Zimbra announced the availability of its ZimbraME (Java Mobile Edition) client and source code for businesses. Users of any Java-enabled mobile phone will have access to the industry's most complete collaboration solution. The ZimbraME client provides Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) Open Source and Network Edition users worldwide with free access to the Zimbra experience with e-mail and calendar on mass-market Java-enabled mobile phones. This extends Zimbra's reach of services to the broadest range of devices available in the market and builds on Yahoo!'s e-mail and mobile Web services and as a key starting point for consumers.

An acronym occurs when the first letters of a phrase are combined into a shortened form that becomes an abbreviated way of describing the original. In science, they are often used to take a fairly verbose and complex concept, such as Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, and create a more concise and catchy noun LASER. The computing world is full of acronyms: Joint Photographic Experts Group becoming JPEG, or Graphics Interchange Format shortening to GIF.

Sun Microsystems and the NetBeans community announced the availability of NetBeans 6.1 integrated development environment (IDE) Beta. NetBeans 6.1 Beta adds a rich set of features for JavaScript technology development, a key component for delivering AJAX web applications and tighter integration of MySQL database functionality.

Azul Systems announced a comprehensive program targeting B2C customers that helps accelerate their web portal applications performance by 5X while reducing traditional server footprint by 5X. Azul Systems proven technology has achieved such results for several global enterprises including CitiStreet, Circuit City and Limewire.

CodeGear announced the availability of JBuilder 2008, its latest version of the IDE for the Java platform based on the Eclipse open source framework. With JBuilder 2008, CodeGear has added an innovation to the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Java: a methodology and associated collection of tools known as Application Factories. Application Factories is a new approach to software development and code reuse that addresses one of the challenges faced by Java developers today: navigating the complexity of framework choices, open source, internal code, and deregulated technology standards trying to determine how to use and reuse them together in order to deliver high-quality solutions with ever-increasing time pressures.

'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.

Innaworks announced version 2.1 of alcheMo for BREW, the automated Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) to BREW porting solution. This new version of alcheMo is a product that targets the needs of the mobile application industry. alcheMo for BREW version 2.1 is capable of porting a broad range of standard Java ME mobile applications to BREW. alcheMo for BREW version 2.1 introduces support for the HTTP/HTTPS and File Connection APIs (JSR-75). In addition, alcheMo for BREW version 2.1 includes pre-production support for sockets and TCP, Location Based Services (JSR-179) and Personal Information Services (JSR-75).

Codice announced Plastic SCM, a cross-platform software configuration management solution that streamlines how software applications are assembled. Application development teams use Plastic SCM to manage parallel development, where multiple developers work on building software at once, even from geographically dispersed locations.

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.

Fast-spreading rich Internet applications require new skills for development of what was known as boring-looking enterprise applications. In the past, development of the user interface was done by software developers to the best of their design abilities. A couple of buttons here, a grid there, gray background. Their users were happy because they did not see any better. This is about to change...

I target customers who have large data processing needs. These come in various forms, but generically look like this: the customer gets huge data drops in some form or another and must process the data and output results in a very specific time frame. The customer has written some scripts, maybe some code and SQL. They have attempted some optimizations that helped a little, but they're not meeting their timeline.

As I write this article the 2008 FOSDEM (www.fosdem.org/2008/) (Free and Open Source software Developers European Meeting) is about to start. Of course, by the time you read this the meeting will be long over (that's the name of the game with publishing deadlines). I will not be attending, but several members of Sun's OpenJDK (http://ope njdk.java.net/) team are gathering in Brussels to meet with the movers and shakers of the free and open source software world. This suggested the topic for this month's column, in which I will explore the relationship between open source and open standards

The F2F meeting of OpenAjax Alliance at NYC on March 21st worked out really well in my oppinion. As a result of the last F2F meeting in October 2007, we formed a new task force called 'Runtime Advocacy Task Force' at OpenAjax. The goal of Runtime Task Force is to collect a 'wish list' from the Ajax community, get the communities involved, have active dialogs and engage browser vendors, with the goal of fixing the issues that have bugged down Ajax developers and help build a better web. So far we've collected a list of 29 issues, of which we hope to open up to the general public for review/comments/voting.

AMD announced a new plug-in that provides the Eclipse community with increased performance management and monitoring of Java software code. Called 'CodeSleuth,' this new plug-in delivers the functionality of AMD's CodeAnalyst Performance Analyzer, a suite of tools that analyze software performance on AMD processors, including Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors. To help ensure that the plug-in is readily available to the Java technology community and evolves with the community's needs, AMD is making CodeSleuth open source and available as a no-charge download within the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment(IDE).

OPNET announced the availability of Release 5.0 of OPNET Panorama, its solution for real-time application monitoring and analytics across complex, multi-server infrastructures. This latest release extends Panorama's deep instrumentation to .NET applications, delivering full life-cycle application performance management for .NET and Java environments in a single solution.

Open-Xchange, the independent open source alternative to Microsoft Exchange, announced that it has joined the Eclipse Foundation as a new member. Open-Xchange offers email, calendar, contacts, tasks and document sharing providing companies with all the tools needed to facilitate communication and efficient teamwork. Users improve their communication and teamwork with intuitive tools and intelligent features, such as smart links between calendar appointments, task lists, contacts, documents, bookmarks and knowledge articles.

A standard from OASIS called Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) is used to allow portlets to be decoupled from a portal. It allows portlets, which are deployed to remote portal servers, to be aggregated at runtime into a unified portal page by a local portal server. The remote portal server's portlets are wrapped as Web Services. The output of a Web Service operation is an HTML fragment used by the portal to render the portlet. Interestingly enough, the portal server software used to manage remote portlets and the portal can differ, provided they both conform to the WSRP specification.

Ingres Corporation announced the creation of Ingres CAFE (Consolidated Application Foundation for Eclipse), which brings together in one bundle all the components developers need to create and deploy rich Java applications built using the Eclipse Foundation's open source development framework.

All too often quality is an afterthought in the application lifecycle. Ever-changing requirements, the pressure of increasingly short release cycles, and factors such as distributed development compound the complexity involved in effectively managing quality practices across application lifecycle activities. They also cast the ineffectiveness of addressing quality at the end of the cycle - in the 'test phase' - into stark relief.

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!).

The all-Java Perst open source, object-oriented embedded database system from McObject has improved performance, stability and development ease in the open-source Frost client software for the Freenet global peer-to-peer network. The new Frost client has already been downloaded by thousands of Freenet users who are enjoying a 'much better' application experience due to Perst, according to a Frost project leader.

SourceLabs announced a Self-Support offering for Linux, as well as a similar offering for open source Java. The tools and services give developers, corporate IT professionals, and their solution providers a new way to more effectively support open source software than large vendors pushing expensive support contracts, enabling greater productivity, independence and self-reliance. Close to 3000 users registered for SourceLabs' Self-Support Suite with advanced discovery during a successful private beta program launched in December 2007.

DS Data Systems UK is pleased to announce the release of KonaKart v2.2.4.0, a free java based online shopping cart application that provides what store owners need to sell their products over the internet. KonaKart includes an extensive set of online shopping cart features to satisfy the needs of both online shoppers and store owners alike.

RIM announced a BlackBerry Java Development Environment (JDE) plug-in for Eclipse - a new development tool that enables Eclipse developers to create and test wireless applications for the BlackBerry platform from within the familiar Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The BlackBerry JDE Plug-in for Eclipse will enable Eclipse developers to create powerful mobile applications for the large and growing base of BlackBerry smartphone users around the world while maintaining a familiar Eclipse development environment. It will also allow Eclipse developers to leverage the inherent capabilities and benefits of the BlackBerry system architecture and development tools.

Phurnace Software announced the availability of its newest product, Phurnace Troubleshoot. The diagnosis and troubleshooting tool provides IT operations staff with comparisons of Java web application server configurations to identify errors, which is one of the biggest sources of system degradation and downtime. Users can purchase the product, download, install and be up and running within minutes. Users can upgrade Phurnace Troubleshoot to Phurnace Deliver, the company's flagship product that enables real-time configuration adjustments and automated application deployments.

Webtide announced that it has developed a web and application server designed to operate on Google's Android mobile platform. Android is a freely downloadable open source software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications based on Linux and Java. The port of Jetty on Android is named i-Jetty.

Google said Tuesday that it's going mobile with its Google Gears technology, the stuff that's supposed to let web-based apps run unconnected to the web, beginning with Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices ahead of its own nascent Android platform. Same day, Microsoft came out and made a victory-over-Adobe-Flash statement saying that Nokia and its Symbian OS-based phones and Internet tablets are going to embed its Silverlight plug-in, Microsoft's Flash-competitive crossbrowser/ cross-platform approach to delivering rich media and web applications.

In a move that will put pressure on EMC's VMware unit, Hitachi is claiming to have a mainframe-derived firmware approach to virtualization that's better than VMware or Xen or Microsoft. The approach has been built into a new species of Hitachi's blade servers called BladeSymphony with Virtage.

Sun and Microsoft, which have been toying with interoperability for years now with not that much to show for it, are going to open a full-fledged Sun/Microsoft Interoperability Center in Redmond to optimize Microsoft applications on Sun's x86 storage and servers. This after Sun has had a smaller presence on the campus for the last three years in Microsoft's Enterprise Engineering Center.

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.

Sun Microsystems, a creator and industry leading advocate of emerging technologies, is revolutionizing and redefining system-wide management of rich, standards-compliant, Internet applications for the next generation Web. A singular vision -- 'The Network Is The Computer' -- guides Sun in the development of state-of-the-art, power-efficient servers and storage systems to award-winning, open-source based software offerings. When it comes to Web 2.0 technologies, Sun provides best-of-breed solutions to enterprises and startups worldwide for developing, deploying, and managing the next wave of computing. For more information about Sun Microsystems, visit http: //developers.sun.com/web/

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.

Orc Software announced the release of Orc Version 7.0 for latest trading enhancements including greater performance, flexibility and liquidity access. Orc Software's VP Product Management, Joacim Wiklander, says the latest enhancements for Orc Trading meet worldwide customer demand for more complex trading capabilities: 'Advanced trading firms require solutions that deliver powerful automated trading functionality, strong analytics, extensible market access, ultra-low latency and risk management.'

SOA is mostly associated to technologies such as BPEL, SCA and Web Services. But does SOA really imply these technologies? In this session we will show how you can use the service oriented approach while staying inside the Java world. jBPM is a powerful lightweight framework that can be used to orchestrate services in the broadest sense. It is highly extendable, very versatile and can be easily embedded in client and/or server applications. Attendees will learn how jBPM can be used in a pure workflow scenario as well as in a situation involving automated business steps.

Sun Microsystems is a very respectful company, with strong engineering spirit and talented software developers on staff. Sun Microsystems was the company behind the very first technology to support rich Internet applications. Yes, I'm talking about Java applets that were introduced in 1995. The same setup as we see today in the RIA world: a JVM, that is a Web browser plugin and compiled byte code that offers rich UI. But after that, in my opinion, Sun's Java decision makers made a couple of serious mistakes:

I think the iPhone is a great platform for the future of mobile computing, and developers should be free to develop applications for the world in Java. Will Apple even allow the JVM to exist? If the JVM is allowed, will things like Ruby on the JVM come next for quick application development? There are so many questions and it's very exciting to think about.

Sun Microsystems has announced that they are going to use the iPhone's SDK to develop a version of JAVA for this new platform. With this Java would come to both Apple iPhone and Apple iPod Touch. This is great news for the device as it would enable the users of these two devices to access hundreds of Java applications available online.

Pervasive Software announced the results of two benchmark tests that ran Pervasive DataRush, a Java development framework for building parallel data processing applications for multicore hardware, on a 32-core HP Integrity server running HP-UX 11i with HP Java Platform, Standard Edition 6 (Java SE 6) Version 6.0.00. The K-means and Levenshtein edit distance tests recorded linear scalability for Pervasive DataRush across all 32 cores.

GridGrain Systems announced the release of GridGrain 2.0, the next version of open-source Java grid computing platform. GridGain 2.0 provides an open-source grid computing infrastructure that combines a focus on Enterprise Java and enhanced features. Since its release in August 2007 GridGain became the fastest growing Java grid computing infrastructure with over 10,000 downloads and more than 500 projects utilizing it, and deployed in a dozen production systems.

Sun Microsystems and the Forum do Sistema Brasileiro de TV Digital Terrestre (Forum SBTVD took a big step forward in providing an affordable alternative for DTV conversion. The organizations announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding to join forces in the development of an open-source content platform based on Java technology for use in the country-wide conversion of television applications and services.