When you have billions of dollars in your piggy bank, you can go on a big shopping spree and hoover up some decent technology.

According to BerkeryNoyes, an investment bank, there were 4,151 mergers and acquisitions in the online/mobile market between 2010 and the first half of 2012 – and the biggest shopper was Google, which had 49 transactions.

Did you know that there’s a Wikipedia page dedicated to the list of mergers and acquisitions by Google? According to the page, which lists 119 transactions from February 2001 through October 2012, the largest was of course Motorola Mobility. This deal happened in August 2011, and cost US$12.5 billion.

That’s a lot of piggy banks. 

Google has a justly deserved reputation as a hotbed of innovation, but the company’s success is due just as much to smart shopping as pure technical prowess. The Motorola deal, of course, gave Google a huge patent portfolio. But look at who else Google has bought lately: The DealMap daily deal service, the Zagat restaurant reviews, the Meebo instant messaging platform, Apture instantaneous search, RightsFlow digital right management, Wildfire social-media marketing, the Quickoffice productivity suite, Frommer’s travel guides… the incredibly diverse list goes on and on.

Google is not alone by pursuing checkbook innovation (as well as checkbook market share). Every big tech company makes acquisitions, some huge, some tiny. Think about Apple, CA, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft or Oracle.

In some cases, these firms are buying patents. In others, the value is in source code or customer lists to milk for upgrades or migrations. Some of these deals buy out competitors (which are then shut down); some grab companies to settle lawsuits (by buying the opposing party); sometimes it’s a way to recruit some technology talent. Think of, for example, Apple’s buying Steve Jobs’ NeXT Computer in 1996, or Microsoft buying Ray Ozzie’s Groove Networks in 2005.

At these companies, the best and brightest computer scientists refine algorithms, tune source code, conduct basic research and invent the future. Their financial success and market position certainly owe a lot to prowess with an IDE. The firms, though, deserve as much credit for their deal savvy – buying the tech just as much as inventing it.

Interactive whiteboards! Ambient intelligence! A lot can change in 14 years! That’s the conclusion you have to reach after reading the latest iteration of the Computing Classification System, maintained and published by the Association for Computing Machinery.

The ACM’s CCS has defined the computing field since 1964, and was last updated in 1998. This latest update, completed in March 2012 but unveiled this month, can be considered a full list of terms. According to the ACM,

The 2012 ACM Computing Classification System has been developed as a poly-hierarchical ontology that can be utilized in semantic web applications… It relies on a semantic vocabulary as the single source of categories and concepts that reflect the state of the art of the computing discipline and is receptive to structural change as it evolves in the future. 

You can see the entire CCS as a Word document, HTML page or as an XML file.

What’s new in the 2012 classification? Lots, both in terms of organization and in content.

Previously, the CCS was divided into 11 top-level hierarchies: General literature, Hardware, Computer systems organization, Software, Data, Theory of computing, Mathematics of computing, Information systems, Computing methodologies, Computer applications, Computing milieux (my favorite), and Computers and society.

The new 2012 system has 14 top-level hierarchies which better reflect today’s world: General and reference, Hardware, Computer systems organization, Networks, Software and its engineering, Theory of computation, Mathematics of computing, Information systems, Security and privacy, Human-centered computing, Computing methodologies, Applied computing, Social and professional topics, and Proper nouns: People, technologies and companies.

Alas, Computing milieux has been renamed into the clearer, but less romantic, Social and professional topics.

Here’s an entire section that didn’t exist before:

Ubiquitous and mobile computing
.Ubiquitous and mobile computing theory, concepts and paradigms
..Ubiquitous computing
..Mobile computing
..Ambient intelligence
.Ubiquitous and mobile computing systems and tools
.Ubiquitous and mobile devices
..Smartphones
..Interactive whiteboards
..Mobile phones
..Mobile devices
..Portable media players
..Personal digital assistants
..Handheld game consoles
..E-book readers
..Tablet computers
.Ubiquitous and mobile computing design and evaluation methods
.Empirical studies in ubiquitous and mobile computing

Think of the CCS taxonomy as a giant table of contents or index for our industry. When you look through 2012 CCS, you can see just how big computing is – and how fast it is changing.

What do enterprise software developers think about software quality within their organizations? We asked SD Times subscribers and the results may surprise you.

The research project was conducted in July 2012 by BZ Research (like SD Times, a division of BZ Media). Here’s what we learned:

Does your organization have separate development and test teams?

Some development and test/QA teams are separate, some are integrated 34.6%
All test and development teams are integrated 30.2%
All development teams and test/QA teams are separate 32.7%
Don’t know 2.4%

The net result was the 64.8% of respondents said that some or all of the test and development teams are integrated.

How many testers or test/QA professionals do you have at your company (or the largest company to whom you consult)?

5,000 or more 2.9%
1,000-4,999 3.9%
500-999 2.5%
100-499 5.9%
50-99 7.8%
20-49 11.3%
10-19 9.3%
5-9 15.2%
4 or fewer 41.2%

We found that 34.3% said that they have more than 20 testers or QA professionals at their company.

What background do your test/QA managers and directors typically have?

Both development and test/QA 53.9%
General IT background 38.2%
Test/QA only 23.5%
Development only 21.6%
General management background 21.1%
No particular background – we train them from scratch 14.7%

Who is responsible for internally-developed application performance testing and monitoring in your company? 

Prior to Deployment

Software/Application Developers 60.8%
Software/Application Development Management 52.8%
Testers 50.3%
Testing Management 48.7%
IT top management (development) (VP or above) 36.7%
Systems administrators 24.1%
Networking personnel 21.5%
Line-of-business management 21.1%
IT top management (non-development) (VP or above) 19.6%
Consultants 19.3%
Networking management 18.6%
Service providers 16.1%

After Deployment

Software/Application Development Management 53.8%
Software/Application Developers 47.7%
Systems administrators 45.4%
Testers 41.5%
Testing Management 38.5%
IT top management (development) (VP or above) 34.6%
Networking personnel 31.5%
IT top management (non-development) (VP or above) 30.8%
Line-of-business management 30.8%
Networking management 27.7%
Service providers 23.8%
Consultants 20.8%

Does your company outsource any of its software quality assurance or testing? 

Yes, all of it 4.4%
Yes, some of it 26.6%
No, none of it 65.0%
Don’t know 3.9%

This tabulated as 31.0% outsource some or all software testing.

Is your company developing and testing apps for mobile devices?

No, not developing/testing for mobile application development 42.1%
Yes, mobile software for iPhone/iPad 36.6%
Yes, mobile software for Android devices 33.2%
Yes, mobile software in HTML5 30.2%
Yes, mobile software for Windows Phone 22.8%
Yes, mobile software for Blackberry devices 16.3%
Don’t know 5.4%
Yes, for other devices 3.5%

This tabulated as 57.9% were developing or testing mobile applications.

At what stage is your company, or companies that you consult, using the cloud for software testing?

We are using the cloud for software testing on a routine basis 7.9%
We are experimenting with using the cloud for software testing 17.3%
We are studying the technology but have not started yet 26.7%
No plans to use the cloud for software testing 39.6%
Don’t know 8.4%

What is the state of software security testing at your company?

Software security is checked by the developers 48.0%
Software security is checked by the test/QA team 35.8%
Software security is checked by the IT/networking department 29.9%
Software security testing is done for Web applications 27.9%
Software security is tested by a separate security team 25.5%
Software security testing is done for public-facing applications 24.5%
Software security testing is done for in-house applications 22.1%
We don’t have a specific security testing process 18.6%
Software security is checked by contractors 12.7%
Software security testing is not our responsibility 3.4%

Those are the results. Do they match what you’ve seen at your company or within the industry?

Sous-vide is an interesting way of cooking. It’s not new – according to the Wikipedia, sous-vide (pronounced soo-veed, meaning “under vacuum”) was invented in 1799. Since we’re quoting from the Wikipedia, might as well keep going:

Sous-vide is a method of cooking food sealed in airtight plastic bags in a water bath for a long time—72 hours in some cases—at an accurately determined temperature much lower than normally used for cooking, typically around 60 °C (140 °F). The intention is to cook the item evenly, and to not overcook the outside while still keeping the inside at the same “doneness,” keeping the food juicier.

You don’t need special sous-vide tools or appliances to use this cooking method. You can prepare the water bath using a big soup pot, a gas or electric cooktop and a cooking thermometer. You can use any old vacuum sealer to prepare the ingredients. In fact, you can just use a zipper baggie and squeeze out the air by hand. Getting a perfect vacuum isn’t essential, not if you’re going to prepare and consume the food right away.

As long as you keep the temperature hot enough to stop the food from spoiling (you don’t want any nasty bacteria to grow), sous-vide does a great job of cooking. Go ahead, give it a try this weekend. You might want to pick up a cookbook, though, at your local store – there are dozens, ranging from inexpensive titles like “Easy Sous Vide” to Nathan Myhrvold’s magnum opus, the US$625 “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking.” At a mere 2,400 pages, Myhrvold’s book is definitely not casual beach reading.

You can certainly try out sous-vide cooking using a soup pot. But if you try it, and decide to add this technique to your kitchen repertoire, you might find it easier with specialized tools. For examples, there are water baths designed to circulate the water while keeping it at a consistent temperature that’s hot enough to kill bacteria. Over the past few years, a sous-vide industry has taken off, with products ranging from specialized vacuum sealers to ovens to thermometers to the VacMaster Dry Piston Pump Chamber Machine.

Agile software development is like cooking sous-vide. Agile methodologies don’t require special tools on the desktop or on the server – in fact, the Agile Manifesto explicitly states that agility means valuing individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Just like not every kitchen needs a dry-piston pump chamber machine, there’s no commandment that requires your team to choose an agile ALM tool suite with integrated project management, a Scrum countdown timer, stakeholder reports, user story repository or backlog groomer.

But you know, if you’re serious about sous-vide, you’ll want tools optimized for that purpose. And if you’re into agile, you’ll want tools that help you by removing friction and facilitating interactions. Zesty!

When it comes to writing code with advanced numerical functions, my advice is clear: Use libraries. Don’t roll your own algorithms.

Generally speaking, I’m a fan of modular code reuse, especially for complex functions like UI controls, database access drivers, PDF generation or managing images. Most of the time, it’s a good idea to find open-source components that will get your job done, or license commercial reusable components. Sometimes, though, it makes more sense to write your own functionality.

Numerical libraries are the exception. Unless you are in the math business, resist the temptation to write your own Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) functions, random number generators, basic linear algebra subprogram (BLAS), wavelets, Eigenvalues, partial differential equations – you get the picture.

This came up thanks to an email from an SD Times subscriber:

I’m an IT consultant in the software arena and would like to ask you a question on buying mathematical algorithms vs. programming them yourself. Especially for complicated mathematical subroutines, is it cost-effective to subscribe to an algorithm library, or let your programmers do all the work?

Advanced numerical algorithms are very hard to get right. Simply writing the basic code is complicated – and so is the testing of that code, to make sure that each routine delivers consistently correct results in all cases – including across different processors, hardware architectures, programming languages, compilers, runtimes, standard libraries, and so-on.

Incredible amounts of work have gone into designing, coding and testing most high-end numerical libraries. What’s more, the code has been reviewed by many individuals, including both practical and theoretical mathematicians. Generally speaking, you can be confident that the math is correct.

Beyond consistent correctness, there’s also efficiency. You’re not running that FFT or BLAS routine once; it’s being executed hundreds, thousands, millions of times, perhaps, during the execution of your program. Efficiency matters, including both raw speed but also use of resources like memory and threads.

An advantage of most numerical libraries is the tuning that goes into the code – a lot of hand-crafted C or Assembler code, in some cases. In other words, it’s fast. Increasingly, those libraries are also tuned for multicore processing. You could never justify spending the resources to do this yourself.

I had had experience with many numerical libraries, ranging from Intel’s Math Kernel Library to AMD’s Core Math Library to the IMSL Numerical Libraries to the NAG Numerical Components. They are all good, all recommended.

The tradeoff is that many numerical libraries are costly. If you need math, though, licensing one of the libraries is a bargain – and you can do the ROI calculations on a four-function pocket calculator.

Harmless kerfuffle? Abuse of corporate power? Enablement of Big Brother? No matter what you call it, Cisco’s recent firmware updates to its Linksys home routers is troubling.

According to a story published on ExtremeTech by Joel Hruska, “Cisco’s cloud vision: Mandatory, monetized, and killed at their discretion,” Cisco pushed out a firmware update to some models of its LinkSys routers for homes and small businesses. One effect of the firmware update is to move administration of the routers from a local application to a service on Cisco’s Connect Cloud services.

This means that router owners must now sign up for Connect Cloud in order to manage their routers, but the Cisco terms of service for the cloud service give lots of power to Cisco.

Hrusksa’s story says that Cisco has changed the terms of service after a firestorm of customer complaints. As of July 5, they contain lots of clauses about the type of traffic that you can use on your home network. It also says,

You agree that Cisco may suspend or terminate your access to the Service without notice if (a) Cisco suspects or determines that you have violated this Agreement, (b) Cisco determines that your actions cause Cisco to be in violation of any agreement or policy needed to run the Service or (c) Cisco is required to do so by any court or government authority in any country.  You agree that Cisco will not be liable to you or to any third party for any suspension or termination of your access to the Service as a result of any threatened or actual violation of this Agreement.


Cisco may, upon such termination, deactivate or delete your account and any related data, information, and files, and bar any further access to such data, information, and files through use of the Service.  Such action may include, among other things, accessing your data and/or discontinuing your use of the Service and any and all rights granted to you in connection with the Service without refund or compensation. 

Note that if Cisco kicks you off Connect Cloud, you will not be able to administer your LinkSys router. While you might lose control of your router, Cisco doesn’t care about that issue. How about this section of the Cisco Connect Cloud Supplement to the Cisco Privacy Statement:

Cisco Connect Cloud software is updated from time to time to provide additional features, address technical issues, and generally make your user experience better. We may add to or upgrade the Service to provide you with new features on an ongoing basis. We may also make available new services in the future. New services provided by third parties or service providers will be governed by the privacy policies of the respective third party or service provider. The Service automatically checks for updates to the firmware/software to help keep your network running at a peak performance and provides alerts as to the latest firmware/software. The auto-update feature offers the ability to download the next available version in the background. Cisco Connect Cloud offers the auto-update feature by default, but you can change your auto-update options by changing your settings within Cisco Connect Cloud. By leaving the auto-update feature as a default, however, you will avoid disruption to your home network and overall Internet connectivity. In some cases, in order to provide an optimal experience on your home network, some updates may still be automatically applied, regardless of the auto-update setting.

In other words: You purchased the router, but Cisco may decide to push new software or change its functioning at any time – including installing third-party software without your knowledge or permission, or without giving you’re the opportunity to review those third parties’ privacy policies. And of course, Cisco itself can change its privacy policy at any time.

Remember, we are talking about a network router here – something that sees every packet on a home or small business network. And Cisco is accused of helping the Chinese government build the “Great Firewall of China” to help it spy on its dissidents. What else might it do?

While automatic firmware updates are certainly convenient, the fact that you can’t turn them off is worrying. Personally, I wouldn’t buy a Cisco router. But who else can push firmware updates to your technology without your knowledge or permission? This, sadly, is the future.

Bet you never thought that AI would have tremendous applications to the field of computer security. AI’s challenge: Someone logs into your network or multi-user system using Dave’s userid and password. Can your computer be sure that it’s Dave logging in, and not someone who’s borrowed his password or cracked the system’s security measures? Can your computer be sure that Dave is not preparing to perform malicious activities?

First let’s verify that it’s really Dave who logged in. Over the past several years, computer-security researchers at SRI, Mitre, and other organizations (including the U.S. government) have learned that individuals have distinctive system-usage signatures. Data that can make up that signature include the name (or type) of programs executed, the method of changing system directories, the login time, and session length. Let’s say that Dave normally uses the mainframe during business hours to read e-mail. One Saturday night around 2:00 a.m., he logs in, scans the system read-only directories, and then attempts to rewrite the master password file. There’s a good chance your system’s been infiltrated.

That’s a simple scenario, of course. Programmers, who perform a wide variety of computer activities at all hours of the day and night, are more difficult to validate than 9-to-5 data-entry clerks. On an academic network, you’ll frequently need to recalculate your baseline models for each user as his or her expertise grows. The computer is vulnerable if hackers break into a new user’s account before there’s enough data to train the neural net properly or construct the model. Still, studies show that if the operating system is gathering the proper data, AI techniques can be applied in this area.

Expert systems can be applied to the second problem, trying to detect if Dave (or the intruder using Dave’s account) is misbehaving. A network monitoring tool can. see what commands Dave is issuing (like changes to other user’s files, or altering permission flags for various files). If the knowledge base contains data on known ways of hacking superuser privileges or crashing the system, it can watch for that type of activity. If Dave issues the first two commands in a dangerous three-command sequence, the expert system could alert the systems operator, flash a warning on Dave’s screen (“What are you doing, Dave?”), or even lock his account out of the system.

Perhaps you’re thinking that Big Brother is watching. You’re right. Instead of Orwellian thought police monitoring your private conversations, you might soon have AI software watching your every keystroke. Given today’s business realities, we might as well get used to that unpleasant idea.

I wrote the above essay in June 1994 and recently stumbled across it. Eighteen years later, it’s still relevant.

The temperature is rising, at least when it comes to developing and deploying in the cloud. In a survey of SD Times subscribers, 44.0% said that they are currently using the cloud to build or test applications, or to deploy applications. Another 24.9% said that they are not currently using the cloud, but expect to within the next year.

Breaking that down, of those who say that they are using the cloud, 26.0% say they have already built or tested several applications using the cloud and 22.8% are building their first application. Almost all of the remaining respondents say they are studying the issue; a very few plan to use the cloud only for deployment, not for development.

On the deployment side, of those who say they are using the cloud, 19.6% say they have deployed several applications into the cloud; 11.0% have deployed one application; 13.5% are developing productions applications but haven’t deployed them yet, and 11.7% are creating pilots or prototypes. Most of the rest are studying the issue, but a few plan to use the cloud only for development, not for deployment.

That’s a lot of cloud – higher, frankly, than I expected. Digging deeper into the data shows that when it comes to the cloud, adoption is moving fast, driven not only by the financial benefits of cloud computing, but for technical reasons as well.

The survey, conducted in May, was completed by 425 subscribers to SD Times and News on Monday. Most of the respondents are enterprise software development managers. One of the questions asked for the reasons why the respondent (or his company) is deploying applications to the cloud.

Of those who indicated that they are or will be using the cloud, the top 15 reasons are:

Scalability 58.5%
Long-term operating cost savings 48.7%
Reducing/eliminating capital costs 41.1%
Improve access to applications 35.6%
Ease of deployment 33.5%

Freedom from upgrades and hardware upgrades 26.9%
Simpler capacity planning 26.2%
All users are on the same version 24.0%
Shortened development cycle 23.3%

Improve application integration 23.3%
Short-term operating cost savings 22.9%
Better application performance 19.6%
Reduced need for power/cooling 19.3%
Spread costs out over time 18.9%

You can see the mix of technical and financial benefits – which points to the long-term viability of the cloud. It’s not simply another buzzword.

Of course, when someone talks about the cloud for developing or deploying applications, there’s some ambiguity. Some cloud service providers offer a straight-up hosting environment for virtual machines, where you’re renting little more than storage, CPU time and bandwidth. With others, you are getting a full-on development environment, customized for highly distributed applications.

Are you developing or testing in the cloud? Are you deploying in the cloud? If so, what are your top reasons?

Remember Microsoft’s Windows Live brand? To be honest, I’d forgotten all about it. Randall Stross, a writer for the New York Times, noted its demise in “Goodbye to Windows Live (and Whatever It Meant),” and that sparked some vague memories.

Windows Live was launched by Microsoft about a million years ago — November 2005, to be precise — to consolidate its myriad Web-based properties. Here’s an excerpt from a message from the Windows Live Team blog archive in August 2007:

Windows Live is a growing group of Microsoft online services that work well together and with Windows. Some of the services, like Hotmail and Messenger, help you communicate more quickly and efficiently. Some, like Spaces, make it easy for you to post pictures and ideas and share them with the people you choose. Others, like OneCare and Family Safety, help protect you, your family, and your PC from threats on the Internet. Most Windows Live services are free, but a few have a premium version that you can pay for.


You can use one e-mail address and password, called a Windows Live ID, to sign in to all Windows Live services, and chances are, you already have one. That is, if you have a Hotmail or MSN e-mail address, if you use Messenger, or if you ever signed up for a Microsoft Passport account, you have a Windows Live ID. 

Microsoft stuffed more and more services under the Windows Live umbrella. For example, in 2010, Microsoft released Windows Live Essentials, which included Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Movie Maker, a new version of Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Mesh (a backup utility which morphed into SkyDrive).

The marketplace’s response to Windows Live was a resounding “Meh.” While some of the services have been well received – Hotmail is still popular, and critics are raving about SkyDrive — the Windows Live name didn’t work. Perhaps customers grokked that Windows is a family of operating systems, and that extending the Windows brand to a set of websites simply didn’t make any sense whatsoever.

As Randall Stross reported, Microsoft now gets it. 

In his Building Windows 8 blog, Microsoft honcho Steven Sinofsky sort of announces Windows Live’s demise. While saying that over 500 million people use Windows Live services every month, Sinofsky wrote that …

…they still did not meet our expectations of a truly connected experience. Windows Live services and apps were built on versions of Windows that were simply not designed to be connected to a cloud service for anything other than updates, and as a result, they felt “bolted on” to the experience. This created some amount of customer confusion, which is noted in several reviews and editorials. The names we used to describe our products added to that complexity: we used “Windows Live” to refer to software for your PC (Windows Live Essentials), a suite of web-based services (Hotmail, SkyDrive, and Messenger), your account relationship with Microsoft (Windows Live ID), and a host of other offers.


Windows 8 provides us with an opportunity to reimagine our approach to services and software and to design them to be a seamless part of the Windows experience, accessible in Windows desktop apps, Windows Metro style apps, standard web browsers, and on mobile devices. Today the expectation is that a modern device comes with services as well as apps for communication and sharing. There is no “separate brand” to think about or a separate service to install – it is all included when you turn on your PC for the first time.  

In other words, Microsoft no longer wants the Windows Live brand, and as such, Windows Live services will be renamed to get rid of the Windows Live name. For example, Windows Live ID is now going to be called a Microsoft account; Windows Live Mesh will now be called SkyDrive Desktop; Windows Live Mail will be known as the Windows Mail app; and so-on.

Goodbye, Windows Live; we hardly knew you. And while the services themselves are fine, as far as the brand is concerned, we won’t miss you.