Windows gets a splash of Indigo

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data means lower cost for integration projects, which can go into millions of dollars for large projects.

Financial-services company FirstCommand opted for integration software from Sonic Software, which sells standards-based integration software, after weighing offers from IBM, BEA, Oracle and Microsoft.

Rather than purchase software with a price tag measured in the millions, the company ended up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars, said John Quinones, the chief information officer and vice president of information at FirstCommand.

"It was significantly less expensive only because it was based on open standards," Quinones said. "It brought us to the point of doing this economically and reusing what we already had, versus having to rebuild all the interfaces between applications."

FirstCommand has built a services oriented architecture, a design technique that allows it to build new applications quicker by reusing common software components, or "services." Services are written to be modular and use standardized interfaces so that they can be combined with others easily.

Sonic's integration software, which sends messages between machines and provides other services, was needed as a starting point for a redesign of its entire infrastructure, Quinones said.

Microsoft's competitors are closely watching what Microsoft is doing with Indigo, and whether it will stick to the industry specifications as defined in standards bodies, or add proprietary extensions.

Robert LeBlanc, general manager of IBM's application and integration middleware division, downplayed the impact Indigo will have, because it will only run on Windows.

"Similar to SAP, they're solving one particular problem and one particular niche within the customer shop. Customer problems of heterogeneity and integration are much broader than a single platform," LeBlanc said.

Still, Microsoft is clearly committed to simplifying the process of building distributed applications, through which modular software components send data between the Microsoft and non-Microsoft world.

"It's a hot topic with corporate customers," Gilpin said. "And the participation of the platform players like IBM and Microsoft, as opposed to smaller (specialized) vendors, certainly makes it more competitive."

[Bill Dautrive]

Lovely

More security holes for windows incoming.

[Catgic]

Our "Techno Jazz Ensemble" of Developers are in MS-Mood Indigo

Great article. A Beta ?preview? of Indigo now, is the right Cyber-COMM interoperability tune for the right time.

Bringing Cyber-COMM technologies down to each individual Windows desktop node now is great timing, and is a welcomed new capability for folks who are involved in designing and fielding distributing computing-communications systems applications.

Bronco Billy and the Rascals of Redmond have exhibited savvy distributed computing vision on this one.

Indigo offers much promise as regards desktop-to-desktop, end-to-end trans-network ?interoperability by design.?

Our Cyber-COMM Tech Developer Ensemble is anxious to get our hands on the new MS-Indigo Sheet music for application and integration into the Info-Orb Architecture? we use in our mobile contingency Cyber-COMM Systems. Our system design solutions must flexibly adaptable to and ?play well with others.? We hope MS-Indigo helps us ?elegantly? expand the cyber-systems communications capabilities of our Distributed Information Sensing, Detection & Fusion Nodal-Network applications.

The Cyber-Beat goes on?Tech-Biz Team, J. Albertz Group

[Ubber geek]

interoperability by design

http://www.analogstereo.com/subaru_tribeca_owners_manual.htm

The introductory statement is unacceptable

Dear Martin LaMonica,

I will not play along with fooling myself that Micro$oft wants to play & compete objectively. That is what "wants to play well" means to me.

You think I actually believe that Micro$oft "wants" to "play well" with others? Where have you been? Perhaps you were not specific enough and thus did not catch yourself on that one. They do not want to- they have to, and they veneer it with the appearance of wanting. Try not to help them out by playing along with it.

Truthfully you should have written "Microsoft has to play well with others. To do that, it's recoating THEIR future in Indigo."

Or you could have played it safe and written, "To play well with others, Microsoft is recoating their future with Indigo."

[mariusthull]

20 bucks......

20 bucks says while not being 100 percent standards compliant, Microsoft has added advanced features to their product that run only on MS server products and other MS software.