the investment bank’s global technology research team. The link above is her slide deck from the Future of Media conference presented last month in New York.

Meeker’s in-depth analysis is viewed from a global perspective, and it provides a great deal of insight into where technology and the Internet are headed. The presentation is filled with salient facts for business executives and marketing professionals, but a few I found particularly illuminating included:

October 31, 2007 | Dean Froslie: Organizations Use RSS to Tackle Employee Information Overload

The term information overload inevitably surfaces when employees talk about the deluge of printed materials, e-mail, voice mail and other technology-based messaging they face at work every day.

It’s refreshing to hear about companies that attempt to manage employee messaging – and RSS has great potential in this area. PC World highlights several companies that are using RSS to attack employee information overload.

October 26, 2007 | Paul Bourdeaux: Poor Design Can Make Good Software Bad

The worst kind of bug is one that was developed into a software application by design.  To better illustrate what I am talking about, take this example from worsethanfailure.com:

As the recent father of twin babies, Philip B. was relieved to learn that his employer’s benefit provider, Sun Life Canada, made the insurance process really simple. Adding the little ones on the plan required no more than a phone call to provide birth dates, names, and that sort of thing. All seemed so easy, until the customer service rep realized what Philip was trying to do: “I’m sorry sir, but we need a different birth date for each of your kids.”

“Uhh, er,” Philip stuttered, rather puzzled, “they’re twins? They were both born on the seventh of May, so they actually do have the same birth date.”

“Oh yes, I understand,” she said, “but our system cannot handle two people with the same last name born in the same month of the same year on the same plan.”

September 26, 2007 | Paul Bourdeaux: The Difference Between Reliability and Quality

They sound similar.  And they are often used (erroneously) interchangeably. Both terms, reliable and quality, can be used to describe a software application that has a low degree of error.  But there is one fundamental difference between the two. One is objective, measurable, and can be estimated, whereas the other is based on primarily subjective criteria…

September 24, 2007 | Greg Ness: Supercharging Revenues: Integrate Sales, Marketing and IT

Several representatives from our company have attended three big conferences this year: The Forrester Marketing Forum, the Forrester IT Forum and most recently, Dreamforce in San Francisco. The takeaway from the first two conferences was clear: if you want to be a player in tomorrow’s business world you better find a way to integrate marketing and IT. The takeaway from the Dreamforce conference was equally clear: if you want to be a player in tomorrow’s business world you better find a way to integrate sales and marketing.

So just imagine how powerful your revenue machine would be if you could integrate all three functions: sales, marketing and IT. This would have significance for both the B2C and B2B worlds, but it could literally supercharge the new business process for many B2B companies.

May 31, 2007 | Dean Froslie: Online Test Reveals Your Information and Communications Profile

As follow-up to a recent post on the Pew Internet & American Life’s study of technology users: the Pew site has an interactive Internet Typology Test. Your answers to 10 questions help determine your level of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) use.