Software application development
This blog is intended to provoke discussion and exchange between like minded software application developers, engineers, architects, project managers - and keen hobbyists too.
Wednesday 24 June 2009, 7:48 AM
Web Middleware – The Next Great Developer Cash Cow?
The company's lead development guru and I got to talking about this level of web service technology and questioned whether “web middleware” will be the next cash cow for Internet revenue streams. Looking the term up during our meeting I was slightly embarrassed to see that it has been in relatively wide usage for over a decade now – one of the earliest references being a story on InfoWorld.
But should I have been embarrassed? Is this a burgeoning technology that is set to be the next major earner for web 2.0 (and dare I say it – even web 3.0) focused firms?
Intel James Reinders talks often about the fact that some technologies surface, spend a decade or so in a kind of 'developing but not quite ready yet' development phase – and then enjoy full adoption.
In the same morning I got to reading about an outfit called TheWebService
whose SOA-based – yet to be formally announced – 'offering' will, according to the company, address the issue of integrating disparate data silos without using 'costly' middleware & programming teams.
Well firstly, I question the term costly. A lot of this web middleware is sold on a license basis for as little as ten pounds per month. But let's get to the punchline.
Corporate data becomes, disparate, fragmented, unmanaged and badly stockpiled in different formats. Yes we know that. But TheWebService's MD
Guy Mucklow reckons that his new web service technology can seek out and integrate this data, then pipe it in real-time through a secure web-based platform.
“Automatic code generation will even let IT depts build their own web services around the live data, with myriad applications - e.g. current stock levels can be displayed on a customer-facing web site,” said Mucklow. “The idea of MyFeeds means users can effectively 'mashup' their own data with commercial sets, for matching, screening, enhancement or anything else, without having to build a dedicated data mart.”
So, mashed up web data that is integrated into commercially-driven and correctly monetised platforms could be just what Twitter needs to start making money. For Twitter, web middleware really ought to be the cash cow then? If they know that x% of people in Russia posted URLs related to xyz subject between 10am and midday, then leveraging that data in a mashed up integrated contextualised way is what it's all about. Or at least it could be soon. Don't ya reckon?
PreviousComments on this post
Was it "cash cow" or "web middleware" the term you were non-informed about. lol! Couldn't resist.
I used to call all that stuff software. It is or was the same problem business programmers have been dealing with for decades. Just the venue has changed. Using all the disparate databases was called data-mining, I thought.
I suspect that there will be only slightly fewer ways to deal with the data collation issue then there are programmers. Not everybody is going to be happy with someone's alternate solution, even if it works.
The phrase "Automatic code generation" is around now for at least the third or fourth time this decade alone. I guess they didn't get it right all those times before. By the time they've figured out all the bugs in the "Automatic Compiler", meaning the underlying application has stopped changing, then the application and the "Auto-Compiler" will be obsolete.
I'd be happy if the freaking compilers could just debug the code automatically without me having to bang on it all the time.
If there ever is a truly functional "Automatic code generator", lookout! That's the basis of every scary "computer/AI/robots take over the world" bad sci-fi movie or TV show ever made.
Programmers aren't going to put themselves out of job! The world is safe until then.
OK OK I get it - I was just being nice and open and honest as that is my style :-)
But you make a good point - we hear so damn much about automation tools don't we? But at the same time we know that, as you say, programmers aren't going to put themselves out of job.
Food for more thought and pondering for sure I say.
AdrianB
