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There's an interesting article out today detailing how two Gartner analysts believe that windows is "collapsing" - both under the weight of its own legacy code, but also (and more importantly) because people are increasingly using "OS-agnostic applications." One account of the Gartner presentation says that the analysts believe that all OS applications have moved on to the web by 2011.

 We, of course, wouldn't argue the point. The truth is that the browser is the new desktop, and the web is the new PC (heck, that's not even new - that's been true for years). The problem now is that existing vendors like Microsoft will have to adjust to what that radical change means. But even more so, new opportunities arrive in how it is that we can begin to integrate all of these "OS-agnostic applications." And, by the way, having Google host all of those OS apps is *not* the answer.

 The collapse of "windows" leads to a lot of broken stuff that we have to glue back together. 

Dana Gardner has an interesting post about how "web oriented architecture" may be closing the window on the opportunity that is "service oriented architecture." In it, he hints at the idea that SOA is an extension of the EAI (enterprise application integration) of the late 90s, while WOA is the new and fertile ground in enterprise IT architecture.

Obviously, over here at Glue, we agree. In fact, one of the ideas behind Glue is that WOA is not only "eclipsing" other architectures, but that the big problem of EAI is happening all over again. EAI basically tried to "glue" together applications behind a firewall on a corporate network (and gave rise to a great many of the "suites" - like identity management suites - that we see today).

As WOA creeps into the enterprise, the integration (read: gluing together) of those apps becomes a ginormous problem once again. And that is one huge Glue thread.

Welcome to Glue! Glue is a conference (and blog) about the idea that now that the web is the platform, enterprise IT folks are faced with a problem similar to the enterprise application integration hell they faced in the late 90's. Namely, integrating web applications; or more correctly, loosely coupling, abstracting and sharing  the data, process and workflow that is common to those applications. Some folks have described the idea as "Interop for the Web." Others have called it "web oriented architecture." No matter what you call it, we hope to be a resource for these ideas.

So, first questions first: When is Glue? Well, that's the thing. We haven't decided yet. We've set this site up well in advance of when we plan to have the conference (early 09) because we want to gather your feedback. Glue will be sometime in early 2009. In the meantime, we'll be looking for every way possible to engage with people (architects, integrators, vendors, etc) around the ideas that make up Glue.

And what are those ideas? The categories are a bit fluid, but so far, we've identified the following:

Edit or delete it, then start blogging!