Cognos has been begging to be harvested for ever so long and Monday morning IBM Software plucked it from the tree and put it in its basket. IBM is paying $58 dollars-a-share cash, a total of $5 billion American greenbacks for the Canadian BI company, expecting it to contribute to its Information On Demand and SOA strategies and extend IBM's reach further into the CFO's office. IBM is paying a 9.5% premium over Cognos' closing price Friday on the Nasdaq. With what Cognos has in the bank IBM will be paying $4.9 billion, way more than IBM generally pays, but it likes its cash flow potential.

Here are my thoughts on this. I was expecting Alfred - who is known to be an arrogant and incompetent CEO - to run away from Larry as fast as he could. But this movie usually ends as follows. First, history repeats itself. By that I mean that Alfred should remember Larry's PeopleSoft hunt, which ended up with the PeopleSoft's CEO's head on a stick. In my humble opinion, in Act 2 of Larry's BEA hunt, we will see Alfred's head on a stick and the BEA shareholders will make the wedding plans, as always happens when Larry plans another marriage for his baby Oracle.

I asked what she did for a living. She said she was a software engineer working with SOA. I did not think about my plane ride much until I arrived in San Francisco to attend the SOA World Conference & Expo this past Monday and Tuesday. The first day of the conference as I walked into the hotel, guess who I saw? My friend who I met on the Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul. What a small world, isn't it? Her company was one of the sponsors of the event.

Nortel and IBM plan to offer a software-based foundation that brings together business applications and processes with the latest unified communications and collaboration tools such as click-to-connect, presence, location and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). This new foundation is built on the principles of service-oriented architecture (SOA) so that businesses can communicate with colleagues, partners, and customers in new ways without compromising service, security or existing technology investments.

The three-year-old Dojo Foundation has put out version 1.0 of Dojo, an open source JavaScript toolkit for AJAX development meant for building rich Web 2.0 applications without proprietary plug-ins or single-vendor solutions. The widgetry makes use of Google Gears, Google's solution for making applications work both on- and offline. What Dojo calls Dojo Offline is based on it. The toolkit is all of 25K in size and supports progressive enhancement and animations and is supposed to open the door to a wealth of high-quality widgets and extension modules. Dojo also supports the Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer and Opera browsers and the OpenAjax Alliance Hub 1.0 to guarantee interoperability with other toolkits IBM, Sun, BEA and AOL are Dojo backers.

Egenera, which claims it's the archetype Virtualization 2.0 company to VMware's Virtualization 1.0 - and is going put its PAN Manager software on other people's hardware to prove it - has convinced Fujitsu Siemens, which OEMs Egenera's BladeFrame servers, to put PAN on its own industry-standard Primergy servers. It's Egenera's first PAN partnership since the American company said last week that it was setting up a software line of business around PAN and would move the software out through fellow OEMs. Fujitsu Siemens says the widgetry will form part of its FlexFrame Infrastructure, its latest milestone in its Dynamic Data Center strategy of creating business-responsive IT using the latest virtualization and automation technologies.

In an unusual move, BEA says it's giving activist stockholder Carl Icahn confidential information that it can't give other people 'cause it's, well, confidential and is supposed to prove to him that the company is worth more than the $17 a share ($6.7 billion) that Oracle offered for it. They've signed an NDA and much could depend on his reaction. He could find the cupboard bare. BEA's board claims the company is worth $21 a share, some $8.2 billion. Icahn wants BEA sold. He also wanted more from Oracle but is still ticked that BEA blew off negotiations with Oracle. He currently owns 13.2% BEA, more than anybody else, and is threatening a proxy fight to overturn the board.

Watching VMware stock and its market cap spike since it IPO'd must have had Red Hat positively pea green with envyWatching VMware stock and its market cap spike since it IPO'd must have had Red Hat positively pea green with envy - so green in fact that it's gonna try taking VMware on by pushing the Xen virtualization integrated in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Red Hat's new goal is to underpin 50% of the world's servers by 2015. And since virtualization is projected to take over the world by then that's a lot of Xen virtualization - and there's no extra cost in it like there is with VMware since it's bundled with RHEL. (Red Hat's telling people they'll save $20,000-$30,000 a server.) Red Hat claims it's got its first 18,000 virtualized servers - although it's a little fuzzy about whether those 18,000 are actually in production - anyway, it's confident they'll get there eventually after all the testing and evaluating is done.

Red Hat, which has made its fortune displacing Solaris, is now going to collaborate with Sun to advance open source Java, which Red Hat is particularly partial to given its JBoss investment. This is the third time this year that Sun has laid down with one of its enemies. It also cut deals with Microsoft and IBM. Red Hat will get a fully compatible open source Java Development Kit (JDK) for its Linux operating system out of the deal. All it has to do now is build it - and that includes a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) - and optimize the runtime for JBoss-on-Linux. Red Hat's IcedTea project - which brings together Fedora, the early access version of Red Hat Linux, and JBoss.org technologies on Linux - gets pushed. It's supposed to supply free alternatives to some of the pieces of the OpenJDK project that are still proprietary.

Apache Tuscany provides an open source services infrastructure for building SOA solutions. It's based on emerging Service Component Architecture (SCA) specifications. With the Tuscany implementation of SCA, application developers can easily create or reuse services in different languages (Java, C++, BPEL, XQuery or various scripting languages), assemble and deploy them in a distributed environment. It now becomes a reality that application developer can really focus on the business logic without being puzzled by the plumbing technologies. In this session, we will introduce the key aspects of SCA by real examples and demonstrate how simple, flexible and powerful the experience can be to develop SOA solutions with Tuscany.

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.

Since its emergence, Web Service technology has gone a long way towards perfecting itself and finding its right application in the real world. With the maturity of the specifications, Web Service technology, with its power of interoperability, is now the major enabling technology of SOA, which is being adopted by more and more enterprises to build their application integration infrastructure.

Let's consider the pages of a traditional corporate Website. They include an 'about me' page, a contact page, a careers section, and probably a page with news and press releases. The words look good on paper, and, more than likely, a committee gave the final sign-off on the site's content. Visitors frequent these pages because they want to learn about the company's products and services, contact the company by phone to request more information, or find a job.

What I am going to do in this regular column is feed my habit by highlighting some of the books I am reading, and (mostly) enjoying. (I will only rarely write negative reviews; it's a rare book that I 'do not put down gently but throw across the room with great force' after all.) Geeks like to read - and not only programming books. Most of us read incessantly. Whether it's popular science, sci-fi or fantasy, a good thriller or an occasional popular history book or biography, it's a rare geek who isn't in love with books. And I am no exception, although I have to confess I am rather an extreme case since my love of books and eclectic tastes borders on the 'gentle madness' aka bibliomania.

I will be attending the Ajax World Conference next week in Santa Clara. I will also be at the opening reception on Monday and the conference party on Tuesday. Over the weekend Jesse Liberty blogged about this as well 'If you are going to be at AJAXWorld, look for me on Twitter, and let's see if we can set up a meeting or a lunch.' Other faculty members, according to the Ajax World website, who will be at these parties include...

SourceLabs announced the availability of SASH 2 complete with a major new milestone - integrated support for Apache Tomcat. Comprised of the most widely deployed open source Java technologies used by the Global 2000, new SASH 2 is a robust platform that simplifies the development of enterprise Java Applications. SASH 2 includes Spring, Axis, Struts, Hibernate and Tomcat along with all software dependencies and patches. Combined with SourceLabs' innovative Continuous Support System (CSS), SASH 2 proactively identifies key issues that enterprise application developers face when building, testing and deploying middleware software.

SYS-CON Events announced today that 'AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2007 West' main sponsorship opportunities are now sold-out! Limited number of expo and event sponsorship opportunities that are still available are expected to be completely sold before the end of the month. The new sponsors who joined the conference this week, and are not yet listed on the conference Website, will also be announced later in the week.

I will be teaching a one day Bootcamp course on Ajax at the AJAXWorld Conference in Santa Clara, California on September 23, 2007. Details are at http://aja xbootcamp.sys-con.com I will be expanding the Ajax construction tools section from the Ajax Bootcamp I taught in New York at the SOA World conference. I am very impressed with TIBCO GI and Sun jMaki

The inaugural iTVCon - Internet Video Conference & Expo (November 12-13, 2007) is building out its program and the Conference Advisory Board is busy sorting through the hundreds of proposals for technical and strategic sessions that have been coming in. Final deadline for proposals is September 10, 2007.

Web 2.0 is one of the hottest things on the consumer Web, but where does it fit in the enterprise? What's the business value and how can developers use new Web 2.0 mashups to bring value to the line-of-business users? You'll hear all of this and more from Rod Smith, IBM Fellow and Vice President of the IBM Emerging Internet Technologies group. Rod will discuss what IBM is doing in the Web 2.0 space, give a demonstration of a mashup maker being developed by his team, and share lessons he's learned from joint Web 2.0 development projects with companies such as American Express, Dunn & Bradstreet, and Dow Jones.

CodeGear's Chief Evangelist, David Intersimone, ably assisted by Mike Rozlog, showed delegates to SYS-CON Events' inaugural Real-World Java Seminar why developers using Eclipse continue to turn to Borland for tools to make their lives easier.

Making the announcement at this morning's 'Real-World Java Seminar' presented by SYS-CON Events in New York City, CodeGear from Borland Corporation unveiled a set of specialized plug-ins for the Eclipse open-source development platform: JGear.

Java developers are coming from far and wide today to attend the first ever 'Real-World Java' Seminar, a one-day event being presented by SYS-CON Events in New York City.

AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2007 East sponsors included: Laszlo Systems (Diamond Sponsor), JackBe (Platinum Sponsor), Adobe (Platinum Sponsor), Cynergy (Platinum Sponsor), Backbase (Gold Sponsor) Google (Gold Sponsor), Nexaweb (Gold Sponsor), ICEsoft (Gold Sponsor), Oracle (Gold Sponsor), Helmi Technologies (Gold Sponsor), JetBrains (Gold Sponsor), TIBCO (Gold Sponsor), Kapow Technologies (Gold Sponsor), Sun Microsystems (Silver Sponsor), Parasoft (Silver Sponsor), Servoy (Silver Sponsor), Etelos (Silver Sponsor), Microsoft (Expo Plus Sponsor), Lightstreamer (Exhibitor Plus Sponsor), IT Mill (Exhibitor Plus Sponsor), FrogLogic (Exhibitor Plus Sponsor), ThinWire (Expo Sponsor), Quasar Tecnologies (Expo Sponsor), Zapatec (Exhibitor Plus Sponsor), MB Technologies Bindows (Exhibitor), OpenSpot (Exhibitor), ILOG (Exhibitor), Passport Corporation (Exhibitor), Addison-Wesley (Exhibitor), The Thomson Corporation (Exhibitor), Isomorphic Software-SmartClient (Exhibitor), Universal Mind (Exhibitor), Farata Systems (Exhibitor Plus), Manning Publications (AJAX Book Sponsor), Apress (AJAX Book Sponsor), Conference Guru (Media Sponsor), Flash Goddess (Media Sponsor), AJAXWorld Magazine (Media Sponsor), Web 2.0 Journal (Media Sponsor), SYS-CON.TV (Media Sponsor), IT Mill (Media Sponsor), Methods & Tools (Media Sponsor), Web 2.0 Journal (Media Sponsor), and OASIS (Association Sponsor).

I'll be speaking at SYS-CON's Real-World Java One-Day Seminar in New York City next Monday, August 13. Despite the fact that it's August, it looks like they have lined up an interesting panel of speakers for the day, including sessions by Yakov Fain on using Flex with Java (that'll be interesting to me) as well as sessions by Sun on Java 6.0 and a panel session on Java 7.0. The title of my session is 'Code Quality: Pay Now or Pay Later', and I will be talking about why code quality is an issue that many sweep under the rug, why we should care deeply about it, as well as some practical steps to start down that path. Our CTO Mark Dixon will be there with me, so if you're in the NYC area, come say hello!

David Boloker is a Distinguished Engineer and Chief Technical Officer for Emerging Internet Technologies in IBM Software Group. Previously, he held the position of Chief Technical Officer for Java Technologies in Software Group. He is recognized in and outside IBM as a technical leader in the Internet software space guiding IBM's investments as well as internal product development in the Internet space. His responsibilities include building IBM's technical e-Business strategy, working with internal IBMers to develop the appropriate products for the Internet space, researching new areas in software design as well as guiding a group of researchers working in Software Group. David has been recognized by IBM with numerous Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards in the areas of Java, Secure Internet Gateways, Dynamic I/O Configuration and the Remote Distribution and Control of S/370, 4300, S/390 and AS/400 Architecture processors. David earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Mathematics from Boston University.

The Eclipse JavaScript Development Tools (JSDT) is an open source component of the Eclipse WST (WebTools) Project. JSDT provides some of the most powerful JavaScript development capabilities available anywhere. It can be used by both developers using AJAX, and by AJAX library developers.

Terracotta, a provider of infrastructure software for enterprise Java high availability and scalability, has announced the Terracotta Partner Network, a group of existing and new highly skilled integration partners that will work closely with Terracotta to deliver the benefits of Terracotta?s Network-Attached Memory to Java applications worldwide.

AJAXWorld 2007 West will take place on September 23-26, 2007, at the Santa Clara Convention Center, in Santa Clara, California, and will offer a new dedicated 'iPhone Track.' Another dedicated track will offer a comparative education opportunity for conference delegates on emerging RIA tools, including a Diamond track on OpenLaszlo and sessions on Microsoft's Silverlight, Adobe's AIR and Sun's JavaFX.

A seasoned Java professional has to know more than just the syntax of the Java language. Java EE offers a set of standardized technologies for enterprise development. A number of open-source frameworks such as Spring or Hibernate are widely used in a variety of Java applications. Familiarity with new 'beyond-Java' languages and technologies will widen your horizons and make you a more valuable Java professional. Real-World Java Seminar is sponsored by CodeGear, Red Hat, Nexaweb, Farata Systems, and PushToTest.

Writing custom serialization code may seem easy to start with, but maintaining it can quickly turn into a nightmare, especially as your application grows and you have more and more state to manage. Keeping track of what has to be serialized and moved around the Web cluster can be a real pain and can really get in the way of adding new features and improving existing ones.

IBM says it is foreswearing enforcement of a bunch of patents it holds that might be necessary to implement upwards of 150 standards designed to make software interoperate. It says it is granting 'universal and perpetual access' to the IP to both commercial and open source developers, distributors, manufacturers and their users so long as the adopters aren't suing anybody - not just IBM - over any patented technology needed to implement the standards.

Companies who do not take steps to assure the quality of the code they are developing can face nasty surprises late in the process. Code quality involves more than testing, but requires an overall methodology from start to finish. This session addresses how software development teams can track metrics for unit testing results, test coverage, and coding standards on a per project, per team, and per developer basis to boost quality throughout the application lifecycle. Tracking key metrics provides visibility to help achieve a quality-driven application development process. Only with the right quality processes in place can a development team deliver high-quality projects to specification by the required target date.

The single-day, multi-track Real-World Java Seminar will be held at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York on August 13. Produced by SYS-CON Events, this is the largest Java developer event on the East Coast, and features a business track as well as two technical tracks. All attendees will have full access to all sessions at the event, so can either stay with one track or pick and choose specific sessions.

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

Terracotta, a provider of infrastructure software for enterprise Java high availability and scalability, has announced support for IBM's WebSphere and WebSphere CE application servers, and Hibernate, a high-performance object/relational mapper. With these new capabilities, Terracotta can now be used to deliver scalability and availability for the vast majority of Java application architectures. Terracotta already supports JBoss Application Server, BEA WebLogic, Glassfish Application Server, Jetty, and Spring.

Terracotta, a provider of infrastructure software for enterprise Java high availability and scalability, has announced support for IBM's WebSphere Application Server (WAS) Community Edition. With this addition, Terracotta 2.4 can now be used to deliver scalability and availability for the vast majority of Java application architectures.

SYS-CON Events announced today that IBM joined SOA World Conference & Expo 2007 East as 'platinum sponsor.' IBM (www.IBM.com/SOA) is the world's leading technology provider of SOA and Web Services solutions. IBM's 'SOA' website answers the question 'Why Service Oriented Architecture and IBM?' as 'Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a business-centric IT architectural approach that supports integrating your business as linked, repeatable business tasks, or services. SOA helps users build composite applications, which are applications that draw upon functionality from multiple sources within and beyond the enterprise to support horizontal business processes.'

SOA has moved beyond a technology initiative. It is fundamentally about creating an alignment between business and IT -- about driving IT design and deployment decisions from a clear understanding of the business design being automated by IT. Doing so creates an economic context in which to measure the value of trade-offs in IT design. By recognizing the basic constructs of business design, we can identify critical elements of our information systems, and how information technology contributes to enabling business goals and priorities

Fortune magazine has been poking around those court-sealed charges that HP bought Dell's printer plans from a former senior Dell executive before Dell entered the printer market and got a previously mum Dell to say that 'The more we look into it, the more concerned we become.'