SoftElegance announced its support of the 7th Open Students Programming Olympiad named after S. O. Lebedev and V. M. Glushkov “KPI-Open”, which will take place from 9 till 14 of July 2012 in Kiev, Ukraine.

This contest is driven by National Technical University “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute” with the support of Ministry of Education and Science, youth and sports of Ukraine, and Cybernetic Center of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, since 2006.

Aside from providing general support for the Contest, SoftElegance will hold its own competition on practical programming with separate rewards and prizes.

Please find the full press-release at KPI-Open official website.

More information at SoftElegance website.

Here is Gregg Keizer’s, ComputerWorld: “Questions about IT’s ability to manage Windows RT tablets makes the new OS a weak business candidate”.

That’s different form our internal opinion about future of Windows 8 RT in the enterprise IT, but today we decided to share another point of view about the future of Windows RT.

“Windows RT, the operating system designed to run on battery-saving devices powered by ARM system-on-a-chip (SoC) silicon, will NOT include features critical to enterprises”…

“Windows RT, the operating system designed to run on battery-saving devices powered by ARM system-on-a-chip (SoC) silicon, will not include a pair of features critical to enterprises: Connectivity to a company’s network, dubbed “domain joining,” and support for Group Policies, a mechanism that enterprise IT administrators use to micro-manage machines.”

That may disappoint IT administrators who had expected that a Windows tablet would more easily integrate into their companies’ networks and infrastructures than one from the consumer-oriented Apple, expert says. But the thing is that it’s not the final release of Windows 8 on ARM (WOA), and many thing might change. We are looking forward to first production releases of Windows tablets, and than it’ll be a correct time to decide.

For more expert views about Windows RT’s enterprise role please see Skepticism mounts over Windows RT’s enterprise role.

BYOD is one of the most challenged issues in the today’s Enterprise IT world. According to GigaOm’s article it unstoppable.

“The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement has gained unstoppable momentum. And thanks to the burgeoning mobile app market, employees have high expectations for these tools. They want an attractive user experience tailored to their devices. In other words, companies need to invest in building apps, period.”, says GigaOm on today’s article

“Despite all the buzz around cloud and big data, I believe mobile will dominate enterprise IT transformation over the next decade and help to shape those other two trends”, says Matt McLarty. In fact we can agree with Matt, based on our software development outsourcing experience.

For a full article please visit BYOD is unstoppable. Smart companies must build apps at Gigaom

The most important IOHO are:

• Redrawing the borders between the presentation, logic and data tiers
• The API border is the new security perimeter
• A developer-driven approach to integration

Author believes that this developer-driven approach to integration is a refreshing shift from the current SOA state and will help to improve the overall agility of enterprise IT.

Conclusion

If companies turn their worries to figuring out with BYOT, they can rest assured that through API management they will have a solution that delivers on the promise and protects against the threats of the mobile future, adds immediate value to the present, and leverages the investments of the past.

March 26 Microsoft released Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 with two main updates. The first one is the optimization to run on low-memory devices (less than 512MB, and less than 256MB) and the second one is possibility to use the WPSDK 7.1 on Windows 8.

We believe that it’s important update and it will drive WP as one of the top mobile OSs, at it will be installed not only at Nokia and HTC devices (at the moment WindowsP available only for this mobile vendors)

At Windows Phone Developers Blog, by Cliff Simpkins was released update of Windows Phone SDK. Official information is “it’s the final version of the CTP we released last month, and enables Windows Phone developers to do two things: 1) Develop apps that work well on the new 256 MB devices; 2) Use the WPSDK 7.1 to develop on machines running Windows 8“.

Please find more information at the Windows Team Blog post Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update Now Available.

It’s not a typical post for TechCrunch, and I was surprised to found an article about Enterprise Software, but it really useful and could be considered as good predictions for Enterprise.

“There are three key paradigm shifts that accelerate the consumerization of business software: 1) The devices we use, 2) The way we work, 3) The way we interact with software“, says Uzi Shmilovici.

“The “cloud” and the Software as a Service model were the last innovations in enterprise software. There were not a lot of changes in other aspects of the software though. For most, they remind dull applications running on regular PC computers and sold to CIOs. Consumerization is changing that and is doing it fast”.

WHY IS CONSUMERIZATION ACCELERATING? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR BUSINESS COMPUTING?

A new class of enterprise software — With the cost of building and serving great software going down and the new user experience paradigms becoming more pervasive, a new generation of business software emerges.

Dramatic shift in discovery channels — CIO magazines are great but today people find new apps via social media, peer recommendations, search or, increasingly, through the various app stores.

Failure of traditional vendors to adopt — it is not easy to do when you are sitting on top of a complex legacy code that barely runs in a modern browser, let alone on a new device.

It will take another 3-5 years but it is inevitable…

Find more information at original post 3 Predictions On The Future Of Enterprise Software.

Yes, ASP.NET MVC (Model-View-Controller) 4 Beta was released last week. And it’s a great post of Scott Guthrie, VP in the Microsoft Developer Division ASP.NET MVC 4 Beta. There’s no sense to repost all article and features, but here is the most important information for executives.

The ASP.NET MVC 4 Beta release works with VS 2010 and .NET 4.0. The ASP.NET MVC 4 will also be built-into the upcoming VS11 / .NET 4.5.

ASP.NET MVC 4 includes new support for building mobile web applications and mobile web sites, including new mobile project template. ASP.NET MVC 4 includes support for creating “Web APIs”. More about ASP.NET MVC 4 Beta at official Microsoft’s ASP.NET website.

Here at SoftElegance we are always deep in our customers industry. Manufacturing is the one of such industry we are keeping in touch. This post is about enterprise manufacturing intelligence, the one of the fastest growing segments of Manufacturing Execution Systems.

Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence (EMI), or simply Manufacturing Intelligence (MI), is a term which applies to software used to bring a corporation’s manufacturing-related data together from many sources for the purposes of reporting, analysis, visual summaries, and passing data between enterprise-level and plant-floor systems, according to Wikipedia.

Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence market experiencing rapid growth. The Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence market is one of the fastest growing segments of the CPM/ MES global automation software and service markets. The market growth is a result of manufacturers need for timely information to support and drive operational decisions.

Please find the executive summary of Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence Worldwide — five year analysis and technology forecast in PDF format.

Enterprise Manufacturing Intelligence, sometimes called Manufacturing Intelligence or Collaborative Manufacturing Intelligences, consists of the framework of integrated software and services that bring a company’s manufacturing data from disparate sources together for reporting, analysis, visual summaries, and synchronizing data between enterprise-level and plant floor systems, according to ARC Advisory Group.

We hope you also could purchase this study, it include profiles for over 30 of the major suppliers servicing the EMI market are included. Each profile reviews the company’s business, products, and services as it applies to this market segment.

The latest version of Silverlight is 5, it was released on December 2011. And since those date there are no news about the future of Silverlight. The company saying that’s too early to comment the future. Can Silverlight survive in a world of HTML5?

“Silverlight is a powerful development tool for creating engaging, interactive user experiences for Web and mobile applications. Silverlight is a free plug-in, powered by the .NET Framework and compatible with multiple browsers, devices and operating systems, bringing a new level of interactivity wherever the Web works” says official MS website. So can it live together with HTML5?

Here is some thoughts by Paul Krill, the InfoWorld’s editor in his article “Will Silverlight live or die? Microsoft won’t say“.

“The annual Microsoft Mix conference, which has been used to showcase Silverlight, is not being held this year. Mix instead will be merged into Microsoft’s next developer conference to be held later this year… Microsoft Vice President Scott Guthrie declined to comment on the fate of Silverlight when asked at the Node Summit conference in San Francisco last week. “I don’t work on that team anymore, so I’m not going to put words in their mouth,” Guthrie said.”

“Silverlight was a rising star just a few years ago, when it was expected to give Flash a run for its money. But HTML5 has taken the luster off of proprietary plugins. Microsoft and Adobe have really had no choice but to embrace HTML5 to a degree. Microsoft’s silence on Silverlight at this juncture might not mean all that much: …Silverlight developer jobs are listed online as well,” says Krill. Yes, Silverlight jobs are still on demand.

We’ll keep you informed about the future of Silverlight and it’s important for us to stay updated about the latest news in software development world.

Originally “The new rules for enterprise apps” posted by Minda Zetlin for ComputerWorld. SoftElegance as software development company with major part of enterprise customers attended in the latest trends in enterprise IT world.

“To be successful today, enterprise software must be more user-friendly, get updated more often, and offer users outside your company more transparency than ever before”.

In this post you’ll find some of most important new rules for enterprise apps and software.

…”Whatever applications IT deploys need to run smoothly on a wide range of operating systems and screens, but the challenge doesn’t end there. In addition to being platform-agnostic, today’s enterprise apps must be as user-friendly and inviting as those found in a mobile app store in order to entice users who, increasingly, can choose whether or not to bother with them”, the author says.

Rule #1: Make It Appealing

It’s a plug-and-play world, and no company wants to invest its money and employee time in lengthy or even brief software training. Even if your company does want to spend money on training, you may have a hard time getting people to show up. A recent survey by Swedish ERP vendor revealed that many employees will simply bypass enterprise software they find user-unfriendly or not intuitive. Rather than take the time to learn how it works, they’ll come up with elaborate workarounds involving other consumer software.

…

Rule #2: Make It Transparent

As the insurance company with the legacy interface may soon learn, in today’s business world, information is king, and the more information your employees can obtain quickly, the more competitive advantage you can gain. And that data has to be up-to-the-minute.

…

Rule #3: Update It Often

There was a time when updates, upgrades or any sort of changes to the software used at work were met with a general groan. But that time is well behind us. These days, employees expect, and even want, frequent updates to the applications they use.

…

Conclusion

At the end we would like to remind: “And if you can’t make a simple and user-friendly interface, you’re sunk. With mobile devices proliferating, screens in every direction, and more and more competition for mindshare, the time when you could count on anyone stopping to learn an application is over”.

The Enterprise Unified Process (EUP) is the modified Rational Unified Process for the enterprise need, adopted RUP to software development process at enterprise level. The original source is ‘The Enterprise Unified Process: Extending the Rational Unified Process’ book by Scott W. Ambler, John Nalbone, and Michael J. Vizdos.

Book short description: This book describes the fundamentals of the Enterprise Unified Process (EUP), an extension of the IBM/Rational Unified Process (RUP) that helpsmake it a full IT lifecycle. This is a “how to” guide usingreal-world experiences and examples for the practitioner. Enterprise Unified Process is built onbeing an add-on to the RUP, instead of a detractor.

Also we introducing you ‘Introduction to the Enterprise Unified Process (EUP)’, the whitepaper summarized the book The Enterprise Unified Process: Extending the Rational Unified Process, published by Prentice Hall PTR, February 2005.

“Your organization likely has several software projects that it’s currently managing. You likely have some systems that you are currently operating and supporting in production. The actual focus of most organizations isn’t on the development of a single project, it’s on the development, operation, support, and maintenance of a collection of systems”, says Scott W. Ambler.

The often case is when you have the software that are in production and you have an active development phase.

“This implies that processes for operations, support, and maintenance efforts need to be added to the RUP. Second, to be sufficient for today’s organizations the RUP also needs to add support for the management of a portfolio of projects, something other processes have called programme, multi-project, infrastructure management, or enterprise management”. So at the picture below you can see ‘The enhanced lifecycle for the Enterprise Unified Process (EUP)’:

During times the Enterprise Unified Process was enhanced with the “Production” and “Retirement” phases, and it was added the enterprise disciplines such as “Enterprise Business Modeling”, “Portfolio Management”, “Enterprise Architecture”, “Strategic Reuse”, “People Management”, “Enterprise Administration”, and “Software Process Improvement”. See the picture ‘The Enterprise Unified Process (EUP) lifecycle v2004′

Conclusion

The detailed information about new disciplines can be found at whitepaper ‘Introduction to the Enterprise Unified Process (EUP)‘. More information about Enterprise Unified Process you can find at the book ‘The Enterprise Unified Process: Extending the Rational Unified Process‘. SoftElegance is the software development company able to implement the best Enterprise Unified Process practices for your organisation and to be outsourcing partner for your IT department.