Upgrade to Windows 8 for $39.99?

I primarily use Mac OS X and Linux at home, although for work I’m still obliged to used Windows 7 as it’s the corporate desktop standard. I occasionally run some Windows games on XP using Bootcamp on my Mac, but I’ve never felt the need to shell out the cash for Windows 7, it just seems like too much given that I’d only rarely use it.

Microsoft just announced their upgrade prices for Windows 8, and at $39.99 it’s almost in the trivial cost ballpark, low enough that I might upgrade my XP in Bootcamp and not think twice. I imagine at this price point this is the effect that Microsoft is looking for, given the trouble they’ve had in recent years trying to get people to upgrade from their older Windows versions. Given a low enough price that it’s a no brainer, I’m sure a number of people will jump on board and upgrade. Any more than that though, I know I wouldn’t. I’d still rather something in the $20 to $30 price range like the typical Mac OS X upgrade prices though.

Rod Johnson, founder of the Spring Framework, leaves VMWare/SpringSource

When Rod Johnson started the Spring Framework back in the early 2000s, he showed J2EE developers that there are better ways to build enterprise Java apps, and he provided the framework to help you do it. Anyone having experienced the pain of developing EJB 2.x beans during this time with it’s clunky api and verbose deployment descriptors and then since worked with the Spring Framework can attest to the huge benefits of developing apps using Spring’s much simpler, lightweight approach. Spring’s success has arguably been a significant influence on the ‘ease of use’ focus for the simplifications and improvements made in EE5 and EE6 in recent years.

Rod recently announced that he’s leaving VMWare to pursue other interests – I wish him success in his future endeavors and thanks for the impact you’ve made to enterprise Java development in the past 10+ years.

 

Presenting at Red Hat Summit 2012 next week: Accenture & Red Hat collaboration to grow OpenShift skills

I’m presenting at the Red Hat Summit 2012 conference next week, Thursday June 28th @ 2:30pm at Campground 1 – I’m going to be talking about some work we recently did at Accenture in collaboration with Red Hat to grow OpenShift skills at Accenture.

Here’s the details of the session from the link above:

Growing OpenShift Skills within Accenture: The J-Prize Coding Contest

June 15th, 2012
by Accenture team

In Spring 2012, Accenture collaborated with Red Hat to run the “J-Prize Coding Contest” for Accenture Java developers. The focus of the contest was to design and develop a Java application and deploy it to OpenShift, Red Hat’s Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering.

“Cloud-related technologies are rapidly maturing and are increasingly being used by our clients to deliver real value,” said Kevin Hooke, Manager,  Open Source Initiatives Lead for the Accenture Java Development Program. “The contest helped us grow our Java developers’ knowledge and experience with building and deploying applications to the cloud using PaaS offerings such as OpenShift.”

To learn more, attend the Red Hat campground session hosted by Kevin where he will discuss the success of the contest, the benefits gained for Accenture, and he will showcase the four winning applications.

Thursday, July 28 @ 2:30pm: Campground 1 (Room 301, Hynes)

Red Hat Summit 2012 J-Prize session promo article