From Application Virtualization to Xen, a round-up of the virtualization themes & topics being discussed in NYC June 23-24, 2008 by the world-class speaker faculty at the 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held by SYS-CON Events in The Roosevelt Hotel, in midtown Manhattan.

IBM announced two new advances in the insurance industry - a solution for improving operational efficiency and a framework for process acceleration - that are designed to help insurance providers lower costs and increase customer satisfaction by handling core processes, such as claims and policy processing, more efficiently. Once implemented insurance companies will be able to automate and optimize their business tasks; allowing employees to focus more attention on customer-facing matters.

ParAccel announced it has entered into an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement with IBM. Under the terms of the agreement, ParAccel will embed IBM InfoSphere Change Data Capture within the ParAccel Analytic Database, providing ParAccel customers with seamless and real-time updates from heterogeneous databases, including IBM DB2, Oracle, and Microsoft's SQL Server. Customers can use this ability to create high performance operational data stores and tactical analytic applications such as operational BI.

Mike Neil is general manager for virtualization strategy in the Windows Server Division at Microsoft. Mike is focused on the delivery of the Windows virtualization technology, including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server and Virtual PC 2007. Mike also directs the technical enablement of Microsoft's broader vision for virtualization, to include virtualization management tools and virtualized desktop infrastructure. Prior to this role, Mike was responsible for Microsoft?s server and PC virtualization efforts since 2003.

Micro Focus announced the availability of SOA Express 8.0. The new version adds support for direct deployment into IBM's Customer Information Control System (CICS), enabling users to accelerate the deployment of Web services by reusing their existing CICS TS mainframe infrastructure in a simplified and even faster 2-Tier model. This additional support provides customers with more options for their service oriented architecture (SOA) deployment environment. In addition to CICS, SOA Express supports SOA deployments over .Net and J2EE application servers. As a result, organizations are able to migrate existing, core applications to an SOA as Web services regardless of platform or technology base.

Red Hat is a trusted open source provider. Red Hat offers enterprise customers a long-term plan for building infrastructures on the quality and innovation of open source. Combining open source operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with applications, management, and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including the JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite.

Genuitec announced the availability of the milestone release of MyEclipse 6.5 Blue Edition, a tailored, customizable tool suite for WebSphere developers. Notably, this initial release of MyEclipse 6.5 Blue Edition offers project migration support. Developers currently working with IBM Rational Application Developer (RAD) 6 and WebSphere Application Developer (WSAD) 5 can now migrate projects into MyEclipse 6.5 Blue Edition.

IBM claims to have created new species of custom-built, industry-standard, Linux-based rack server for Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing companies with massive data centers and tens of thousands of servers, like online gaming, social networks, search and Internet firms. A relatively limited marketplace of maybe a thousand companies with fat wallets capable of shelling out tens of millions for such system. IBM means to replace the white boxes they use now or build themselves like Google does.

IBM announced it has acquired InfoDyne. InfoDyne specializes in high-speed platforms and data feed connectors which combined with IBM's WebSphere technology will help clients extend transactional integrity to low-latency environments. Financial details were not disclosed. InfoDyne provides software that is designed to enable competitive trading firms and other venues to process exploding data volumes at microsecond response rates. InfoDyne's market data delivery platform and rich feed handler portfolio take data from hundreds of sources and deliver it in a standardized format; helping customers to control escalating data feed costs.

After a $1.5 million angel round, Desktone, which was started in 2006 by Eric Pulier, who also started SOA Software, US Interactive and IVT, picked up $17 million in first-round funding about a year ago from Highland Capital Partners, SoftBank Capital, Citrix Systems and the China-based Tangee International. SoftBank as well as Deutsche Telekom could become service providers. Ruda says the brains behind the technology is Paul Gaffney, the former CIO of Staples. The company has maybe 40 people, more than half of them in Shanghai doing development, which explains Tangee's involvement.

The mouse was the original idea of Doug Engelbart who was the head of the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute. Engelbart's philosophy is best embodied, in my opinion, in the design of another device that he invented, the five-finger keyboard - with keys like a piano, used by one hand. The problem was, Engelbart's five-finger keyboard and mouse combination was very difficult to learn.

SOA Software announced that it has certified IBM WebSphere Process Server and WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus as Governed Service Platforms. This allows customers to use WebSphere Process Server and WebSphere ESB to implement and enforce governance policies for enterprise services providing reporting data to enable a closed-loop audit process as part of their enterprise SOA.

'Unlocking content to be remixed into new business value' is the driver of Web 2.0 in the enterprise, says Rod Smith, IBM VP of Emerging Internet Technologies, in this Exclusive Q&A with Jeremy Geelan on the occasion of IBM's release of a new technology created by IBM researchers, codenamed 'SMash' - short for Secure Mashup.

Here is a question that I have been pondering on and off for quite a while: Why do 'cool kids' choose Ruby or PHP to build websites instead of Java? I have to admit that I do not have an answer. Why do I even care? Because I am a Java developer. Like many Java developers, I get along with Java well. Not only the language itself, but the development environments (Eclipse for example), step-by-step debugging helper, wide availability of libraries and code snippets, and the readily accessible information on almost any technical question I may have on Java via Google. Last but not least, I go to JavaOne and see 10,000 people that talk and walk just like me.

iWay announced that it will sell more than 35 iWay adapters developed on and built for IBM WebSphere technology. This offering opens market opportunity for iWay Software and extends IBM's connectivity ecosystem offering customers additional cost-effective application integration options by delivering consistent adapter technology based on IBM's WebSphere Adapter Toolkit.

This session will provide attendees with an overview of the iPhone SDK, including discussion of the App Store, Apple's planned distribution channel for SDK applications. Keep in mind that the contents of the SDK and experiences while using it are covered under NDA, so be prepared for me to talk in generics and leave out specific details that might be covered by the NDA. I am planning on providing a quick introduction to Objective-C for those attendees who may have never seen it and might be worried that it will be difficult to code in (it isn't!).

SOA Software announced that it has certified IBM WebSphere Message Broker as a Governed Service Platform. This certification allows customers to use IBM WebSphere Message Broker to implement and enforce governance policies for enterprise Web services providing reporting data to enable a closed-loop audit process as part of their enterprise SOA.

IBM says it's found a way to make mashups secure enough for business. Because of inherent browser insecurity, mashups aren't really viable for widespread business adoption. But what's a little thing like viability compared to the pressure of keeping up with the Joneses - in this case the consumer mashup rage. So to keep the enterprise from hurting itself - and being held hostage by some cyber crook - IBM has come up with SMash, which basically lets information from different sources talk to each other - and create the one unified view mashups are famous for - but keeps them isolated so it's harder for malicious code to inject itself into the company system.

For the past ten years application developers have been stuck with only two desktop client choices. Traditionally, they can choose either a very thin Web-client technology implemented in HTML and CSS, or a very heavyweight thick client experience implemented using traditional client/server (C/S) technologies (e.g. Java Swing, MFC). It wasn't until the introduction of RIA technologies (e.g. AJAX, Adobe Flex, Curl, and Silverlight) and widget engines (e.g. Yahoo! Widgets and Google Gadgets) that we were given more options.

Acquia has yet to price its maintenance and support subscriptions - there should be a variety of SLAs - but they're supposed to include an electronic update notification system code named Spokes for updates that have been reviewed for security and compatibility and are supported by Acquia. Acquia is currently at 12 people, expecting to be 25 by the end of the year. Its Series A money comes from Northbridge Venture Partners, Sigma Partners and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. According to Dries' blog, Drupal 7 should offer the ability to create, share and mashup managed content, letting Drupal be a data repository accessed by tools and web sites across the network.

I am always being told off by i-technologists for quoting Picasso as having said that computers are useless. But I still love his reasoning: 'Because they can only give you answers.' Picasso, like AJAXWorld Magazine, liked questions. So we thought we would share with you what some of the world's leading rich Internet application pioneers are thinking may be the next questions that we need to see answered. From that, readers can themselves infer: where is AJAX headed next?

IBM HTTP Server (IHS) is a derivative of Apache with extensions to support the IBM WebSphere Application Server (WAS). It is different enough that you can't simply interchange it with the plain Apache if you have to support WAS applications. Nevertheless, it is still an Apache derivative, and therefore it supports Apache modules and extensions and behaves more or less as expected.

Being held for the first time on March 18, 2008 at the historic Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, AJAXWorld Security Bootcamp is a compelling, intensive, one-day, hands-on training program that will teach Web developers, Web designers, and other Web professionals how to build secure AJAX applications and demonstrate what the best practices are to mitigate security problems in AJAX apps. It is led by one of the world's foremost AJAX security experts and popular teachers, Billy Hoffman.

IBM announced that WebSphere Application Server, a key building block for services oriented architecture (SOA), shattered a popular industry benchmark for scalability and performance by more than 33 percent using technology that costs half the price of the competition.

Genuitec announced the availability of 'MyEclipse 6.1 Blue Edition,' a toolsuite tailored specifically for IBM WebSphere users. This first milestone release is available for free trial download and use through April 1, 2008. MyEclipse 6.1 Blue Edition provides users with all the features of MyEclipse Workbench Professional Edition, but also includes advanced customized tooling and capabilities for the IBM WebSphere application server.

Key opinion-formers in the field of infrastructure and pioneers of virtualization technologies of all types have already begun submitting speaking proposals to Virtualization Conference & Expo 2008 East, being held in New York City, 23-24 June, 2008. Topics covered will range from Server Virtualization, Application Virtualization, Desktop Virtualization, Network Virtualization, I/O Virtualization and Storage Virtualization, to Virtual Machine Automation, Physical to Virtual (P2V) Migration, Management Applications, Tools and Utilities, and Virtualization Scripts and Procedures.

Rarely do I get to have as much fun as this morning. I decided to download and install the new IBM WebSphere Application Server Community Edition V2.0.0.1 to one of our blade servers. The install was flawless and the instructions were exceptional. Before starting the server and deploying the XAware 5.0 WAR, I updated the startup.bat file with my JRE_HOME=%JRE_5_HOME% and added the XAWARE_HOME environment variable to the file, geronimo.bat. (set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% '-D xaware.home=%XAWARE_HOME% ').

Sun is offering ten grants of US $11,500 - equivalent to several months of pay for developers in some countries - for the best NetBeans projects submitted by open source developers. Conceived as a means of increasing general awareness around the NetBeans project as well as rewarding good work done by the NetBeans Community, the 'Dreams of Reality' contest is described in detail by worldwide NetBeans Community Manager Bruno Souza, the charismatic Brazilian developer, in a special audio webcast currently playing on SYS-CON.TV.

IBM, which invented virtualization back in 'ye ole mainframe days,' has waded into the current discussion with entry-level virtualization for its Power6-based, usually Unix-run, System p servers and BladeCenter blades called PowerVM Express. Now, PowerVM, you should know, used to be known as Advanced Power Virtualization (APV) and has been available from IBM on Unix since 2004. What's new here is that PowerVM lets p servers run x86 Linux binaries unmodified without recompilation. It's a facility now dubbed Lx86 that IBM got from Transitive and beta'd as the Application Virtual Environment.

Google, which does not give guidance, missed both Wall Street's top and bottom expectations for its December quarter by a hair and the punters turned vicious pounding it down around 50 bucks after-hours. Consensus demanded non-GAAP earnings of $4.44 on revenues of $3.45 billion. Google came in with $4.43 on revenues $3.39 billion. Those revenues figures are net of what's called TAC, Google's traffic acquisition costs, the money it pays its partners, which it this case amounted $1.44 billion or 30% of its ad revenues.

When IBM releases its fourth-quarter results on Thursday, it is confidently expected that - aided by the plunging dollar which in itself is reckoned to have increased revenue by 6% - revenue rose 10% to $28.9BN. As a result of its preliminary fourth-quarter results being issued, shares in the company climbed more than 8% today in premarket trading.

Google's new-year special logo, which went live briefly as 2008 began, celebrated the 25th anniversary of TCP/IP - adopted by Arpanet on January 1st, 1983. While 'invisible' to most users, many of the layers built on top of TCP/IP are well-known even to laymen: HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol), FTP (the File Transfer Protocol), SMTP and POP3, and IRC.

Mainsoft Corporation announced that Opal Future Technologies Inc. was named to the top ten of IDG's InfoWorld 100 Most Innovative Corporate Solutions for 2007. The annual awards honor IT projects that demonstrate the most creative use of cutting-edge technologies to further their business goals.

This presentation will demonstrate a fully integrated and secured service-oriented architecture (SOA) using WebSphere Process Server, WebSphere ESB, WebSphere Message Broker, WebSphere MQ, Workplace Forms, WebSphere Portal and Tivoli Access Manager - all integrated together. We will explain the various technical challenges, integration points, and implementation details of the project. Our 'Consumer Bank Account Opening Framework,' a real-world application for financial organizations, will be showcased; this includes complex forms processing, workflow, and human tasks. This session is designed to not only expand your technical knowledge of key emerging technologies but you will also learn how to leverage these technologies for industry.

In keeping with the longstanding SYS-CON tradition of being at the very forefront of software development with all its online and offline resources, SYS-CON Media & Events jointly today announced a double whammy, launching both 'Open Web Developer's Journal' (htt p://openweb.sys-con.com) and 'Open Web Developer Summit' (http://openweb.s ys-con.com) - to be held for the first time in New York City April 21-22, 2008.

Sandip Tiwari, a Charles N. Mellowes Professor of Engineering at Cornell University, has been named as the recipient of the 2007 IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award, recognizing his pioneering contributions to nano-crystal memories and quantum-effect devices and their critical role in greatly increasing storage capacities for mobile communications, computing and other applications, while still keeping the devices compact in size. The IEEE is the world?s leading professional association for the advancement of technology.

For building applications, BundleWorks includes ant tasks and command line tools to allow developers to build standard bundles for both custom and third-party applications. For testing, BundleWorks allows a developer to create and manage multiple environments to test multiple versions of applications. For deployment, BundleWorks supports local and remote deployment and provides a library of functions to handle common deployment tasks. For maintentance, BundleWorks tracks all bundle actions and configuration changes providing a complete history of activity.

Its 47-page suit filed in district court in New York the other day says that since IBM's consent decree with the United States government was phased out in 2001 IBM has been systemically squeezing out any competition to its mainframe monopoly and that it has reneged on its undertaking to the government to keep its mainframe operating system available on RAND licensing terms after the decree expired.

Within minutes of my blog entry, I received the strangest email notification, alerting me to another blog written by Alan Zeichick, 'co-founder and editorial director of BZ Media, which publishes SD Times and Software Test & Performance, and which also produces the Software Security Summit, Software Test & Performance Conference, and EclipseWorld. Also president and principal analyst of Camden Associates.' That's what his bio says.

'Healthways offers a menu of services, and we needed a modular, 'plug-and-play' architecture in which we could easily turn capabilities on and off to meet each health plan sponsors' criteria,' said David Jarmoluk, director of enterprise architecture for Healthways, a leading provider of comprehensive health and care support solutions, as IBM announced yesterday that - with its help and that of its business partner Mainsoft - Healthways has crossed the .NET-Java EE software standards divide to deploy a multimillion patient health and wellness portal.