Lukas Svoboda: Strategy, Architecture, Governance & Technology

I posted on the weekend a new ARCast NZ podcast on Interaction Design which I recorded with Phil Cockfield. This is my favourite to date and looks at how the concept of interaction design works with the concepts of IT architecture. The overview of the session:

Join Lukas Svoboda and Phil Cockfield as they discuss the concept of Interaction Design (ID) and how it fits with the discipline of Software Architecture. The relationship between ID and Agile Software Development is also discussed as well as the notion that Interaction Design is the missing link in Architecture. Lastly Phil discusses how an Architect can get into using Interactive Design approaches to help develop architectures for software today.

Very interesting article in Computerworld regarding some of the frustrations that IT managers will face with allowing access to corporate resources from the iPhone. Just listening to the Apple strategy of the device shows it is very consumer orientated and certainly not a player in the enterprise. It's interesting to see how this strategy will work for Apple in its quest for mobile dominance. This strategy is distinctly different from the likes of RIM and Microsoft, who have been solving the corporate problem before attacking the mass consumer market. My prediction is that the iPhone will get a lot of attention for its looks and cool factor (typical response to anything Apple by the majority of consumers and Apple knows it) but will get a massive thumbs down when it comes to corporate integration. By the time Apple works this out, RIM and Microsoft will have copied all the cool features and be out with devices that are as cool but have much better corporate integration feastures. All-in-all, an interesting IT space to watching.

Some resources regarding the feature list of Visual Studio Orcas:

Microsoft Marketing Material: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa700830.aspx

InfoQ round-up, technical focused: http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/03/Orcas-Roundup

Scott Guthries' first look at Orcas Presentation, technical focused:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/02/08/my-first-look-at-orcas-presentation.aspx

Orcas Announcement from Microsoft Blogger Somaseger

http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2007/04/19/visual-studio-orcas-and-net-fx-3-5-beta1-shipped.aspx

BetaNew Arcticle on Orcas Features, some good semi-technical explanations

http://www.betanews.com/article/Visual_Studio_Orcas_Enters_Beta_1_NET_Framework_35_Released/1177012085

Download the Orcas Betas from Microsoft

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa700831.aspx

Interesting to see that Sun has released JavaFX, a framework for quickly building compelling user interfaces quickly for Java Enabled devices and machines. I can definitely see it going head to head against Silverlight.

Microsoft has just in the last few days released expression studio. Good news for MSDN subscribers, you also have a copy J. Very pleased to see Microsoft doing that and seeding it amongst the development community.

If you have been following my personal blog (www.kiwibohemian.com) you might know that I've changed jobs having moved from Optimation to Fronde. At Optimation I had the title of Managing Principal and I was supposed to be doing strategic consulting (not much eventuated) but I ended up mainly focused on building the Microsoft Practice. Having moved over to Fronde I'm now no longer doing any active practice building (Fronde has a fantastic Microsoft capability already well in place) and instead focusing on Strategic Technology Consulting. Anyway, to cut a long story short – My focus has changed. I'm now focusing on Enterprise Architecture again and linking EA to Solutions Architecture as my day to day job. Part of my new focus is to pick a few key IT areas and I've tentatively decided to focus on Service Orientation, User Experience and to a lesser extent Microsoft Enterprise Technologies. To this extent I'm thinking I might refocus and even rebrand this blog around these areas. Any thoughts from blog land out there? Would it make this blog any more or any less useful? And yes it is 4am good Friday. Too many exciting things keeping me from sleeping J

Fantastic, Microsoft has finally realised that releasing Expression Studio with MSDN is a good idea. These tools while primarily targeted at Designers require developer integration and buy-in. So software folk like me who have an interest can now properly play with and demonstrate the value of Expression Studio within a development life cycle. Nice one Microsoft!