Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has been discussed as an important architectural style for the last few years. Organizations have started to develop service-oriented solutions and many are now leveraging services in their production environments. SOA introduces new technical complexities and challenges and makes testing a critical component of the development lifecycle.

Can afford to take just one day off, get out of your cubicle and see what other people up to these days? Is J2EE still in favor? What's this ESB is about? Have you even heard of using Flex as a Web front end of your Java applications? Do not miss an event in NYC this Monday, that is created for people who think that they are way too busy to take several days off and spend them in the class. Just take one day off and attend the Real-World Java event. The discounted rate for this event is $395. To get this discount, enter the coupon code ?JUGgold' while registering

One of the biggest complaints we hear about many company Web sites, from customers and employees alike, is that it's too hard to find what you need. At IBM, with 2.5 million Internet pages and more technical content than any single entity, including the Pentagon, that's no surprise. A new IBM advanced information search and delivery system for the IBM support site (www.ibm.com/support) is expected to solve this problem. Code-named Digital Blue (dBlue), this project is a digital interface to IBM customers. The result of two years of work and five patentable inventions, dBlue is now available to IBM customers.

We live in the eternal present, yet think mostly about the future and the past. When we are able to stop time and consider what's going on 'right now' or 'these days,' we often think about how our lives and times used to be simpler. How often do you recount stories from a 'simpler, more innocent time?'

Whatever the industry or company size, everyday business processes require access to information resources such as data, applications and people. Providing access to all necessary information resources in a cohesive and efficient manner can play a large part in improving employee productivity, building successful relationships with partners and improving customer satisfaction.

Welcome back to WebSphere Journal. Good to see you, good to know that you're still engaging in web services, one of the more dynamic areas within all of technology today. Although there are a number of new acronyms emerging right now, the now-old standby SOA continues to drive a large measure of what's happening throughout IT shops.

The new year is proceeding with what appears to be a renaissance or perhaps mini-bubble in the global IT industry. Use of the technically imprecise but no doubt seductive term 'Web 2.0' is stimulating companies to think through what they need to deploy for and through their websites in ways unimaginable in the dark days of a few years ago.

As the year closes it's time for industry columnists to make their bold, wrongheaded predictions for 2006. You won't find that sort of nonsense here. There's no Top 10 or crystal ball or cute list of Things to Watch.

It will be interesting over the coming year to witness the progress of open source software in general and open source in application development in particular. IBM, chided by many members of the open source community for taking the proprietary approach to app development (through WebSphere, for example), nonetheless claims to be a strong proponent of open source approaches where applicable.

This issue has an emphasis on SOA, an area of application development that has gotten a life of its own over the past year. Service-oriented architectures are not only the rage of the age, but represent an approach sure to be on the front burner of enterprise IT managers and developers for many years to come.

Random encounters can provide unexpected illumination. If you are the type of person who just starts talking to strangers anywhere anytime, as I am, the conversations that ensue can relate to your work a suprisingly high percentage of the time.

IBM announced an expanded SOA strategy in September building on the recent momentum it has gained over its archrival in this space, BEA, as well as Microsoft's .NET strategy.

Unification, integration, clustering, connectivity. These are words found commonly in enterprise IT and in this issue of WebSphere Journal. Picking up on last month's Non-Theme theme, we continue to provide you with a variety of articles that cover many parts of the application development ground, all made possible through the use of WebSphere.

The idea of a 'pure' application development continues to lose meaning in an enterprise IT world that continues to try to integrate legacy systems with server networks, local-area networks, increasing varieties of wireless networks and devices, and the latest new kids on the block who want to join the game.

This month marks the 10th Anniversary of the JavaOne conference, sponsored and controlled by Sun Microsystems, and an annual drawing card for Java developers worldwide. As someone who played in a role in this event?s launch, I am always happy to see it succeed, to see Java and its offshoots continue to develop, and to see this former set-top box programming language play an important role in enterprise IT.

The amazing thing is that anything gets done at all. Software architects and developers, analysts and administrators, and C-level executives all share this core belief, whether they publicly state it or not. As we approach the summer months, one thinks of weekends in the Hamptons or the Wine Country, at the Shore or the Cape, maybe a trip to the Dells or to Mackinac, the Gulf or the Mountains.

'If it were a fight, they'd stop it.' This expression is often employed by sports announcers during a particularly lopsided football or baseball game, and also by market watchers when one business gets a clear upper hand versus its competitors.

The Western conception of time relentlessly flying forward is a key underpinning of many societies' continuous focus on improving things, becoming more efficient, getting ever better, and not wasting a minute in the process.

I received a lot of feedback last month on my 'Will Every Child Be Left Behind?' editorial. A lot of you related your collective disappointment in the current state of our public schools. What surprised me was the number of readers who thought that application servers, XML, and Web services were current buzzwords, not core foundations of modern technology.

The politicians are at it again with their general collective hallucinations. Recently Rod Paige, the U.S. Secretary of Education, made the following statement: There is a new fervor in American education and a new creativity that's being driven in part by this generation of tech-savvy students. We are already seeing some remarkable results, and I believe this trend bodes well for the future of our country.

Another month is upon us and the world continues to change. The world of corporate governance is making its presence felt in all corners of information technology as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirements begin to take effect with regard to Section 404. You only need to read the daily newspaper or watch some television to get a feel for the level of corporate scandals that pervades our society.

As the world becomes progressively more comfortable with e-business as a business model for the 21st century, criminals are also gaining a level of comfort in stealing information at a progressively alarming rate. Information theft is a global problem that will continue to grow as criminals become more adept at using technology as a tool to a achieve their goals.

IBM just announced WebSphere Application Server (WAS) version 6, which IBM says can save companies as much as $110,000 per minute in lost revenue and productivity. This capability is a major advance for enterprise-class computing.

As I'm sure you've noticed. over the last few months I've been asking you whether you think BEA is DOA? The response has been intense and interesting. At some points some readers started with personal attacks on me and, in some cases, the publisher of this magazine. I think those people have watched way too much cable television news over the last couple of years.

Microsoft has released an XP update with advanced security technologies and has urged Windows XP users to turn on Automatic Updates to get consistent security updates. However, IBM has told its users not to install the Windows XP update.

IBM announced some new software and services to make it easier for companies to adapt their information-technology infrastructures to changing business conditions. The latest IBM offerings will help companies build service-oriented architectures (SOAs), which are collections of business processes that use reusable standard interfaces to integrate applications within a company as well as with customers and suppliers.

IBM is really on a roll as WebSphere continues to shellac BEA in market share and product extensions. Now they go and release Stinger (beta version) for the next-generation DB2 to give Larry Ellison and Oracle something to think about.

Ineffectual corporate management has given a great gift to programmers, system administrators, and CIOs - endless corporate accounting scandals. Our federal government has not missed this scandalous behavior, as they have passed an extraordinarily strong, far-reaching law to contend with financial fraud.

Well, it's another month and we're off to a good start with IBM making it easier for people to find new uses for WebSphere. IBM has taken the teams-based approach to the next step. They just released a roles-based group of tools - six power packs and eight tracks in total - based on what you do, with two for developers focusing on either J2EE or .NET. System analysts and architects who need to model are also included.

There's a lot going on in business and IT today, and it's rapidly becoming more important that you have a good understanding of e-business on demand, service-oriented architecture, Web services, and grid computing. I've been in more than one conversation and read more than one article where someone has defined these terms in, shall we say, 'creative' ways. Let me try to put each in its place and show how they relate to each other.

Some new opportunities are appearing in the world of technology, some of them quite unexpected. Faced with the specter of mad cow disease appearing in the U.S., the American rancher and the entire chain of U.S. food suppliers are about to embark on a far-reaching program that will affect every American consumer who eats beef - and eventually any animal product.

As we go to press with our December issue, Microsoft has issued its 65th security bulletin of the year disclosing a security flaw of critical severity in most versions of its popular Windows operating system. Microsoft urged users of Windows 2000, Millennium, 98, and NT 4.0 to download a software patch from the company's security Web site. Microsoft's newest version, Windows XP, does not have the problem. Attackers could exploit a vulnerability in the software that underlies many database functions and take over the user's computer.

The whole point of my recent series of editorials has been to get people thinking about what has happened to the job market for IT developers and administrators - and where it is going next. Over the past two months I have written about what I have witnessed at countless dot coms and development companies around the country and where I see the IT work market going.

Whether you like it or not, the offshoring of IT projects is here to stay, so get over it. If you can't get over it, get out of IT. But before you head for the exit, think about what you'll be missing.

In the world of IT, outsourcing is either the dirtiest word you can utter or a brilliant one; it's all about who says it to whom and where it is said.

The latest way to make a buck is to get your company some very cheap labor using L-1 visas. You can pay the new workers less than minimum wage - and it's completely legal.

It's been a busy month in the world of WebSphere, with the advent of some very exciting new functions in WebSphere Studio and WebSphere Application Server. The latest version of WebSphere Studio (v5.1) takes a huge step toward helping people build Web applications in Java - without needing to be a Java expert.

There is no better time than now to implement WebSphere in your enterprise, and integration is a good place to start. Recently, IBM unveiled more than 50 WebSphere Business Integration Adapters that they have developed and more than 300 that were developed by IBM Business Partners.

Another month has passed, and I have been hearing from an awful lot of readers lately on the topics of deflation and the general condition of the economy as it relates to enterprise software. To answer their questions requires that we take a quick survey of the economy. The reason we do this is the same reason any company ever buys software - to assist in its primary business. So off we go to see how the people who are supposed to buy software are doing in their own businesses.

The Internet has changed the way businesses operate. With the ability to purchase from anyone, regardless of location, buyers today know more about products, pricing, and availability than ever before. This shifts more power to buyers by helping them get the best price and terms in nearly every case.