As I've been stating for the past five years: if you want to provide real value to your enterprise, SOA should extend out of the firewall and into the Internet. However, this was not universally accepted by the rank-and-file SOA guys. Generally speaking, most viewed SOA as something that occurred exclusively within the firewall, and extending the reach of their SOA to Internet-based resources was taboo.

Enterprise mashups - the convergence of Web 2.0 mashups and service-oriented architecture (SOA) - can create a world of opportunities for enterprises to come up with internal and customer-facing self-service, composite and 'situational' applications. These applications can be created just-in-time by empowered enterprise business users and by simply combining SOA-enabled information sources and services or SOBAs (service-oriented business application) on the intranet and Internet.

I am always being told off by i-technologists for quoting Picasso as having said that computers are useless. But I still love his reasoning: 'Because they can only give you answers.' Picasso, like AJAXWorld Magazine, liked questions. So we thought we would share with you what some of the world's leading rich Internet application pioneers are thinking may be the next questions that we need to see answered. From that, readers can themselves infer: where is AJAX headed next?

A new breed of web manager is emerging to link content management more closely to website visitor satisfaction. The new web manager may operate under several professional guises: 'customer advocate,' 'information guru,' or 'metator,' to name just a few. They need to employ a very different set of soft skills than traditional webmastering, and many enterprises are struggling with the personnel challenges of this transition.

Can afford to take just one day off, get out of your cubicle and see what other people up to these days? Is J2EE still in favor? What's this ESB is about? Have you even heard of using Flex as a Web front end of your Java applications? Do not miss an event in NYC this Monday, that is created for people who think that they are way too busy to take several days off and spend them in the class. Just take one day off and attend the Real-World Java event. The discounted rate for this event is $395. To get this discount, enter the coupon code ?JUGgold' while registering

We have a long way to go before the next generation of the Web truly arrives. Years and years. As commentator Shel Israel has said: 'Web 2.0 isn't dead. It's just barely being born.' In line with its commitment to keep developers, IT managers, and vendors alike ahead of the i-Technology curve, SYS-CON Media has just unveiled its latest new magazine and website: Web 2.0 Journal (www.web2.sys-con.com).

Last week, Microsoft marshaled its vast resources and influence to launch a full-blown think tank and incubator for the disruptive and increasingly pervasive technologies and products of the Web 2.0 age: it's called Live Labs. Dion Hinchcliffe was fortunate to be in invited attendance at Microsoft's terrific Search Champs conference last week and had a front row seat to listen to Dr. Gary Flake as he explained the innovative vision for this new and extensive research organization.

Controlling anarchy on the writetable Web might be as simple asking that folks flash their Identity 2.0 credential right before they change something on the Internet. This ensures their personal identity is attached to the change. And creating a verifiable chain of evidence might be all it takes for people to act more responsibily. Wiki vandalism, comment flaming, and other forms of anonymous mischief on the writeable Web may be eliminated forever when you know that your ID will be attached to it in perpetuity, affecting your hireability, possible suitability for public office, and more, forever.

Over the past few years Web services have grown from a conceptual draft based on the ideal of cross-platform programmatic interoperability to a formal specification and a vision of grand-scale distributed system architectures. Today we are putting that vision to work and designing systems with service-oriented architectures that are critical to our businesses. Amazon.com has been one of the forerunners in the adoption and promotion of Web services. Consistently striving to remain on the forefront of technology, Amazon has thoroughly embraced Web services - so much so in fact, that you can tie some serious revenue numbers directly to the external use of Amazon's Web services.

Use of atomic transactions is a well-known technique for guaranteeing consistency in the presence of failures. The ACID properties of atomic transactions (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) ensure that even in complex business applications consistency of state is preserved.

Atomic transactions are a well-known technique for guaranteeing consistency in the presence of failures. The ACID properties of atomic transactions ensure that, even in complex business applications, consistency of state is preserved.