Search

The article discusses service-oriented architecture (SOA), describing the problems, challenges, and high expectations associated with the use of SOA. The author defines SOA as an architectural style that is independent of the use of a particular technology. Software companies face a dilemma of choosing the technologies and design tactics that will help them realize their development objectives. Other topics include understanding options when using SOA to develop software and the negative impact SOA can have on software architecture.

The article discusses product management for software product lines, which allow companies to save money by reusing assets across several different software products. Product management for software lines is traditionally a functioning of marketing, which focuses on sales and deadlines. To successfully manage a line of products companies should optimize revenues and costs for the entire product line rather than individual products and improve the communication between technical and marketing personnel.

This article analyzes the pros and cons of patenting computer programs in the U.S. A proposed set of guidelines that would aid patent examiners in reviewing applications for computer program patents has raised opposition in Washington D.C. The consensus in the patent office is that the guidelines are inadequate. The House Judiciary Committee plans to hold hearings this year on an entire revamping of the patent laws in the U.S. Bell Laboratories is supporting the program patents, but most manufacturers remain solidly against patenting programs. Some software firms would like to receive program patents; however, the resistance shown by the Patent Office to patent computer programs is currently blocking the way.

This article focuses on follies of a computer industry that produces larger and computationally more demanding programs full of largely useless features -- that look good only in marketing brochures and that force users to upgrade their machines every three years. While it is true that almost everyone in the U.S. owns a television or a washing machine, not everyone owns a guitar. Automobiles are convenient transportation, but there are at least three ways in which our dependence on them has been artificially increased. First, with the systematic destruction in many cities of public transportation. Second, by driving the urban design of our cities in a direction that makes use of automobiles indispensable. Third, by refusing to explore options other than individual ownership of the physical vehicle. Computer and software manufacturers seem to have realized they can't maintain sales based solely on the usefulness of machines alone and appear to be following a similar strategy.