It's spring and I am growing mossy......

Well, I think I am finally getting over the winter blues or is it blahs. The moss is starting to grow again and I think life must ultimately get better. With the venture capitalists hanging on to their money, like everyone else, I guess the small start-up companies will have to grow by themselves for a while. It will be interesting to see the impact all this gloom and doom will have on technological advancements. My fear is that innovation will suffer because only the big players will have the financial clout to fund meaningful(whatever that means) research. True innovation most often comes from the most ridiculous sounding ideas. It takes a dreamer, an out of the box thinker to produce the aberrant seeds necessary for true innovation. But alas, they are usually not wealthy(only dream of wealth) and leave the finances to others(often to their detriment.)

I was speaking with a friend of mine a few days ago, who (along with a cohort) is in the process of developing an innovative electronic circuit to control an electronic process. I was astounded when told the cost to produce a trial circuit board just to demonstrate that the product works. Then if the circuit needs minor tweaking, here you go again. The average guy is at a terrific disadvantage because of these costs to production, ignoring the cost of production.They are forced to go to companies that have the resources to develop the process, fearful of having their idea stolen or worst yet ignored. So as money tightens, innovation I'm afraid will suffer.

But....... it's spring and time for things to flourish. There are many technology conferences and workshops either ongoing or scheduled. Time for all of us to get out, explore and smell the roses. I would love to have the time to go to some of these far away places and participate in the technology introductions that occur, but the reality of it is that I wouldn't understand most of what I saw or heard anyway. So if I could just see a few good posts about innovative ideas that are relevant to the tech industry I would consider this post a success. Maybe even some financing solutions for small companies or individual inventors. Remember, a tree begins as just a seed. (And so does my moss.)

~~david~~

Under the ANTs Hill

This market has sure taken the wind out of my sail. With all the gloom and doom I find myself just sit around wondering, "What is going on here??" Then something brings me back to reality and I have to go back to work. That is when I realize that life is still progressing, regardless of what the pundits on TV are espousing. So I guess the technology industry must be doing the same. Technology goes on too.

It brings back memories of accidentally stepping on ant hill as a child. The hill looked so calm on top with only a few of the little critters moving around. There it stood, just a small pile of dirt not hurting anyone. Then something just doesn't feel right. There is a creepy crawling on your leg, then the stinging and you look down to discover that you have stepped into the middle of that CALM hill. Underneath that calm facade is found a fury of work and excitement. Every critter has a job and is busy doing what they know to do even if you couldn't see them working before the interruption.

Wish I could undress our little ANTs Hill and see them working. Sure has me wondering.

~~David~~

The Big Bailout - Here's an Idea

Munch on this idea for fun--and forward to your representatives:

TechKnowBabble: The Big Bailout - Here's an Idea

Heaven forbid that the government should give up control of $85 billion....

--Roberta

Smart Objects

Another step in connecting objects, Cisco is forming an alliance that will connect objects to the Internet. Called the "net of objects", this step will create a smart environment. Let's hope the efficiency of this smart environment doesn't come with too big of a price.

Bob

IMB Breakthrough on Cost for Cloud Computing

IBM continues to try to promote the Cloud Computing concept by lowering the cost of storage for VM. The Virtual Desktop moves closer to being economical. However, security in storage of information remains a sticking point before wide spread adoption of the technology.

Sybase, Crybase-- or Crybaby?

What does the playgound bully do when some little kid walks away with marbles fairly won?

Kick sand.

What does a big database company (think Sybase) do when some whizbang technology company (ANTs Software) has a proprietary compatibility server that can, say, easily roll the data marbles from Sybase to Oracle?

Or from Sybase to another database competitor?

Do they try to work with ANTS to develop a Sybase to Oracle or Sybase to IBM marble shooter?

Nah!

They would rather kick up some legal sand, perhaps hoping it might distract ANTS, the marble mover. The lawsuit whines about former ANTS employees who went over to Sybase and were subsequently offered higher compensation by another employer.

If you would like a copy of the lawsuit, just email me @ Roberta (at) SanDiegoPreviews.com

And for additional juicy reading about the database company that is losing its marbles, read David Ott's:

Whodo-Voodoo

--Roberta Murphy

Nothing Going On But Work Stuff....

And that keeps going on and on and on.....Waiting on the hurricanes to get out of town and cooler weather to give me a little more time. Then I hope to undress some more technology. I welcome others to help with the undressing though. If you have something that fascinates you and you are willing to share it with us, just let me know.

~~David~~

May I have this dance?

Looks as if there's a new partner in town. I see that ANTS Software is now listed on the MySQL website as a gold partner. The listing may have been there for a while, but I just noticed it today.

A quote from this ANTs listing, "ACS accelerates database migration to MySQL while enabling portability for legacy application", sounds as if the migration to MySQL is as easy as the migration from Sybase to Oracle. Let's see now, that's Sybase to Oracle, Oracle to MySQL, MySQL to IBM, IBM to ...... I believe the dance floor is getting a bit crowded. Brings to mind the lyrics of an old song I used to like, "save the last dance for me."

One other tidbit that makes me go hummmm. This posting, also from the ANTs listing at MySQL,

Products for MySQL from ANTs Software

• ANTs Compatibility Server

  The ANTs Compatibility Server is a middleware solution which allows server side code (queries, functions, and stored procedures) from legacy databases to run natively and transparently against the MySQL database with little-to-no application rewrite.

reads "products." Are there currently "products" from ***** to MySQL? (Use the database of your choice.)

Reading about this MySQL /ANTs partnership just makes the musings in my prior post all the more interesting and plausible.

ANTs in an open source format dancing with MySQL.

And the beat goes on!

~~David~~

Thousands (or Millions) of Programmers Needed!!!

I wonder if this ad could possibly be in the future for ANTs.

After reading the Sun Micro press release regarding their purchase of MySQL, I can't help but ponder the idea of an Open Source business model for ANTs. I must admit that I don't understand the intricacies of the open source income engine, giving away your product to make money, but I have been trying to get up to speed on how that might be profitable for ANTs.


One thing I do understand about Open Source is that Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL has made a ton of money giving away MySQL . According to the Sun Micro press release at the time of their purchasing MySQL, "More than 100 million copies of MySQL's high-performance open source database software have been downloaded and distributed and an additional 50,000 copies are downloaded daily." I suspect that being given away is not the "big secret" in the MySQL story, but its success was a result of being a product in great demand with superior support. That, in turn, lead to widespread acceptability and use in the open source community. The new and disruptive characteristics of the ACS would surely attract the curiosity of the open source community as well. Then, with stellar support from ANTs, added functionality provided by this hoard of zealous developers and sufficient demand by large enterprise users the open source business model could be put to the test yet again.

In a MIT Sloan Management Review article that I found very interesting, Mr Mickos gives insight into how the open source model has worked for MySQL . Part of the secret is to have 12 Million programmers that require no salaries, no benefits, no work spaces and no tax liabilities.... All working on YOUR product and bragging about it.. What an employers Nirvana.

And as if the success of MySQL wasn't enough, Mr Mickos has now orchestrated the sale of his $50 million per year open source company for almost $1 Billion. My bet is that with the ACS in it's quiver, MySQL would have one heck of a value proposition to offer the 100's of thousands of existing applications sitting on proprietary databases costing customers millions in support each year. Seems to me that Sun Micro will certainly recognize the fit that the ACS has with MySQL in accelerating this migration of there competitor's databases onto MySQL. Oracle certainly has recognized the speed, ease and reliability of the ACS in moving Sybase applications to Oracle. So?? Open source or not....

Maybe Marten Mickos can give ANTs a hint at how the ACS can be given away and money be made in the process. But then again, maybe Oracle doesn't want that to happen. Either way, I will enjoy being part of a win win combination.

Enough babbling from me, tell me where I'm wrong.......if I'm wrong.

~~David~~

AT&T, IBM speed-up the move to Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has not yet been fully defined (though Dell has tried to trademark the phrase). However, by moving information from a data center into a "cloud" from where you draw the info and programs you want continues to move ahead. Though, with the economy soft, some might delay this move, it does appear that more companies will move to the "software on demand" structure.