The Appification Of Everything Will Transform The World’s 360 Million Web Sites - Forbes There is a seismic shift underway in the digital world that within a decade will completely transform the web into an App-o-verse. Several simultaneous trends are stacking up to change how we consume and create digital content, and platform companies are positioning themselves to enable the process. What we are seeing are the early stages of what I call, “The Appification of Everything.” This is not about adding more icons to your home screen, though, but about a fundamental shift in how we metabolize information and entertainment. The web as the universal storage medium is being superseded by the internet as universal flow medium. Instead of thinking about the web as a hierarchical tree of documents—a Wikipedia of Wikipedias—we need to start thinking about all of that content as an underlying service layer for application-based interfaces.

The Appification Of Everything Will Transform The World’s 360 Million Web Sites - Forbes

There is a seismic shift underway in the digital world that within a decade will completely transform the web into an App-o-verse. Several simultaneous trends are stacking up to change how we consume and create digital content, and platform companies are positioning themselves to enable the process.

What we are seeing are the early stages of what I call, “The Appification of Everything.” This is not about adding more icons to your home screen, though, but about a fundamental shift in how we metabolize information and entertainment. The web as the universal storage medium is being superseded by the internet as universal flow medium. Instead of thinking about the web as a hierarchical tree of documents—a Wikipedia of Wikipedias—we need to start thinking about all of that content as an underlying service layer for application-based interfaces.

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Farm Software Tries to Make Its Mark - NYTimes.com

THE world doesn’t necessarily need the gazillion-and-one games that seem available on smartphones. But it could use more apps and services that address the needs of business people with specialized needs. Like farmers.

Wesley Bedrosian

FarmLogs, a start-up based in Ann Arbor, Mich., is a one of a few new companies that are making a pitch to farmers. It offers a cloud-based software service — no software is downloaded; only a Web browser is needed — that embodies the latest technology

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 In one view, a farmer can see rectangular representations of what is planted on each field. A click leads to a log of what was done when on each field: tilling on this date, fertilizing on that date, spraying on another.

With the data stored in one place, it can be combined with information from other sources and used by the farmers. If they need, they can also share it easily with consulting agronomists, crop insurance agents, the Agriculture Department and others.

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Enterprise Needs Social Software Standards, IBM Says - The BrainYard - InformationWeek

Next week’s IBM-sponsored W3C Social Business Jam will seek Enterprise 2.0 progress.

IBM believes social software needs to do more to adopt, promote, and enhance standards for enterprise collaboration and is sponsoring a World Wide Web Consortium event to promote the state of the art.

The W3C Social Business Jam will be held as a series of online meetings conducted over the course of three days, Nov. 8-10. Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president for business and technology strategy with IBM Collaboration Solutions, said standards are important for what IBM sees as the basic elements of enterprise social networking: reaching people, engaging with people, allowing people to interact and discover information about interactions, and enabling employees to act on the information they get through social media.

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IBM has embraced — nearly — the growing “bring your own device” trend of allowing employees to buy and use their own smartphones and tablets for work tasks, said IBM’s CTO for mobility, Bill Bodin.

By the end of the year, 100,000 IBM employees will be able to connect handheld devices of their choosing to IBM’s internal networks, which have recently been fortified to provide enhanced mobile security, Bodin said in an interview with Computerworld. Another 100,000 employees will be brought on board in 2012, for a total of 200,000 people, or about half of IBM’s global workforce.

Based on recent consumer buying trends, Bodin said he expects that the majority of those 200,000 workers will pick an iPhone, an Android smartphone or a tablet. The employees will pay for their own devices and monthly service plans, but they will receive IBM’s guidance and technical support.

Users will also be required to load IBM’s agent software on their gear for secure access to IBM’s systems, email and other functions. Initially, IBM workers will have email, contacts and calendar access through IBM Lotus Traveler, Bodin said. In addition to installing agent software on each device, IBM will enhance security through the use of VPNs and by requiring passwords for access to systems. The company will also deploy endpoint management tools that will allow IT managers to wipe data off devices that are lost or stolen.

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IBM opens up ‘bring your own device’ support for its workers | ITworld

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“More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services—from movies to agriculture to national defense. Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technology companies that are invading and overturning established industry structures. Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not.”

Marc Andreessen on Why Software Is Eating the World - WSJ.com

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Smart software for self-regulating smart grid Siemens and the utility company Allgauer Uberlandwerk (AUW) in the city of Kempten, Germany, are testing the smart grids of the future. The tests focus on optimized power distribution and the use of a self-organizing energy automation system for efficient network operation. Source: Physorg.como

Smart software for self-regulating smart grid

Siemens and the utility company Allgauer Uberlandwerk (AUW) in the city of Kempten, Germany, are testing the smart grids of the future. The tests focus on optimized power distribution and the use of a self-organizing energy automation system for efficient network operation.

Source: Physorg.com
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IBM tells story of the Chevy Volt’s complex engineering The Chevrolet Volt is a prime example of the need for unified methods to address the complexity and software content in embedded system design, according to Meg Selfe, vice president for complex and embedded systems at IBM Rational. Selfe’s keynote speech at the Embedded Systems Conference focused on the design and engineering behind Chevy’s breakthrough plug-in vehicle. According to EE Times, Selfe talked of IBM’s role in helping streamline General Motors’ design process. Due to this streamlining, the Volt went from a showy concept to a production vehicle in just 29 months, compared to the 60-month design cycle of most automobiles. As Selfe stated: They focused on time to market, and they had to because it was a life or death moment for them. They were in a near-death experience, so they brought together their best thousand engineers. They were changing the way in which they did engineering. Specifically, GM streamlined the Volt engineering team’s tools and processes and, according to Selfe, “it was like a battle of the tools.” In the end, says Selfe, The General “put more of the design in-house,” which was a risk that paid off. Source: Autoblog

IBM tells story of the Chevy Volt’s complex engineering

The Chevrolet Volt is a prime example of the need for unified methods to address the complexity and software content in embedded system design, according to Meg Selfe, vice president for complex and embedded systems at IBM Rational. Selfe’s keynote speech at the Embedded Systems Conference focused on the design and engineering behind Chevy’s breakthrough plug-in vehicle.

According to EE Times, Selfe talked of IBM’s role in helping streamline General Motors’ design process. Due to this streamlining, the Volt went from a showy concept to a production vehicle in just 29 months, compared to the 60-month design cycle of most automobiles. As Selfe stated:

They focused on time to market, and they had to because it was a life or death moment for them. They were in a near-death experience, so they brought together their best thousand engineers. They were changing the way in which they did engineering.

Specifically, GM streamlined the Volt engineering team’s tools and processes and, according to Selfe, “it was like a battle of the tools.” In the end, says Selfe, The General “put more of the design in-house,” which was a risk that paid off.

Source: Autoblog

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GM: Without software, Chevy Volt is stuck in neutral | Green Tech - CNET News The Chevy Volt is as much a software engineering accomplishment as it was a mechanical engineering challenge, according to General Motors. General Motors today plans to bring the Chevy Volt to IBM’s Raleigh, N.C., offices to show off the electric car and celebrate its partnership with IBM’s software business in making the Volt. With the Volt, GM aimed to not only break new ground in electric powertrains but it also decided to make a demonstrably high-tech car, complete with an Internet connection and smartphone-inspired in-car controls. To make that happen, software engineers took on one of the most sophisticated projects at GM, said Micky Bly, executive director of electrical systems, hybrids, electric vehicles and batteries at GM. “We haven’t done a vehicle this complex in the history of GM,” Bly said on Friday. “The software—the control side—is what ties together (the mechanical components)…It’s really the heart and soul of how the car performs.” 

GM: Without software, Chevy Volt is stuck in neutral | Green Tech - CNET News

The Chevy Volt is as much a software engineering accomplishment as it was a mechanical engineering challenge, according to General Motors. General Motors today plans to bring the Chevy Volt to IBM’s Raleigh, N.C., offices to show off the electric car and celebrate its partnership with IBM’s software business in making the Volt. With the Volt, GM aimed to not only break new ground in electric powertrains but it also decided to make a demonstrably high-tech car, complete with an Internet connection and smartphone-inspired in-car controls. To make that happen, software engineers took on one of the most sophisticated projects at GM, said Micky Bly, executive director of electrical systems, hybrids, electric vehicles and batteries at GM. “We haven’t done a vehicle this complex in the history of GM,” Bly said on Friday. “The software—the control side—is what ties together (the mechanical components)…It’s really the heart and soul of how the car performs.” 

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I.B.M’s Bid to Woo Software Start-Ups


I.B.M. wants to enlist fledgling software companies in its Smarter Planet strategy, which seeks to apply technology to big challenges like improving the efficiency of energy use, water management, transportation and health care.

To entice start-ups to its camp, the International Business Machines Corporation on Wednesday is announcing that it will offer them free access to the company’s software for up to three years. To qualify, companies must be private, in business for less than three years and developing software that is in sync with the I.B.M. strategy.

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“Want to test an IBM product in a sandbox environment? Use a sandbox to try it out. A sandbox lets you try several products, configured to run together, in a virtual, hosted environment. If you know the product you’d like to try, use the following table to find the sandbox where it’s running in a preconfigured environment.”

IBM developerWorks : Want to test an IBM product in a sandbox environment?

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IBM Opens Analytics Center In China — InformationWeek IBM said it launched a new facility in China that will focus on developing software designed to help companies in the People’s Republic make better business decisions. The China Analytics Solution Center is located in IBM’s China Business Innovation Center in Beijing, IBM said Monday. It will be initially staffed with 300 software engineers and mathematicians, with plans to add another 300 workers “as demand grows,” according to IBM.

IBM Opens Analytics Center In China — InformationWeek

IBM said it launched a new facility in China that will focus on developing software designed to help companies in the People’s Republic make better business decisions. The China Analytics Solution Center is located in IBM’s China Business Innovation Center in Beijing, IBM said Monday. It will be initially staffed with 300 software engineers and mathematicians, with plans to add another 300 workers “as demand grows,” according to IBM.

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