When Your Avatar Gets Sick: Hospitals in Second Life

Hospital visitors -- or rather their avatars, who serve as virtual personas in Second Life -- can tour the site, try out patient beds and test technology that industry professionals believe will be created in the future. For example, the operating room offers a glassed-off "cockpit" where surgeons sit and guide robotic arms through surgeries.


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For the last few months, 10 Web developers have worked to re-create Palomar Pomerado Health's hospital of the future in Second Life, the 3-D online world that hosts millions of residents. In the past year, companies like Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) Latest News about Coca-Cola, Reuters and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) Latest News about Wells Fargo have generated headlines for opening and closing campaigns, bureaus and offices in this popular virtual world.

When PPH hired Orlando Portale as its chief technology and innovation officer in May, he arrived armed with plans to put the hospital system, which serves North County, into the middle of Second Life.

Within six months, PPH had brokered a deal with IT networking giant Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) Latest News about Cisco Systems to launch Palomar Medical Center West, a virtual form of the facility located on a 900-square-meter island.
Like the Real Thing

The state of open source: Zack Urlocker, MySQL

Viewed by many as open source's most compelling business play in the past few years, MySQL made waves this year, accepting Sun Microsystems' US$1 billion acquisition bid, opening eyes on Wall Street as to open source's potential to shake up the software industry in the process.

Vice president of products at MySQL, Zack Urlocker, speaks about the challenges open source projects face in gaining deeper adoption in the enterprise. Here's how Urlocker views the business of open source today and in the years to come.

What do you see as the more pressing challenges and opportunities for open source given the current tech climate?

As with most systems software, it needs to continue to get easier to use. MySQL, Apache, PHP, Linux, JBoss, etc., are popular because they are powerful and easy to use. They are far less complex than some of the old proprietary software that was developed in the 1990s. But there's still a ways to go to ensure that all the software works well together with a single, simplified installation.

Open source has made the transition into IT and is being used for very complex systems development. But I think the infrastructure software is still more popular than open source applications. Still, we're seeing the start of that with companies like SugarCRM, JasperSoft, Pentaho, and others.

As we head into a recession with more IT budget crunch, I think we'll see the next wave of open source adoption. If it's good enough for telcos, banks, and the largest Web sites, maybe it's good enough for broader adoption.

Where do you see open source heading in the next five years, especially with regard to development, community, and market opportunities?

OSBC Report: Microsoft attempts to cross the chasm to open source

Tonight Brad Smith, general counsel for Microsoft, delivered the "footnote" address at the Open Source Business Conference 2008. I asked Brad to speak because I figured it was the shortest path to getting clarity from Microsoft vis-a-vis open source and the nettlesome legal issues that have plagued Microsoft's relationship with open source.

Brad spoke for 30 minutes, and then participated in a follow-up panel with an A-list group from the open-source community, including Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu), James Bottomley (CTO, SteelEye and Linux kernel maintainer), Andrew Updegrove (standards lawyer extraordinaire), and Stephen O'Grady (Redmonk co-founder). The audience then had the opportunity to ask him questions for another 30 minutes. It was no doubt a grueling "opportunity" for Brad, and he represented himself and Microsoft well. (See also Charles Cooper's report.)

But it didn't result in any great "Ah ha!" moment, unfortunately. There are serious chasms between Microsoft's position(s) and the open-source community's position(s). It's very possible that both sides will have to compromise. What would compromise entail?

Brad talked around this in his opening remarks:

We respect and appreciate the important role that open source plays in our industry. We respect and appreciate the important role that open source plays for our customers, customers who almost always have heterogeneous networks. That's not what you've always heard from us, but I did want to start with this....

Microsoft Lawyer Faces a Community Grilling

Brad Smith admits the company has not always been as friendly to the open community as it could have been.

SAN FRANCISCO—Microsoft’s general counsel Brad Smith took the hot seat at the Open Source Development Conference here March 25, facing an hour of questioning from panelists and attendees.

But before the grilling started, Smith gave a 30-minute address about the parallels between open-source and proprietary software business models.

Microsoft respects and appreciates the role free and open-source software has in the industry and the hard work done by its developers, Smith said. “This is not what you have always heard from us, but I wanted to say it,” he said.

There are three fundamental business models in the industry today: direct monetization, indirect monetization and open source, and there will be a number of business models going forward. “There is room for all of them,” he said.

Turning to the controversial issues of interoperability, Smith said there is no historic example where the market leader pushed interoperability forward. While Microsoft has been on both sides of that fence many times, interoperability is a leading issue now as it is being driven by customers who “are in charge and want us all to work better together,” he said.

The recent articulation of Microsoft’s interoperability principles will guide where the company goes in the future. “I understand that people measure you by what you do, and that people will measure us by what we do. But words also matter, and we stood up and articulated what we wanted to do going forward with those principles,” he said.

Microsoft Grudgingly Opens Contacts API

Microsoft's new world vision, said Ovum researcher David Mitchell, isn't necessarily one that it wanted. Much of the driving force behind the company's move to embrace standards and interoperability comes from the landscape that's developed in the software and Web application worlds.


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Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Webroot AntiSpyware 30-Day Free Trial. Click here. Latest News about Microsoft has opened up its Contacts API (application programming interface) for the Windows Live platform, which will allow third-party developers to build applications that transfer and share contact information across various social networks.

The move -- part of a larger strategy to adopt an open API strategy -- comes as social networks and other online media companies work toward building third-party developer networks that create Web applications. Microsoft has already tapped Facebook Latest News about Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, Tagged and LinkedIn -- contact-oriented social networks, to integrate its contact-sharing application.

"For quite some time now, Microsoft has been making investments in the pursuit of data portability to put users at the center of their online experience, while at the same time being thoughtful about balancing user security and privacy with the experience," wrote John Richards, Windows Live platform director, on the Microsoft developer blog.
Not Just Social

Microsoft files complaint on OOXML vote to apex office and Ministry of Consumer Affairs

I love Microsoft for their sheer willingness to piss off every human being on this planet in their quest for approval of OOXML. At the meeting held on 20th March 2008, we were informed that Microsoft has complained to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and to the apex office of the country about the constitution of the committee and also cast aspersions on the impartiality of the chairperson of LITD15, Mrs. Neeta Verma. The chairperson was furious and offered to step down from her post. She pointed out that the committee has met numerous times and Microsoft never brought this issue up in front of the committee nor did they check the facts with her or her organization before complaining to the apex office. I do not have a copy of their complaint but am assuming that their complaint is that the committee is packed with supporters of ODF.

Mrs. Verma was persuaded to stay back only after all the other members requested her to stay. After that, Dr. Arora of CSI displayed great statesmanship by asking the Microsoft representative if Microsoft would like to withdraw its complaint. Sadly, the Microsoft representative said that it cannot be withdrawn because it was sent by his senior or some similar reason. The Wipro representative then chimed in and tried to stall the vote by saying that he did not believe that the committee has not been able to apply its mind to the subject and should therefore abstain from voting on this issue! For those of us who have been engaged in this issue from the very beginning (as compared to the software exporters who put in cameo, guest appearances and contributed very little to discussing technical issues) this was obviously not acceptable.

Analysis: patent reform bill unable to clean up patent mess

Fixing serious flaws

Last September, the House of Representatives approved the Patent Reform Act of 2007, legislation that would make important changes to America's patent system. With the legislation being fiercely debated behind closed doors in the Senate, Ars takes a closer look at the legislation's provisions, the major players in the debate, and the legislation's prospects for curing what ails the American patent system.

There are formidable forces arrayed on both sides of the patent debate. On one side are major technology firms who are concerned that the explosion of dubious patent litigation threatens their bottom line. Their interest has been piqued by recent eye-popping awards to patent trolls. These companies want to make it more difficult for patent holders to extract large payouts from deep-pocketed firms. But at the same time, most hold large patent portfolios of their own, and are wary of changes that could cut too deeply into their licensing revenues.

On the other side are a variety of interest groups who benefit from the current patent system and are wary of changes that might reduce the profits of patent holders. These include the pharmaceutical industry, which feels well-served by existing patent rules. It also includes the patent bar, patent examiners, and other groups that are invested in the current process.