"Recently there has been a flurry of activity around a concept called “Office 2.0” - another offshoot of the term “Web 2.0” - in which all traditional office applications can be replaced by online services accessible through a generic web browser. What’s making this possible is a set of new technologies including AJAX, RSS and web services, a set of actual applications such as Google Gmail and Zoho Writer, a web-based word processor, and a great deal of unbridled enthusiasm."

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Ruby on Rails Enterprise Application Development is a new book from Packt that helps readers to build a complete Ruby on Rails Business Application from start to finish. Written by Elliott Smith and Rob Nichols, this book concentrates on application development as a whole process and is intended to complement existing Rails tutorials. Each chapter deals with a key feature or functional area of a complex, full-scale Rails application.

All businesses have processes that can be automated via computer applications, thereby reducing costs and simplifying everyday operations. This book demonstrates that a modern web application framework makes an ideal platform for such applications. It shows how the attributes that make the Rails framework so successful for Internet applications also provide great benefit within a business intranet. These attributes include easy roll-out and update of applications, centralized processing and data handling, simple maintenance, straightforward code development, and scalability.

Businesses and organizations that have large amounts of information to provide to users need a method for guiding that information from creation through editing, approval, publishing and maintenance to archiving. This process is generally referred to as content management. While the concept of content management has been around for a long time—newspapers have been using it for decades—it’s a relatively new term for most people.

"As a result, web-content management tools are changing. Users need to be very sure that the product they select today will continue to support their corporate website as it evolves to meet the expectations of an increasingly demanding breed of website visitor.

In general, says Latham, suppliers are focusing less on the content-production aspects of their web-content management suites - authoring tools, repository management and library services, for example - in favour of a greater emphasis on enhancing content-delivery functions, such as personalisation tools and analytics, which enable companies to deliver web content to visitors in a far more targeted way."

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The advantages are clear for applications that work well on the Web: Anytime and anywhere access to your data, good application speed over a broadband connection, automated backups, and streamlined user interfaces that are far easier to use than the bloatware of yesteryear."

Yesterday, I spent my time at the Techknowlogy Summit in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We don't get too many technology or geek conventions in the state of South Dakota, so I didn't want this one go to by without a mention here at CMS Report.

Keynote Speaker

The Techknowlogy Summit is a trade show with presentations by both national and regional leaders in technology. The keynote speaker for the show was Kodak Company's Bill Lloyd, CTO, discussing his company's transformation for meeting the demands of the digital age. It was an interesting discussion on the challenges a century old company faces when needing to shift their primary products (film) over to new digital products. Kodak's current modernization efforts began around 2001 and is expected to be near completion in 2007. It was an interesting story, a story that looks likely to have a happy ending for the company and its investors.

Breakout Sessions

The show also had some breakout sessions. I attended a couple Web oriented sessions as well as a session on project management (well done). Regarding the Internet focused sessions, all the speakers were knowledgeable but I'm not convinced all the speakers fully understood who was in their audience. The make-up of the audience was made up by about half developers and half small business people (many of them small retail owners). Naturally, a business technology show should have made sure those talks had the small business owners in mind.

However, the talks were more geared toward the CEO crowd. When the speakers found that the audience didn't contain the companies with the huge IT budgets, the speakers then shifted their talk toward the more comfortable IT people. From my perspective, the small business people were squirming in their chairs and suddenly felt out of place. Oh, how often we IT people spend so much time talking about what we know and so little time listening to the needs of potential customers!

"To better promote the Xoops CMS as a professional web solution/platform, we have decided to launch the "Xoops Portofolio Project".

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"With Microsoft Office 2007's relatively high price and steep learning curve, free Web-based office suites look mighty appealing. They do offer some interesting features, but should be looked at more as an Office adjunct than a replacement."

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