'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.

BEA, Cognos, and Informatica have all been named yesterday by a Credit Suisse analyst Jason Maynard as possible acquisition targets in the wake of the SAP acquisition of Business Objects. In a note released to Credit Suisse clients yesterday, Maynard reportedly said: 'The SAP/Microsoft partnership seems to have fallen apart as the two companies appear to be on a competitive collision course.'

One of my favorite bloggers, Paul Graham, has published an essay called 'Microsoft is dead '. He starts, 'A few days ago I suddenly realized Microsoft was dead', and then explains why he thinks so. I do not think Microsoft is dead, but...

When building the right project team to complete a custom solution there are many forces at work. These include business drivers, technical drivers, and organizational and political motivations. Regardless of the business or organization there are three basic rules to follow in building a team to deliver a technical solution. The first is to involve the business before the team is even assembled. Each organization has certain technology standards that govern specific tools and products that can be used on a given project.

According to our worldwide network of software development activists, evangelists, and executives, 2006 promises to be a vintage year for software development...with IE7, Atlas, and AJAX featuring prominently.

'Each format of computer-based and ILT training has advantages and disadvantages,' writes AppDev CEO Craig Jensen. 'So when you combine them, you get the best overall learning possible. I fully expect that blended training solution trends will include the new knowledge server-based product, DVD-ROM and CD-ROM training formats that allow employees to access full training and reference materials right at their desks...'

One of the most interesting facets of the 'Leaked Memo' incident last week is not so much what it reveals about Microsoft's Bill Gates, author of one of the two leaked memos, as what it tells us about the author of the second one: Ray Ozzie, the creator of Lotus Notes and Groove Networks, now installed by Gates as one of three Microsoft CTOs.

New companies like salesforce.com and Google have 'real businesses that can challenge and win against the old guard companies,' said SalesForce.com Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff this week in a public riposte to Gates's speech this week about the end of software and the switch to a services-based paradigm.

A current look at the field of bioinformatics will reveal that it is a field that is largely dominated by the Linux operating system, as well as by programming languages such as Perl, Python, and Java. Windows and its associated native application development platforms are not in widespread use among present-day bioinformatics practitioners. In fact, the usage of Linux and other open source technologies will likely remain the dominant platforms upon which most novel and/or large-scale bioinformatics research is conducted. Scientific computing of all types has deep-seated roots in Unix and its derivatives, and as a result is very much dependent on code bases that are written with *nix platforms in mind.

I just recently had the privilege of presenting a brief seminar on Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System (VSTO 2005) and wanted to take a moment to address your recent editorial. Although your complaints are somewhat justified when applied to VSTO 2003, the developer team up in Redmond has done a bang-up job of enhancing the tools for Visual Studio 2005. Of course, developers who use VSTO will still be leveraging .NET managed extensions that communicate with the Office 2003 primary interop assemblies (PIAs), i.e., COM-interop, but you'll be glad to know that there have been some significant improvements and additions to VSTO in its upcoming iteration.

Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Microsoft are all licensees of the same patents that Kodak is successfully suing Sun Microsystems for infringing, the Eastman Kodak Co. revealed yesterday.

In late May 2004, Microsoft made the announcement that it was considering entering the High-Performance Computing (HPC) Market, a market that has traditionally been dominated by custom-engineered Unix-based machines. In recent years, advances in technology have made possible the construction of lower-cost computing clusters that utilize off-the-shelf hardware such as Intel- and AMD-based processors. The operating system of choice for these lower-end clusters has been Linux.

A sampling of .NET Developer's Journal editorial board members and Microsoft Regional Directors offer their thoughts - with varying degrees of seriousness - on what the coming year will bring.

Get ready, because soon the big knock will be at your door and your boss will be standing there with a single question for you: Should we go with .NET or J2EE for our Web services?

Microsoft is creating an advanced new generation of software that melds computing and communications in a revolutionary new way, offering every developer the tools they need to transform the Web and every other aspect of the computing experience.