Ten Ajax myths debunked | Loek Bakker's weblog:

Loek Bakker's weblog: 10 Ajax myths debunked

4. Ajax is about client side technology
Wrong again. There is no such thing as a successful Ajax implementation without a solid server side implementation of the capabilities. The fact that with any good Ajax implementation the user does not experience a latency problem, is due to the fact that the back-end processing server side is of superior quality, and optimized to serve responses very fast.

9. Ajax is Google, not Microsoft
Maybe it is because Microsoft do not want to fuel the Ajax concept for obvious reasons, but indeed the Redmond guys are very quiet so far on the Ajax front. This does not mean however that they do not do anything with the idea of Ajax. Microsoft likes to point out the pioneer's role it has taken on when developing Outlook Web Access (or: OWA to throw in a TLA), and reportedly the new generation ASP.NET has something called script callbacks which is Microsoft's implementation of Ajax.
And for Google: yes they have done a lot of work, and developers all over the world are examining and improving the code of GMail, and are publishing snippets of it on web sites and blogs.
So both companies have embraced Ajax, and in fact they both have in common that they are not promoting the name Ajax much.
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The Web 2.0

One great thing about our industry is that a lot of people working in it are really inventive. The last couple of months I have been blogging about a lot of stuff that have been slammed together now and has been branded "The Web 2.0". As a matter of fact, there even has been a real brainstorm at something these guys call a FOO Camp (I invite you to click this link, it gives an insight in what a FOO Camp is -> I had no clue what it was, now I do). Here is the result of that brainstorm:

From what I understand of it, Web 2.0 is considered to be a concept where the Web is a platform for applications, maybe you could even say that it is an applied web service model. It is basically a collection of technologies which all have in common that they rely heavily on a broad band connection. The trends are such, that more and more people are having a broadband connection, and stuff like P2P networks (with BitTorrent explicitly being named in the Web 2.0 mememap), Wikipedia, blogs and rich user experience (RIAs and/or AJAX for instance). Add the rise of the SOA and web services to that, and you can see there is momentum for Web 2.0

I know it is easy to say that all the stuff / technologies being named in the picture are or have been somewhat hyped, but the essence of Web 2.0 is in the game, not in the players. And the game is that anyone can participate in it and has the Right to Remix (it is the "some rights reserved" part of Web 2.0). Interesting thing, I suppose we will hear more from it in the coming months.
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What has changed though, is that Web 2.0 is in the center of attention, and that for the first time in a long period Microsoft is not the dominant player it once was and they admit/know it. Could they turn the tide by fully open-sourcing the C# language for instance? Should they give the full .NET framework to the IT / OS community? Have they investigated this possibility? MSFT's arch rivals (when it comes to development) Sun have taken the strategy to open-source all their new products / initiatives, so you could say that they have embraced the Web 2.0 business model. The same goes to a certain extent for IBM, who are actively participating in OS initiatives, although they still make a lot of money on licences for WebSphere for instance.

IT companies should ask themselves two key questions:

1. Should we adopt the Web 2.0 business model (in which the open source business model fits to a certain degree), where we give up something expensive but considered critical, hoping to get something valuable for free that was once expensive? (take into consideration that this could be a huge risk!)
2. If we do so, just exactly what should we give up? Is open-sourcing one of our products (maybe all?) enough, or should we come up with something different, as more and more companies are open sourcing their offerings.

This in fact could be one of the main challenges for CEO's and CIO's of IT companies / vendors in the next couple of years, and it goes beyond the open source discussion.

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7. SOA requires standards that can be depended upon across all vendors’ implementations of SOA.

Correct, you know how I feel about vendors and SOA. Take someone off your SOA team if he or she says that you should purchase your SOA from your favorite vendor. I would restate Judith's statement to: SOA requires open standards that can be depended upon across all vendors' implementations of SOA.
http://loekb.blogspot.com/2005/11/reality-check-on-10-principles-of-soa.html

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http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/01/09/bus2.feat.geek.camp/
Simon Cozens, an author and programmer from England, presented Twingle, a program that helps you find things in your e-mail archives (who doesn't need that?).

...For relaxation, campers drank microbrews, tossed Frisbees, and disassembled a Toyota Prius, then put it back together again (it was a rental). Clearly, this was not your average technology conference.
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http://www.webservices.org/

http://www.zapthink.com/

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/iminer/

http://www.grokker.com/

http://www.micropersuasion.com/2005/11/ten_technorati_.html
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http://www.cbdiforum.com/bronze/journal/2005-11/SOA_Governance_Chaos_to_Order_2.php

Framework Bingo

Faced with marginalization within the IT department, many enterprise architects occupy their time, energies and wallspace attempting to populate nxm matrixes. The best known of these is probably the Zachman framwork. Such frameworks prescribe a series of models, and the job of the Enterprise Architect is interpreted as making sure all these models are properly completed and coordinated. Some sceptics refer to this activity as Framework Bingo.¹

Generalization isn't Abstraction

SOA calls upon designers and architects to operate at a higher level of abstraction.

One mode of abstraction commonly associated with enterprise architects is generalization - they are often thought to operate mainly with generalized business objects/processes, such as CUSTOMER and SALES.

But this is actually not where the real architectural challenges lie.

Instead, architects need to reason explicitly about system structure and dynamics - cohesion and coupling, composition and decomposition, change and emergence. They need to understand granularity and stratification as active choices, rather than text-book patterns.