Future of the Web: 2010 and beyond

Before we continue, here's wishing all of you from around the world, a very happy new year, and the start of another decade.

The beginning of the first decade of this century saw the emergence of the Internet and the web as a force to reckon with. "Web 1.0", as it is now called, in hindsight, saw a number of ups and downs [who can forget the bubble], but nevertheless for those who had the courage (and luck, and of course the creativity) to weather that storm, caught the attention of the people of this world.

Without the belief that the web was a force to reckon with, we would not have seen the maturing of the "web as a platform". And, experts say, "Web 2.0" (See post: What is Web 2.0?) - the present generation of stuff that's enabled via the now, almost ubiquitous Internet, is only just beginning to exploit what's possible.

So, what does the future of the Web hold, as we embark on yet another exciting start to this decade, with renewed hopes of economic recovery, the increased penetration of the web in our daily lives, a larger digital people and the hype & promise of Cloud Computing (See post: What is Cloud Computing?)?

Nova Spivack, a technology visionary, has written about the past, present and future of the web. His famous graph (see below), depicting the evolution of the web seems to offer some hint to what the future of the web holds.


Nova blogs extensively - and very thoughtfully - and what's really unique about the web-evolution graph, is how he has divided the evolution, more on the basis of time (decade-wise), to depict the incrementally [smarter] web. This is quite in contrast to what many folks often times tend to interpret as the progressively "next, technology-driven version" of the web.

As we enter the third decade of the web (and hence 'Web 3.0'), Semantic Web seems to be the central theme and some of the early innovations are already beginning to see the light of day, even as the sun has set on 2009.

What's New in Java EE 6?

Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 6 (Java EE 6) is almost here - slated for release in Q4 2009.

Java EE 6 includes, besides improvements over Java EE 5, the following key themes:

• Profiles (Targetted bundles of technology)
• Pruning (Making some technologies optional (Current list includes: JAX-RPC, EJB 2.x Entity Beans, JAXR, JSR-85)
• Extensibility (Embrace open source libraries & frameworks)
• Ease of development
• EJB Lite
• RESTful Services
• Dependency Injection (at long last?!)
  

And, to summarize the new features, these include:

• EJB 3.1 (JSR 318) [Ease of use, No-interface view, Portable JNDI, Singleton Beans, Timer Service and more]
• JPA 2.0 (JSR 317)
• Servlet 3.0 (JSR 315) [Annotations, Optional web.xml/fragments, better defaults, Asynchronous Processing]
• JSF 2.0 (JSR 314) [AJAX, Simplified component creation]
• JAX-RS 1.1 (JSR 311) [RESTful services]
• Connector Arch 1.6
• Web Beans 1.0 (JSR 299)
• Bean Validation 1.0 (JSR 303)

And, corresponding to the availability of Java EE 6, GlassFish v3 is also coming along by around the same timeframe.

You can get the full details from the following presentation by Sun Microsystems:

Sun Java EE 6 Overview

Windows 7 is here!

Microsoft finally launched Windows 7, its latest OS - after an extended beta, on 22 Oct, 09.

Windows7 is intended to undo many of the shortcomings that failed for Microsoft Vista, and promises a load of features.

Click here to enlarge the tag cloud

Some of the prominently talked about features include:

• Desktop Enhancements and packed with options for customization
• Live Taskbar Previews - A nifty feature on the newly designed TaskBar
• Aero Peek and AeroShake - A new way to "minimize" windows on the desktop
• An all new Explorer, supported by the new Windows Search, Libraries, and HomeGroups
  
• Parental Controls and Improved Security/User Access Controls (UAC)
• XP Compatibility Mode
  

There are a whole lot of features - and you can view the quick demos (7 second demos, as they are called) and the full listing here.

If you want a quick peek into what some of these features are all about, here's a brief video (still based on the Beta, but i'll post another if I find a more recent one):




When you think about it, a lot of these features are pretty neat and are geared to enriching the overall experience and productivity for the user. You wonder, how far things have come from what really an OS should really offer. And, with the present trend of rich experiences, faster online access and al things "Web 2.0", Windows7 seems to be offering just that - performance, security and experience.

Surely it's easy for users and critics to comment on a lot of the things that may not necessarily be up to one's expectations. But, coming from a technical perspective, its hard, if not, impossible, to imagine, design, architect and then implement something that's suited for such a large and varied user base. At a risk of sounding like being too 'pro-Microsoft/Windows', it's worth acknowledging that Windows sure has come a long way from the days of Windows 3.1.

Will there be a newer, better Windows down the line, or will the Mac & Linux (or is it Chrome OS?) genres ultimately rule? The whole world will watch the release of Windows7 - and while competitors will hope otherwise, it's probably wise to hope and expect that Windows 7 should fare MUCH better than its predecessor, Vista.

Cisco's Cloud Strategy

Padmasree Warrior, CTO, Cisco Systems, in this presentation (from slideshare.net) describes the 'Future of Government IT' and how Cisco, with it's cloud strategy, is building the strategy for the same.

Padmasree Warrior - Enterprise Architecture 2009

View more documents from George Gonzalez.

Force.com - Platform as a Service

Here's an amazing video from SalesForce.com, the current leader in SaaS, that elicits the constant and amazing changes that we have witnessed through the past four or five decades, and how force.com has again changed things!




On a slightly personal note, it's also exciting to have witnessed - and be a witness - to some of these changes, and how they are influencing our lives. What's even more exciting for me is to be able to work in this field, and create such solutions and architectures as well!