The first start-up company I was part of was back in ‘98; the idea came few months before I was ‘honorably discharged’ from the IDF.  The endeavor was to develop a hand help device that will replace a book, allowing users to download content off a web-based storefront. Funny thing is that I was never much of a gadget person, and was very late to owning a cell phone. I made most of my calls from the Base public pay phone, and the concept of walking around with a ‘phone’ seemed quite strange at the time.  It was fun and very creating project encompassing software, hardware, and product design & engineering, web store, PC device connectivity and what have you.

CyBook miserably failed for various reasons, but the prototype we developed was not very far from Amazon Kindle that came good ten years later after CyBook returned it’s soul to the start-up heavens. I’ve been keeping an eye on the electronic book industry since than.

One of the things I realized somewhere in the middle of that venture is that Paper is a darn good piece of technology. A Chinese named Ts’ai Lun invented paper around 104 AD, but paper said to have existed in China since the 2^nd century BC. Paper is thin, flexible, tangible, crispy, smelly, and colorful. Paper has ‘presence’… You can write you own ‘user-generated-content’ on paper, print on it in color, double sided, formatted as newspaper, and articles. Not to mention that binding papers into a book used to be an art on its own.

You think electronic books are better for the environment? Think again: paper is recyclable, and several of treeless paper materials are in wide use today. Electronic Book require charging hence increase energy consumption, the devices radiate, and the materials they are made of are bad for you and bad for the environment. Tree-less paper fibers are a lot better for the environment, but not perceived as ‘sexy’ in the modern iPad age.

I love reading books, all kinds of books, but I’m far from being a technophobe. I strongly believe though, that we should be cautions about our electronic consumption habits and understand that an ‘overdose’ of technology is bad, and understand where to draw the limits. Technology should serve a good purpose and need, using a ‘trendy’ device that you don’t really have to use is just waste of energy.

For me, there is no real reason to buy a book on a Kindle (or similar source) vs. buying one in store. I know that maybe content is more ‘accessible’ this way, but I can wait few weeks (worse case) to get a book delivered to me, if it’s none existent in a near-by store. Not to mention that a visit to a bookstore is always an experience for me, and I’m willing to spend few extra $$ for that.

I do see reasons for electronic consumption of books, publishing a book requires a lot of money and makes economic sense on wide distribution only, content that fits a small audience makes sense to be consumed electronically (nobody will ever publish my blog for example…). Electronic consumption is great for academic usage, or when browsing for technical information. It has its uses and it has it’s place, but for entertainment or leisure? That’s over technology for me… I can easily see electronic content as an extension to printed materials, providing more background, references and discussions, but do we really need to replace a printed paperback novel with an electronic book? Why?

I think my major dislike is that electronic books try to imitate printed books, and I dont much see added value in them. I think this might be a wrong approach, even though it seems to be quite successful economically. Electronic books should be something else; they have the power to take the reading experience to the next level, but not in display technology but in knowledge structure terms. Think of an electronic book that adjusts the story telling to fit its reader’s preferences? Language? Age? Background? Think of the art of literature transcending beyond linguistics to the art of metaphysical descriptions and ideation? Thinking of writing as a form of creating ideas, building worlds, interactions, relationships and ‘print’ is only one ‘view’ of this imaginary world?

For me,  this concept was first create by Neal Stephenson is one of his earlier books ‘The Diamond Age“,  where Stephenson described an electronic book-like device that grows and protects the person it grows with.

Until such devices exist, I think I’ll stick with my old reading habits. Let me sign off for now and get back to the novel I left for writing these lines…

Amichay

The Internet is the most wonderful place invented in the past few years; it truly turns our world into an electronic village. More than anything else the Internet fosters communication: free communication accessible to everybody. But FREE communication comes with a hefty price: we pay with our privacy and quality of interaction. This price lurks in the shadows and creeps into our lives step by step, as if unnoticed.

Our teens grow into a hyper-communicated and exposed world where shallow communications are being broadcasted around the net to match a fictions face they want to present. If you talk with teens about this they wouldn’t even know what you’re talking about – mostly because they know no other way.

We understand why our emails, messages and communications are being scanned, it’s not for the Big Brother conspiracy, but rather to pay the operational costs and lubricate the share price to drive the industry into more innovations. Users (=we) demand FREE services, so communication providers resolve to advertisement… We ‘understand’ but we don’t agree…

PROJECT CODENAME “T  is about providing FREE communications without giving up our privacy or compromising on the quality of expression.

If you share our vision of  FREE communication without giving up privacy, and want to join the T revolution, leave your details here.

Amichay,

On behalf of PROJECT CODENAME “T”

More later…

This whole trip started some seven years ago. About the same time of the year 2002 Shani started to practice Capoeira , with Amarildo (a.k.a. Sapo). I made a promise to her than, that if she continues when she turns 12 I will go with her to Brazil. However, when she did turn 12 and still continue to train, Amarildo suggested to delay this in a year, since than he’ll be able to join too. And so we did.

When we set out to Arraial D’Ajuda in Bahia, Brazil it was not only Capoeira that I had in mind – it is also a rare opportunity for me to re-educate Shani on values that are dear to me: Keep an open mind to different culture, don’t criticize but observe and learn, see how people live on basics – little money, little technology, little possessions but big happiness, mutual respect and support – and live like they do, even for a short while. It also an opportunity for Shani to live with no so many rules and boundaries and learn to loosen up, go to the beach, enjoy the sea and just have fun without thinking so much like she normally does.

July 22nd – July 23rd : Arrival @ Arraial

For some obscure reason we decided to fly with EL-AL – that turned out to be a big mistake: The flight from Tel-Aviv to Sao Paulo was terrible : the airplane was much crowded, the food sucks, the on board entertainment system is outdated and worst of all is the service. It’s kind of turndown to fly for 15 hours with air stewardess that the sign ‘I deserve a better job’ is written all over their faces , it’s been years since I saw such an unprofessional service. We arrived at Porto Seguro at 5 Pm on July 23rd and Amarildo rushed us to the port to take a ferry to Arraial, I’m very thankful for Amarildo to show up, it would have been very difficult for us after this long day to find ourselves around without him. Amarildo arranged for us to stay at a local Pousada. Our room is Spartan but that’s all we need. Home away from home. We went for local home-made dinner before calling it a day. Kind of funny though, Amarildo explained to the restaurant owner that Shani is a vegetarian and does not eat meat, so the owner said “Ok, no problem, I’ll get her a chicken than”. The local cuisine is very good: lots of meet (cooked in various gravies, fried, and the famous Brazilian BBQ), but also rice with wide range of beans seasoned with local roots and fresh vegetables.

July 24th – First Capoeira trainings

We started the day with a walk to the beach and a breakfast from groceries with bought at a local store (including some special sweet bread).

At 10 AM Shani joined the first training session with the adult group lead by Mastre Railson at the Sul Da Bahia Capoeira Academy. Shani practiced till noon time, we rested some and got ready for the evening training and we called it a day. This all place is around Capoeira, training, clothing, instruments and partying. Seems like this place never sleeps and never stops, very energetic place.

July 25th – Trancoso, and first big Roda

We took a local bus to Trancoso, a very beautiful village some 50 minutes drive from Arraial. We walked from the beach to the city center and around the city, and took a break at a local coffee shop where Shani had a Passion Fruit Juice.

We got back, went to the beach and Amarildo caught up with us saying there’s a Roda at the Academy outside Arraial. We took a MotoTaxi (a Motorcycle Taxi, first time for Shani). We found ourselves outside Arraial, at a hard core poor area where kids practice instead of working the streets. There was one Roda inside the Academy, and one outside in the village center. The Brazilian kids were amazing. Amarildo & Shani also joined the Roda.

We than took a very bumpy bus drive back to Arraial, and went out for some drinks (Shani was not drinking..) and went to see a big Capoeira Show in the shopping Roda area. Actually Amarildo forgot all about it, and he did not join due to the consumed alcohol. It was a long show with lots of energy and it ended after 11 PM.

July 26th – Birenbau Workshop

We started the day with a nice breakfast and watching flowers and parrots in the Pousada garden and cleaning up our room.

We went to Amarildo friends for a Birenbau workshop in the outskirts of Arraial. Shani prepared her own Birenbau from Bimba wood, sharp knife and pieces of broken glass, the string to the Birenbau is taken by cutting strings from a car tire and polishing it. It took about 4 hour to build and tune a Birenbau, but it was a fun process and friend people.

I used the time to play some soccer with the kids and climb a tree (which is somewhat higher than what looks in the picture…)

Once the instruments were done, the group started playing and singing together.

(you can see Amarildo in the center)

One the way back Shani found a butterfly, Shani’s Caopeira name is Borboleta (which means butterfly in Portuguese).

At night we went out to the have some good food and fun in Arraial

July 27th – Day 1 – Capoeira Mundial …

The 4th ECONTRO MUNDIAL 2009 Capoeira Sul Da Bahia starts! the day begins with three hours of intensive training ending at group singing.

At the end of the first training session Mestre Railson gathered the group to finalize the 3 hours of first training with a group singing.

After a short break, the Capoeirists meet again for a two hour session of playing the Birenbau – this may sounds easy, but it’s far from being the case. Shani played on the Birenbau she made herself the day before:

I used the time to swim and walk the never ending beach Arraial

There is no idle moments in the Encontro and we learned that on day one, in between the sessions people just grab instruments and play informally, the below is just one example or Amarildo and Maxwell play:

At night the group meet again from 8 pm to 10pm for an open Roda with participation of several Mestres and gave a great Capoeira session starts with low Capoeira (Capoeira Angola) and continuing with high energy high games (which Shani joined as well).

Amarildo, Shani and I finished the day at a great local fish restaurant (which Shani did not appreciate much, but I did).

July 28th – Day 2 – Capoeira Mundial

Training continues at the same intensity as the day before, people already start to receive injuries mostly because the bodies are not used to the training or have been partying too long the night before (which is what people here are doing nearly every day..), Shani got a nice mark on her right eye too…

You can see Shani is still having fun despite the fatigue and injuries

After the training we went to a traditional Brazilian home cooking place went Amarildo and friends, Shani was very tried that day and went back to the Pousada to rest. Afternoon was Latin dancing which Shani decided not to attend followed by a Movie in Portuguese so Shani mostly rested we played some Billiard and went to the night training (8 pm – 10 pm) with Mestre Mao Branca who’s a third level Mestre which is highest in the world. I gave Shani some sips of black coffee before the training and she was full energized.

Somewhere in the middle Mestre Mao Branca made an impressive entrance and took over the playing, with already 3 more Mestres this turned into a world class show. It was so intensive and interesting that I forgot to take pictures …

July 29th – Day 3 – Capoeira Mundial

The day started with a lot of energy and training

After the training Amarildo took us to eat Acai, which is a protein rich drink that people eat here before and after training to revitalize. Acai is  rich with Vitamins and  Fibers (and some other stuff I better not think about).  We than went to a Pitinga beach (which is about an hour walking each way) for Capoerista gathering at the beach. On the way Amarildo showed us places he played in as a child and explained how much Arraial has changed in recent year. We first went swimming, but the gathering soon turned into acrobatics show off…

Amarildo was a big star on the beach, from playing football to saltos and ending up with nearly 20 continues back flips..

At first Shani was very much opposing Acai, but since she tried it once it was hard to get her disconnected. One the way back we have to stop for Picolo Acai too… This is how Shani looks like after 3 hours of training, 3 hours of walking on the beach and swimming…

The afternoon started with a lecture on Capoeira history and origins

As you can see people where thrilled and highly interested in the lecture:

After the lecture there was an open Hoda, and Shani played a lot and played well too

A 12 year old from the US joined as well, and it gave Shani extra energy to work hard and participate. After training we (Shani from practicing, and me from watching…) were staved and went for a big Pizza…

July 30th – Day 4 – Capoeira Mundial

We started the day with a nice breakfast

Followed by yet another day of intensive training, she trained hard on two different workshops

After the training session and lunch Shani went to rest and I went to swim in Patinga beach (about an hour walk each way)

The afternoon session was a Capoeira competition which Shani was not allowed to join though she had a good chance against some of the contestants.

The competition attracted a lot of energy and attention and was a very fun event. The below video is a dance performed during the fights by the US team, cheering up each other. I think the competitions were very successful and it showed how the contestants improve from one fight to another.

The competition end late at night, we took a break in the middle and returned to the same fish restaurant we had dinner the other day with Amarildo.

July 31th – Day 5 – Capoeira Mundial

I must confess that the change in Shani is much more rapid than I anticipated. She is has been growing stronger by the day, aside the evident improvement to her Capoeira, her self confidence improved, she allows herself to do more things, she’s getting a long with everybody, our basic life style does not bother her and she’s genuinely happy and having fun (though I still think she does not realize she’s actually in Brazil…).

Shani practices hard, she’s actually one of the only participants that actually join all training sessions, while people here tend to party all night, she goes to bed around 10 PM reading a book so she can be up early morning for training (although I gave her opportunities to go out later, she’s rather read and rest for training). Shani is getting a long very well with people more than twice her age, one of the main reasons is that she is showing a lot of sensitivity and understand when to push and when to take a step back. I’m very proud of her.

My day here starts and doing laundry

Than it continues with buying and preparing breakfast, waking up Shani (which is NEVER easy) and checking on things at work. In the mean time Shani is enjoying intensive training, you can also see her talking to her sisters which are at the time traveling in Italy

Amarildo has been sick for the past couple of days, he’s specially upset since this causes him to miss the first competition event, as you can see, he is in no shape to compete…

Shani is resting after the day’s training, note she has blisters all over her feet, her muscles are tired but she will not quick, part of it is the fact that Amarildo is encouraging her to train harder and stronger, and the effects are quite evident.

Before the day’s competition and finals we went to do some shopping, Shani seems to enjoy this activity . The competitions were really good, France and Chile did well but Brazil won in most events (at time with the assistance of the judges …), it’s interesting to see that when Brazilians play there’s always a smile on their face (btw, also on Shani’s face), but with the French its mostly competition and winning. It was a good events, with lots of energy – this is the future of Capoeira.

August 1st – Day 6 – Capoeira Mundial

I spent the entire morning in Portu Seguro trying to fix our flights. It seems like we’ll have to fly to Salvador and catch the flight back from there, this is somewhat unexpected and also quite expensive. In the mean time Shani was doing two practices with two old Mesteres whom apparently still got it. Afterwards Amarildo (who’s now a lot better), Shani and I went to Sao Joao, a great fish restaurant and probably the best meal we had in Arraial till that point. We spoke on how badly foreigners are treated in Israel and Amarildo shared with us his experiences with the notorious ‘Immigration Police’ and the injustice around it in Israel. After the late lunch it was already time to get ready for the 2009 Batizado – where Amarildo was getting his Professor belt. He was very excited and tensed before the event. The Batizado started at 5pm and ended after 11pm, it lots of energy and good games

Shani was a little upset for not getting the first belt for adults (though seeing some of those who did get the green belt I can say she’s not lesser than them, yet I think it’s not a bad idea for her to train more – better to get a belt later and earlier I think).

There were quite a few shows, magic and dances as well as Mesteres plays during the Batizado which was well organized.

After the event Shani was taking everybody’s pictures with Meital’s camera (ours run out of battery…), followed by a late but good dinner at Manguti which ended around 2pm and we called it a day…

August 2nd – Day 7 – Capoeira Mundial

This was the last day of the Mundial, which consistent mostly of a beach party and people saying their goodbyes. We spent the day at the beach, followed by the gateway party on Pitinga beach and started packing our stuff for the way back.

August 3rd – Goodbye Arraial

That’s it, time to leave and say goodbye to Arraial d’ajude. Looking at Shani now, I think my work here is done…

On January 2008 I wrote a blog entry about Google’s Android and Social Network API’s under the title ‘Developer is King’ . Recently a friend directed me to Google’s new initiative : Google App Engine . Google is actually not the first to provide and host a network based solution for developers, a well known solution is Amazon S3. But while Amazon provides Web Services for storage, payment and others, Google actually took this a step forward – Google is taking this way beyond Web Services and provide a full blown Application Engine running on top Google’s monstrous infrastructure.

I think this is quite ingenious on Google’s part, they provide a fully hosted application environment, allowing developers to enjoy Google’s infrastructure for storage, load balancing and scale, authentication and various other API’s. Google’s MapReduce and GFS probably serve as an infrastructure together with their monitoring, and hosting technologies.

Each application is running in it’s own secured Sandbox allowing distribution between multiple servers and distributed web requests. Currently only Python programming language is supported, but assuming this takes off more are likely to be supported.

This move on Google’s part should attract application developers to use Google technologies as well as create an eco-system around Google web technologies. This is a bold move that will probably take a while to mature but if you’re a web application developer this is certainly something to look at.

Thinking back, it was Larry Ellison, the legendary CEO of Oracle, who coined the term Network Computer (NC)  in the mid 90’s, while the initiative itself did not really take off it created a lot of buzz that later lead into ‘thin clients’. If Google will play this right, thin applications will emerge : applications that take into consideration their distributed and scalable nature, without worrying about the complicated setup, storage and hosting environments.

While it’s hard for me to know how strategic it is for Google internally, and how they intend to push this, if at all, I think this could make a difference in the constantly evolving  computation world. I can only bow to what Google as a software giant is trying to push. If I were Microsoft I would do some serious thinking, mostly since .NET – Microsoft’s leading environment is severally lacking an application engine, but I will leave that for a later post…

Amichay

Kylie Minogue song (not that I’m such a great fan), third paragraph writes:

"you know it’s all in your head

You better put that business to bed

By your fair hands of design you met with

The monster in your mind"

when it comes to iPhone – this is so true! not that I think that Kylie is such a techno-prophet …

Apple did it again, and it’s all for the sake of the short sighed stock price and the word on the (Wall) Street. Though the writing is already on the Wall – trying to squeeze much of a platform for the sake of the product revenues is not a long-term-winning-strategy. Apple had a taste of that during the Mac-PC wars, and they lost even though their ‘fair hands of the design’ where all over the place. Google has already figured it out by targeting the echo-system, Apple however is taking a different approach. iPhone Bluetooth is blocked beyond using the headset, iPhone is locked to certain US carriers, iPhone SDK is limited.

Basically Apple is trying not to cannibalize their short term earnings from the iPhone and try to squeeze as much as possible from the product / buzz, but this is a short sighted vision. I would have liked Apple to take the lead not by having copycats grab concepts and idea from their iPhone product, but provide a winning open platform with rich API’s to really change the mobile world.

There are over billion mobile devices around the globe – aside the fashion statement iPhone’s target of 10M devices is negligible.

Apple please don’t do it again!

Amichay

 

I write this blog entry some 10688m above a place called Yakaterinburg , flying back from Tokyo. This is my third visit to Japan in the past few months, working with our Japanese partners. A lot has been said and written about technology in Asia, and particularly in Japan. "Everyone" knows that Japanese like gadgets, but in my short visits I’ve gained some more insights into Mobile technology in Japan that makes me admire the Japanese way of thinking. A quick comment before I start, one thing which fascinated me in Japan, and I’m quite aware that this could be just my personal conditioned experiences, is that influences of tradition are more "felt" in Japan than other places I visited. While Japan is clearly far off from the Samurai days, I could still sense some of the culture and history in contemporarily Japan. Unlike places where the cultural roots seems to have faded. 

Back to technology, here are some things I picked up:

Mobile Devices are bulkier than the small, round edges devices I’m used to (I am a big fan of Nokia) : Devices in Japan tend to be big, mostly because of screen size (see below). That took me by surprise, I always thought that Japanese customers prefer small devices.

• Mobile TV – Japanese devices have the capability to receive TV broadcasts. To do that, relevant devices are equipped with a special antenna. People actually site down in trains and watch TV broadcasts.  Quality is very good. Apparently Location Based Services are also underway meaning that users receive certain local broadcasts when located in certain areas such as a community TV and others (there are some other interesting applications, but let’s leave it at that).
• There’s an interesting feature to Mobile TV – and that’s connectivity to web based information. When I was in CES earlier this year, I saw all these science fiction home TVs where one day you might be able to browse the web while watching TV (side note: why do all these demo use cases always converge to watching "Sex and the City?"). While it may still be science fiction on home usage in the US, it’s a reality in Mobile TV in Japan. That’s really cool, you can see special links under the Mobile TV screen or relevant web based tickers.
• I’m not sure why people would want to watch TV on their mobiles, on the other hand  I hardly watch TV at all (just too many things to do in real life), so I’m probably not the target customer. But fact is that this technology is commercially available in Japan makes them in my mind way more advanced than Western mobile users. I also think that Mobile Advertisement will likely to pick this up. Current Ad solutions I saw are not targeted, there’s an interesting market opportunity there in my mind.
• Mobile Data connections in Japan are far more advanced than we be found in Europe and certainly the US. HSDPA of 7.2Mb is nearly five times faster than in my home country (it’s also different frequency), not to mention hardly any packet drops (and I checked…). I also found it interesting that WiFi networks are not as common as they are in the West, seems as if people rely much more on mobile data networks than wireless devices. This really caught me by surprise.
• SMS / Text Messaging is uncommon in Japan, I saw large portion of the people in the Tokyo underground fiddle around with the mobile devices either playing, or writing messages, at first I was sure they are SMSing, but they are not – they are sending and receiving emails. While push-email in the West is mostly used by business people, in Japan everybody send and receive emails to their mobile phones. Always wired society.
• While Japan is governed by huge corporations, I found the underlying VoIP infrastructure already deployed by Telcos quite advanced as well as VoIP capabilities I did not see anywhere else. Since dealing with large, heavy corporations I expected them to be some what laid-back when it comes to VoIP, I was wrong. But for obvious business confidentiality issues I can’t elaborate.

If you do get a chance – try visiting Japan. It’s not all about technology, the people are very welcoming, food is great, culture is interesting, service is superb and there are some great hiking places in the mountains (wish I could do more of that).

Till next time

Amichay

I’m a big fan of Martin Fowler and his work. Recently I came by an interesting panel from InfoQ ‘07 about Modifiability in Agile development () . While I concur with many of the things said, one thing I would have expect to have in that panel, and did not hear – is focus on writing software which is easy to maintain and support.

 

A lot has been said about Test-Driven development and how important it is to understand the problem domain and start by writing the top-down test plans and embed it into the software development process. That is quite right, but the problem domain does not only covers the end-user, it also covers the people who need to maintain and support the software. Let there be "Operations Driven Development" an augmentation to "Test Driven Development".

 

Some background: JAJAH Operations team works 24 by 7 (some actually say it’s 26 by 8, but that’s a different story) with the sole purpose of delivering the best possible VOIP quality. This covers web servers, application servers as well as telephony and networking equipment. That’s kind of complicated, marrying all these technologies together and than make sure they all play nicely together. That’s where JAJAH NOC (Network Operations Center) comes into play, tracking every part of the system, around the clock, constantly. These hard working guys don’t care much about Modifiability, they care about Maintainability.

 

Hence, the consumer who picks up the bill is only one part of the equation when it comes to software development of mission critical system (and others as well). As software developers, we should not only think on how to make sure our software is tested according to the product understanding, but also how do we as developers bring out software that other can keep on running.

Developers should be well conscience about software monitoring, alerts, logging and error reporting. Providing good monitoring, error reporting and exception handling so other people can perform root cause analysis and react is not a science – it’s an Art. It’s also a sign of a mature developer.

 

I’ve been looking into error reporting Design Patterns and found surprisingly too few of those. I wonder why.

 

Amichay

For me it all started back in 1998. I helped co-found a company called CyBook Inc, with three good friends; one of them is my wife, who since than decided to follow other venues, another currently works as JAJAH VP R&D and the last one runs his own freelance business now. We teamed up with an energetic fellow from the ‘Silicon Valley’ and together started to follow our dream: create a device that will replace printed books. While the topic of electronic books is interesting (and I will probably return to this in future blog entries) I wanted to focus on one of the three slogans I learned during the short livelihood of CyBook: "Brave New World" (BNW), "Not Invented Here" (NIH) Syndrome and "Customer Is King".

When I proceeded to my next venture, the concept of "Customer Is King" crystallized and formed our way of thinking, especially since we were in the Internet consumer business. Few years passed during which I closely witnessed the struggle of the titans: Microsoft, Oracle and SAP, and understood what makes Microsoft different than the rest of the pack: Developers, Millions of them, anywhere around the globe: so many people sitting around, hammering their keyboards, writing software on, with or for Microsoft environments. It is the developers who wheel the industry; not only the customers who consume the services and products we make.

When Google released “Android” a few weeks ago, I was puzzled and started to look deeper into both the platform and their motives. It was than that I realized that the industry focus has changed: we are no longer the knights who say "Customer Is King", we are now the nights who say "Developer Is King".

The era of API’s is here.

The new battle ground of the giants is now Mobile platforms and Google realized that the only way to sway around Microsoft strength is to attack their core: the developers’ community. "Go back to the source" sat the Architect(s) at Google while to releasing more API’s and trying to convert Microsoft developers into Google developers. It is not a coincidence in my mind the Google released two different development platforms nearly simultaneously: "Open Social" for the social network applications and "Android", a new Linux based platform for Mobile development.

It is without doubt that many companies are putting a lot of effort into releasing more and more API’s and putting more and more emphasis on the developers’ community – Developer is King.