VMware, Inc., the global leader in software for industry-standard virtualized desktops and servers, today announced the general availability of VMware Workstation 6, the sixth generation of its desktop virtualization software product. VMware Workstation 6 delivers groundbreaking advances in virtualization technology while offering numerous new features such as Windows Vista support, as well as industry-first support for multiple display monitors and USB 2.0 devices, making it highly appealing to IT administrators, developers, testers and other technical professionals and enthusiasts.

Software AG announced the availability of the SOA Value Assessment, a unique tool that helps CIOs identify the specific value of an SOA for their organization. Software AG commissioned Forrester Consulting to develop this innovative model so organizations can analyze where SOA can offer a substantial economic benefit. The model identifies which IT and business process areas are most likely to be improved by adopting an SOA. This strategic assessment helps organizations justify the cost of SOA with greater accuracy. In addition, the model highlights how governance can increase the value of an SOA. The availability of the SOA Value Assessment is another step in implementing Software AG's strategy to double revenue to 1 billion euro by 2011 through SOA technology and market leadership.

Representatives of Active Endpoints, AmberPoint, BEA Systems, BMC Software, CA, Forum Systems, HP, IBM, IONA, Novell, Microsoft, Progress Software, Red Hat, SOA Software, TIBCO, VeriSign, webMethods, and others make up the OASIS WS-Federation Technical Committee. Participation remains open to all companies, non-profit groups, governments, academic institutions, and individuals.

Sybase, Inc. , a leading provider of enterprise infrastructure and mobile software, today reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2007.

Cape Clear Software, the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Platform leader, announced the general availability of Cape Clear 7, which is designed to meet the challenging reliability, scalability, and performance requirements of the rapidly-growing On-Demand Integration market. In development for more than a year and beta tested by more than 150 customers, the Cape Clear 7 ESB Platform delivers uptime and rapid recovery with unprecedented scalability. In an Intel benchmarking study, Cape Clear 7 supported more than 5 million simultaneous BPEL business processes, and generated more than 37 million daily transactions without compromising performance. Cape Clear 7 also ships an advanced implementation of the Eclipse toolset for rapid ESB Platform development and management, all from within one integrated and easy-to-use environment. Cape Clear 7 ESB Platform is now generally available.

As more companies turn to XML for the exchange of mission-critical data with trading partners, to conduct e-commerce and to ease data aggregation and Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) integration projects, they are seeking tools to easily convert legacy data formats into XML and back without a major re-architecting of their applications

DataMirror, a provider of real-time data integration and data protection solutions, now provides real-time end-to-end integration between databases and messaging infrastructure. Transformation Server/ES (Event Server) provides support for bi-directional data integration by sourcing large message volumes from relational databases, and message queues and applying the information to mission-critical databases and applications. New features of TS/ES now enable the product to process high volume 3rd party message structures directly from queues and parse and embed that data without programming into relational database formats.

LANDesk Software, a leading provider of systems, security, and process management solutions for desktops, servers and mobile devices across the enterprise, today announced an OEM relationship with Thinstall, a leading application virtualization solution provider. The two companies have agreed to collaborate on the integration of Thinstall's application virtualization technology into LANDesk's systems management solutions. This integration is designed to give customers the ability to deploy and manage virtualized applications in heterogeneous IT environments.

Roy Schulte, VP at Gartner and its research team leader for Application Integration and Middleware, discusses trends and practices for SOA in this brand-new webinar presented by MetaMatrix. In particular, Schulte underlines the important role being played by Data Services.

Egenera, Inc., the data center virtualizationcompany, today announced that GXS, a leading provider ofbusiness-to-business (B2B) e-commerce solutions, has deployed theEgenera® BladeFrame® system to support the newly launched GXS TradingGrid® Ultra infrastructure. GXS Trading Grid facilitates the exchange ofgoods and services between companies, improves visibility into globallogistics operations and enables the synchronization of product data withinand between companies.

Scalent Systems, the leading provider ofserver infrastructure repurposing software for large enterprise datacenters, announced that Kevin Epstein has joined its executive teamas vice president of marketing. Kevin will lead corporate branding and marketing program efforts for Scalent. He brings with him a wealth ofexperience in driving marketing strategy for enterprise and infrastruc turevirtualization software companies.

Questra Corporation, the leader in Intelligent Device Management (IDM), has announced that the Questra IDM Application Suite(TM) version 5.2s, the first IDM solution to be developed in compliance with industry-standard Enterprise Service-Oriented Architecture (Enterprise SOA), is generally available. Version 5.2s empowers Questra customers and partners to perform seamless, sophisticated business process innovation and integration, combining device performance data with other business application data for increased productivity and revenues. It is the foundation for Questra's own value-added products, including the Questra RemoteService(TM) Composite Application version 2.0, which is also now available for purchase.

Security has the inherent nature of spanning many different layers of a Web Services system. Web Services vulnerabilities can be present in the operating system, the network, the database, the Web server, the application server, the XML parser, the Web Services implementation stack, the application code, the XML firewall, the Web Service monitoring or management appliance, or just about any other component in your Web Services system.

Hifn(TM), the power behind network and information security, and FalconStor Software, Inc., the market leader in disk-based data protection solutions, announced today the integration of Hifn's Express DR 1000 storage reduction solution with FalconStor's VirtualTape Library based on the IPStor(R) platform. Improving storage efficiency for backup is the first application to arise from this new partnership.

At Storage Networking World, VMware, Inc., the global leader in software for industry- standard virtualized desktops and servers, today announced that it is expanding its hardware certification program to accommodate the numerous vendors interested in certifying their I/O devices, servers and storage arrays with VMware Infrastructure. As part of the program, two independent testing laboratories, AppLabs Technologies and Cognizant, are now authorized to test products for certification with VMware Infrastructure so that they can be placed on the VMware support matrix, giving customers even greater choice in the hardware they are able to deploy with VMware Infrastructure.

EMC Corporation , the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, today announced the newest versions of its e-mail and file system archiving software to further simplify management of crucial electronically stored information (ESI) to meet internal and external governance requirements. EMC(R) EmailXtender(R) 4.8 software gives customers a new, flexible approach to e-mail archiving, enabling administrators to easily monitor archive operational efficiency. The new EMC DiskXtender(R) 6.2 for Windows file system archiving software enables customers to easily search single or multiple file systems, making electronic discovery more accurate, fast and affordable.

A couple of weeks ago I stopped by at our publisher's offices (SYS-CON Media) and they showed me our Flex book with the correct cover, but all pages were blank. Yesterday, I've got an email from them with the words, 'Yakov your book is ready, stop by and pick it up'. The guys from production department are really nice, so they've attached this video just to show me that the book is really really finally super-duper ready. Check this out (the video file is large though).

Virtualization Conference & Expo is the leading event covering the booming market of Virtualization for the enterprise, with experts on server, storage, application and desktop technologies. The conference will contain multiple sessions on how to improve application efficiency and lower costs by leveraging network and computing resources. Combined with SOA, Virtualization will help you take your applications and platforms to the next level. At the first international Virtualization Conference & Expo, you will hear from industry experts already out in the field on how to use Virtualization to increase uptime; accelerate storage and application speed; lower costs, improve utilization; and make your infrastructure strong, flexible and secure.

'Sometimes we spend more time arguing about IT trends than actually using them,' says SOAWorld 2007 speaker John Evdemon, a Microsoft architect. 'In 2007, the tools and specifications we need for enterprise-strength, loosely-coupled solutions have finally arrived its time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.' SOA World will help developers, architects, IT managers, and CTOs to 'get to work' on their SOA iniatives by suffusing them with technically astute insights and information. By the end of the 3 days they will be deeply informed about multiple aspects of this fast-emerging style of information systems architecture that enables the creation of applications built by combining loosely-coupled and interoperable services.

Datalink , an independent information storage architect, announced today that Rob Beyer has been named vice president of field operations. Beyer will oversee the company's sales, customer support, and professional services operations in 21 locations across the United States.

Crosscheck Networks, Inc., the leading provider of Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) testing products today announced that it has been selected to conduct a full-day training program, The Art and Science of SOA Testing, at STAREAST 2007 on Tuesday, May 15, 2007.

Trivera Technologies provides premier technical education, mentoring and courseware development and licensing services for developers, managers and engineers of all skill levels. Trivera has the unique strength, focus, and depth of talent needed to help our clients build the technology teams that are creating and securing their future. Headquartered in New Jersey, but with world-wide delivery, our instructors and mentors boast an average of 20 years experience in software design, development and deployment, bringing their extensive real-world experience into every classroom and development project. The company focuses on advanced technologies and enterprise development solutions, such as Java, J2EE, XML, object-oriented design, software engineering, service-oriented architecture, testing, troubleshooting and more. We specialize but are not limited to training in IBM WebSphere, Rational, WebLogic, Eclipse, JBoss and much more.

Nexaweb® Technologies, Inc., provider ofthe leading standards-based platform for building and deploying Enterprise Web 2.0 (EW2.0) applications, today announced that a new, independent research report by Aberdeen Group examines how organizations can accelerate business change and 'future proof' IT investment by taking a standardized approach to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and composite application development. Aberdeen and Nexaweb will review this report, offer recommendations, and discuss solutions during a live eConference on Thursday, April 26th at 3 p.m. EDT / 12 p.m. PDT.

Office Open XML (OOXML), Microsoft's answer to the upstart open source Open Document Format (ODF), has passed to the nextOffice Open XML (OOXML), Microsoft's answer to the upstart open source Open Document Format (ODF), has passed to the next hurdle on its way to fast-track ISO standardization just like ODF: a five-month-long ballot by the national members of ISO and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) that stays open until September 2. hurdle on its way to fast-track ISO standardization just like ODF: a five-month-long ballot by the national members of ISO and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) that stays open until September 2.

The natural visualization of a business process is of boxes and arrows arranged in a tree-like formation. A large process with numerous conditional paths forms a rather expansive tree that can't fir on a computer screen or printed page. If the process has loops, these are often represented as arrows pointing back to earlier boxes, resulting in an untidy graph structure. Although BPEL isn't a visual process language, its XML representation can form code trees that are no less cumbersome. A receive inside a sequence inside a flow inside a switch inside a pick, even if properly indented, can make a coder see double.

Software AG (TecDAX, ISIN DE 0003304002 / SOW), Europe's largest systems software and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) provider, and webMethods, Inc. , a leading business integration and optimization software company, today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement for Software AG to acquire webMethods in a cash tender offer for $9.15 per share or approximately $546 million.

Stratus Technologies, Inc. announced today its membership in the VMware Community Source program, which enables Stratus to collaborate on highly available and reliable virtualization solutions. The program provides Stratus and other vendors with the opportunity to work with VMware on VMware ESX Server source code development and product direction under a royalty-free license. Program members may use the source code to contribute shared code to the community or to interface their own differentiated, intellectual property-protected products with VMware ESX Server.

Mindreef SOAPscope Server is the industry's first and only collaborative platform for shared, on-demand access to SOA quality expertise and assets. Designed for agile SOA development environments, Mindreef SOAPscope Server provides SOA developers, QA teams and service consumers with easy-to-use automated testing tools designed specifically for Web services, contracts and interfaces, combined with design-time governance validation and lifecycle support features for architects, analysts, support and IT. The resulting trust in high-quality services leads to increased adoption and reuse of Web services throughout the SOA.

A Google News Search on 'SOA' returns roughly 2,488 active SOA and Web Services news stories covering the time frame of the past 30 days, out of which only two of them reference Polarlake, the SOA vendor. The company issued only one press release (news) this year and the last news heard from this SOA vendor in Ireland was in November 2006. A news seach on another Irish SOA vendor, Cape Clear, returned 54 Google News stories in the past 30 day period.

The Open SOA Collaboration, a group of 18 vendors, is going to turn its Service Component Architecture (SCA) and Service Data Objects (SDO) specification over to OASIS to standardize the widgetry. The SCA spec is supposed to simplify services building and the SDO is supposed to enable uniform access to data residing in multiple locations and formats. The Java piece of the SDO will go to the Java Community Process, the non-Java side to OASIS.

Postini, a global leader in on-demand communications security and compliance solutions for email, instant messaging and the web, today announced new additions and enhancements to its integrated suite of Software as a Service solutions. Postini's solutions are designed to protect businesses worldwide from threats to their electronic communications, control business policies, secure intellectual property, assure privacy, and ease compliance with legal and industry mandates for the retention and discovery of email and instant messages.

SCA is a powerful and simple business level programming model that extends prior approaches to be able to implement services based solutions. SCA defines how services can be described, assembled, and deployed in a meta-data driven fashion, independent of an implementation language and a deployment platform. The approach is based on the idea that each business function consists of one or more components brought together into a composite application. These, in turn, are composed into a network of services that create specific business solutions.

Gateway, Inc. today announced that its new E-9722R server won the Best of FOSE 2007 Award for the Enterprise Hardware category. We're thrilled to be honored with a Best of FOSE Award for our new 3U rack server,' said Tim Diefenthaler, Gateway senior director, professional product management. 'Leveraging four dual-core processors, memory expansion and twelve hard drives, our E-9722R is ideal for virtualization, which more and more government customers are using to consolidate their resources. Together with our number one customer satisfaction rankings from Technology Business Research for corporate desktops and notebooks, this award confirms that we're delivering the innovative products and outstanding service customers want.'

JustSystems, Inc., a global enterprise software company, has announced three important additions to its Partner Program. The 4-tier program, categorized into Strategic Partner, Premier Certified, Certified and Associate designations, was created earlier this year to reflect the company?s focus on quality partners that will add value through complementary software and services to support an end-to-end content lifecycle solution.

Well, OK, AJAX does stand for 'Asynchronous JavaScript and XML'! But it has really come to mean in-place browser updates. So in keeping with that usage, Desiderata Software is pleased to introduce a 'No JavaScript, just Java' version of AJAX. Jaxcent is a Java API for Internet Explorer that exposes the DOM model in Java. HTML elements can be controlled, event listeners can be added, pages can be navigated, HTML can be parsed, colors can be changed, elements can be inserted, removed, or changed, things can be hidden/shown, image sources can be played with, sizes can be changed ... you get the idea. All from Java.

comScore Media Metrix today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at top online properties and categories for February 2007 and introduced a new suite of metrics based on site 'visits.' The 'visits' metric, defined as the number of times a unique person accesses content within a Web entity with breaks between access of at least 30 minutes, is a way of measuring the frequency with which a person views content, thereby illustrating a key component of user engagement. Included among the new suite of metrics are: total visits, average minutes per visit, average visits per visitor, and average visits per usage day.

Helmi Technologies Inc., the provider of an open source platform for building AJAX-based Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), is an exhibitor and speaker at AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2007 East, the leading Web 2.0 and RIA event taking place on March 19-21, 2007 in New York City.

Reactivity® Inc., the leading vendordelivering on the promise of SOA, today announced that Reactivity has beenchosen by CheckFree Corporation (NASDAQ: CKFR) for its SOA infrastructureand Web service delivery. Reactivity's Gateway serves as a mediation enginethat manages, secures and accelerates Web services designed for CheckFreeclients, simplifying the front-end development and deployment.

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a fairly recent phenomenon which often means different things to different people. While the intended benefits for businesses are business agility, business-IT alignment and better management of the IT environment, there is considerable skepticism amongst many, given that vendors have adopted varied approaches.

MetaCarta®, Inc., the leading provider ofgeographic intelligence solutions, today announced support for KML (KeyholeMarkup Language) for MetaCarta Geographic Text Search (GTS) and MetaCartageOdrive. For the first time, companies and governments can now searchunstructured text documents for geographic locations and visualize thesereferences on a map using Google Earth, ESRI ArcGIS Explorer or NASA WorldWind interfaces.