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AS OF 5/17/2008 11:58AM EST
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2005 — May We Have The Envelopes Please
Last year will be viewed as an important transitional period for enterprise software developers.
By SD Times News Team
May 15, 2005 —
Many trends evolved during the twelve months of 2004, moving from being new, interesting ideas to becoming part of our industry’s infrastructure. The SD Times 100 is our attempt to recognize the players behind those trends. Each year, we seek to identify the movers and shakers. Not merely the biggest of the big (though such companies are nearly always influential), the companies and organizations cited in the SD Times 100 are those that we believe demonstrated the greatest amount of leadership, either through market clout or meaningful technological innovation.
The word “meaningful” is important: A clever new tool or interesting paradigm isn’t enough to demonstrate leadership. To lead, others must follow. We define the SD Times 100 as being those organizations, individuals or movements that were talked about, those that created not only great technology but also great buzz.
Sometimes leadership drives an industry in the wrong direction. Such was the case with one of the most controversial companies mentioned in last year’s SD Times 100, published in the May 15 issue. We took some heat for naming The SCO Group as a top influencer. As we said at the time, “The company’s legal assaults on IBM and Linux users dominated 2003’s tech headlines and shook up the open-source community. No other IT topic inspires such fervent debate, fear, uncertainty and doubt.”
Our choice was controversial. Many readers felt that by recognizing SCO, we were endorsing the company’s initiatives. But we stand behind our recognition of SCO, because the company set off a firestorm of debate within the entire IT industry, minor aftershocks of which are still being felt today. If that doesn’t define influence, nothing does.
Of course, fame may be fleeting. You won’t find SCO listed among this year’s SD Times 100 companies. Why? Even though the courts haven’t yet ruled on the legal case, the software development community has voted the company, and its tactics, off the island. Open-source software is stronger now than it was before SCO began its assaults; look at the tremendous success of Eclipse and JBoss, for example, Sun’s initiatives around OpenSolaris, and the re-emergence of Novell as serious player. In other words, the FUD flopped.
Below is a partial list of the winners, the standout entry from each category. For the full list, please download the PDF edition of the 05/15/2005 issue and turn to page 29.
Collaboration & SCM—VA Software
A shift to Java and the launch of a site for building add-ons to SourceForge helped maintain the company's position as the gold standard for internal and external collaboration efforts.
Components & Libraries—Infragistics
Went beyond Windows, Java component suite with resources to help application designers as well as developers; new test automation tools provide advantage for exercising presentation layer QA.
Database & Data Access—ORACLE
Oracle 10g, which came out in early 2004, pushed grids into the foreground; no competitors have a credible response. 10g R2 similarly raised the bar for database availability.
Deployment Platforms—Microsoft Corporation
Despite two delays, the exercise of Windows power continues to pay off, as seemingly half the world flocks to the .NET framework and the other half scramble to complete against or connect to it.
Embedded & Mobile—Sun Microsystems
Made wireless strides with numerous JSR's; implemented real time JVM. Plus, Java Phone has become a de facto standard mobile platform.
Influencers—'The Bazaar'.
Corporate embrace of open-source communities kicked many projects to the next level. the commercial support now found in Eric Raymond's concept of 'The Bazaar' creates the ideal synergy between altruism and enterprise acceptance.
Integration & Middleware—Ascentrial
Informix spin-off strengthened its leading market position and strategic alliances as integration players—so much that IBM, which bought the rest of Informix, ultimately acquired it too.
Modeling—I.B.M.
The yardstick everyone measures against. "Atlantic" tied Rational's modeling tools to Eclipse 3.0 and to the rest of the IBM tool chain. Rose (now Rose XDE) remains the de facto standard modeler.
Test & Performance—Agitar Software
Shaken and stirred: An innovative approach to exercise code raises the bar on Java application quality. Test automation, clever tools and pushing testing back into the coding process are all winners.
Tools & Environment—Eclipse Community
The newly independent Eclipse community became all the rage with heady marketing buzz and third-party momentum for tools and plug-ins. a board packed with competitors makes a level playing field.
Get the full list here (page 29).
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