New payments startups face an uphill battle to disrupt the massive, entrenched credit-card processing industry

http://www.businessinsider.com/card-payments-market-competition-2015-1

Study: Open Source Delivers Superior Quality... Up To A Point

http://readwrite.com/2013/05/07/study-reveals-open-source-software-quality-is-higher-than-proprietary-code-up-to-a-point

For years open source and proprietary software camps have fought over which model produces better software. According to Coverity's annual Scan report, released today, both sides are right. And wrong. Depending on how big the code base is.

Coverity's Scan report has long served as the state of the union for open-source software quality, though Coverity analyzes proprietary software, too. In Coverity's 2012 report, which analyzed over 450,000,000 lines of code, both open-source and proprietary software saw an increase in quality, as measured by average defect density (errors found per 1,000 lines of code tested). According to Coverity, this can be attributed in part to an overall increase in organizations that have implemented formal development testing processes for their software code. 

The most interesting part of the report, however, is its analysis of the impact of project size on code quality.  

Both open source and proprietary software had roughly equivalent average defect density rates: .69 for open source and .68 for proprietary software. Open source projects had the highest quality when there were between 500,000 – 1,000,000 lines of code: 70% fewer defects, yielding a .44 average defect density. Proprietary software?  It had the best quality (or, lowest defect density) in projects over one million lines of code, registering a .33 average defect density in larger projects.

For smaller code bases, then, open source shows dramatically better quality. In larger code bases, open source has more defects, but isn't far off from proprietary software: .75 vs. .66.

While there’s no single factor that can explain this phenomenon, it’s likely due at least in part to the fact that open-source projects are often purpose-specific, and maintained by a core group of committed developers. As the projects grow in size and scope, and more developers come on board, there’s a greater hesitancy to make changes to the core kernel for fear of a ripple effect that could adversely impact the larger project.

Conversely, proprietary software projects usually need to get to a certain point of critical mass – somewhere around one million lines of code, if the results of Coverity’s report are to be trusted – before an organization implements formal development testing processes to ensure quality software code. 

Here’s an infographic that encapsulates the main findings of this year’s Scan report:

Big Data: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?

When McKinsey & Company, the well-known global management consulting firm, calls Big Data the “next frontier for innovation, competition and productivity” you had better pay attention. All trends point to a Big Data revolution: data science is becoming democratized and machine learning is showing up everywhere. Additionally, Big Data is one of Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2013. But what is Big Data and how can you harness it’s power? How is it going to change the way you do business or affect consumers? These are questions that have answers; Big Data doesn’t have to be a mystery to you any longer. This week DailyTekk is focusing on unlocking the secrets of Big Data with the help of a few knowledgeable experts. Today I’ve asked them to explain what Big Data is and why it matters.
View last week’s Understanding topic: Instagram Marketing

From the Alteryx infographic Humanizing Big Data (click to view).

What Is Big Data and Why Does It Matter?

According to Margaret Dawson, “Big Data describes data sets that are too large or too difficult to store, manage and analyze using traditional database software and analytical tools, and therefore require a new approach using distributed models and parallel processes. Big Data doesn’t necessarily have to involve huge amounts of data, as it’s more about the information you need to garner from the data and how hard it is to process it and gain intelligence from it, rather than the pure size. While data mining and business intelligence are not new, Big Data takes these to a new level, dealing with all data, structured and unstructured, across multiple sources and applications in a dynamic, and near real time fashion. And perhaps most importantly, Big Data uses data as a new source of competitive opportunity and success.”
“While most companies discuss and define big data in the context of the 3 V’s (volume, velocity and variety), another way to think about big data is the fact that most of it is a) unknown and b) unmanageable to IT organizations. The relevance of big data is significant because hidden among the daily terabytes that a single organization can generate are insights that can lead to better customer service, improved revenues, and deeper market understanding,” says Sanjay Sarathy.
SAP’s David Jonker: “First and foremost Big Data is an emerging trend where companies are harnessing their data in order to drive business value. So Big Data is also an opportunity: companies are seeing the value in tracking new business signals that were not possible before. Big Data can be an IT challenge: many companies are using traditional relational databases designed for a different era. To truly harness the opportunity enterprises need to rethink how they manage data: in the 21st century it’s about building a real-time data platform.”
Here is Matthew Standish’s take: “Big Data is a term used by industry professionals, media and analysts to describe a new technology market focused on combining both structured data types and unstructured data types. ‘Big Data’ also signifies a technology software platforms that have the ability to intelligently analyze data “Analytics” and take action on the data that drives loyalty, marketing and ultimately ROI.”

Meet the Big Data Experts

• Margaret Dawson is Vice President of Product Management at Symform and is a 20-year high-tech industry veteran and cloud expert. She is a frequent author and speaker on cloud computing, big data, network security, integration and other business and technology themes.
• David Jonker works within SAP’s Database & Technology unit with a focus on Big Data initiatives and the company’s in-memory database platform SAP HANA.
• Sanjay Sarathy is the Chief Marketing Officer at Sumo Logic with over seventeen years of marketing, business development and community building experience in both SaaS and enterprise software environments.
• Matthew Standish is Chief Executive Officer, Founder and Chief Architect of IDInteract

Will Windows 8 Bring HTML5 To Enterprise Applications?

Cormac Foster posted 2 hours ago

When Microsoft gave its first public preview of Windows 8 in 2011, the now-President of Windows Julie Larson-Green sent shockwaves through the Windows development world with just four words: "our new development platform." The reason? That platform was based on HTML5 and Javascript.
To casual observers, that makes sense. HTML5 is roaring to the forefront of development far faster than industry predictions. We even saw some commercial proof of the platform's "Write Once, Run Anywhere" promise in 2012. To seasoned Windows developers, though – particularly those building enterprise apps in dedicated Microsoft shops – it crushed their world. After spending decades learning to use different languages and development environments – most recently Microsoft's proprietary but feature-rich WPF and Silverlight – the thought of jumping ship for HTML5 was devastating.
Microsoft has backpedaled in a number of forums since then, assuring developers that while HTML5 is the new standard for cross-platform apps, other tools will continue to work for Windows-only development. But the writing is on the wall. HTML5 is the future, so if you develop enterprise Windows applications, should you bite the bullet and make the move?

Will HTML5 Save Enterprises Money?

The cost argument will rage for some time. One camp holds that HTML / Javascript developers are cheap and plentiful, so HTML5 is necessarily cheaper. The other side believes that instability of the HTML5 spec (only recently finalized and not scheduled for Recommendation status until 2014) compared to the more mature development environments available for "traditional" Windows development means developers can build complex applications faster, without worrying about tweaking things down the road.
The CTO of one small software vendor saw value in both views: "For our simpler apps, I can hire kids with good Javascript skills and let them learn the Windows specifics on the job. For really complex applications with tens of thousands of lines of code or more, It would be dumb to break what already works." He added that his more experienced Windows developers are mentoring the generally younger HTML developers to cross-pollinate knowledge. "Ultimately, each tool will have a use, for at least the next several years, and I want all of my devs to be able to pick the one that makes sense."

"Serious Coders" vs. "Script Kiddies"

His biggest problem so far is a reluctance to embrace change. "I have a couple 28-year-olds who act like grumpy old men, afraid that the 'script kiddies' without any real computer science knowledge are moving in on their turf. To them, HTML5 cheapens the application, dumbs down their resumes, and opens the door to a whole lot of bad coding from people who know how to make Web pages, but don't have any formal experience with structured coding."
The last point is probably the most valid. Knowing HTML and some Javascript isn't a particularly high bar, so enterprises need to be diligent about hiring and mentoring. If you pull developers off of Craigslist for $15 an hour, you're not going to get quality enterprise work. Even well-established Web developers coming from a LAMP background may not have the right experience. A mentoring program using Agile or another pair-programming methodology – can be a great way to ease Web developers into a more formal programing environment.

What Do Developers Want?

One long-time C++ and (more recently) C# developer wasn't excited about the rise of HTMLt5: "Eh. I get what they're doing. It's all about the portability of UI. They've been on that path for a long time, but whatever. The thing is, developers don't want to learn a new markup when Microsoft has already forced them to learn one recently. WPF / Silverlight is crap, but so was Winforms. If they'd skipped WPF, they'd probably have more success trying to get people to shift to HTML5... I'll go where the money is, though."
That last point is telling. Developers will follow the work, they really don't have a choice. And that it won't be long before everyone will be doing at least some work in HTML5. Smart enterprises will be begin mixing in some of that work now makes sense, but there's not yet good reasons for a complete shift.

http://readwrite.com/2013/01/07/will-windows-8-bring-html5-to-enterprise-applications