By 2015, it’s estimated there will be one trillion connected devices. People with pacemakers will be monitored by wireless systems. In the near future, automobiles will run on 64-bit, multi-core processors, running millions of lines of code. It’s a future that IBM believes will be increasingly dominated by a “system of systems,” where software scales on devices that interconnect to create a convergence of mechanical, electronic, and digital technologies. Sponsor It’s another example of how data is changing all aspects of how products are developed. It’s also a grand view of our future that almost seems like science fiction. IBM is making its pitch this week for a smarter planet. It’s almost like a mantra here at IBM Innovate where the company is positioning its Rational software as the environment for managing the massive complexities of managing products in a super connected world. IBM maintains that customers need to view products according to how they ft into complex systems that flow in and out of the organization. The system needs to be a core part of the product development. Fittingly, IBM announced Integrated Product Management today. The service brings together more than 30 IBM offerings from IBM Rational. IBM aside, the new complexities of developing products for a dynamic supply chain means changing view about product development. Companies are responding by developing Agile development processes. Test and development is moving to the cloud, helping companies get products more quickly into production. There are any number of examples for how the complex interconnections of data and connectivity will affect the enterprise. But perhaps the most immediate example comes from Apple. The iPod is an MP3 player with software. An iPhone is a product of interconnected systems. That’s a big reason for its success. It’s also a model for what we are seeing in a world with 1 trillion connected devices. Discuss

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The term, “real-time,” surfaces as a theme in the enterprise but the context often varies depending on the discussion. Real-time can refer to microblogs for communicating in the enterprise. It can also refer to the real-time data that is aggregated from social networks. For example, Salesforce.com uses aggregated data from social networks to enhance customer service and sales. Sponsor But one of its most significant impacts is its part in the evolution of new supply chains that are emerging in the enterprise. Dion Hinchcliffe says real-time information is a core aspect of what is emerging in what he calls the social supply chain: “Employment of social supply chain sourcing and advanced B2B supply chain services that can be activated and harnessed in real-time to solve problems and meet challenges dynamically and effectively. Today’s Web APIs, which are directly made successful by the developer communities that make them up, will be transformed into enterprise social supply chains made up of partner communities and novel new network coordination systems.” In Hinchcliffe’s view, the social supply chain is starting to replace existing supply chain networks. Until quite recently, supply chains advanced through technological improvements. Now, cloud computing and open API’s are providing organizations with new ways to get real-time data into the enterprise. The foundation for this new supply chain are systems built upon a Web Oriented Architecture (WOA). According to Hinchcliffe, this environment is moving Web technologies and the Internet itself to the center of enterprise supply chains. Hinchcliffe: “The Internet version of all these trends could be said to have culminated in recent years in the concept of the mashup. These are products or services created entirely out of the components of other businesses and where ingenuity and insight are the single most important ingredients. In this world of on-demand supplier integration, the primary supply chain inputs of mashups usually are usually via real-time connection with strategic partners and not from the integrating organization.” So, out of this you can see how the Internet is affecting the way the enterprise operates. The cloud acts as the platform for services to provide data to third-parties. REST is the software infrastructure for the exchange. The value is in the real-time delivery. Mindtouch CEO Aaron Fulkerson gave an overview of the WOA at Gluecon. It’s a decent guide to REST and its function in WOA environments. Web Oriented Architecture (WOA) Gluecon, May 2010

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Today, SalesForce partners FinancialForce , the first native accounting package for SalesForce.com, and CloudApps , a new breed of carbon management solution, announce their products integrate to enable carbon credits to be managed in accounting terms within the Salesforce platform. In reviewing this integration and observing the momentum of the ecosystem we see another clear example of the advantage in being both first in a new platform – and going native into it. This seems especially true in the cloud as it is positioned for massive growth. Sponsor Cloud and the Environment Carbon is a building block of life. It is also being looked at seriously (especially in Europe) as a new currency that counts the cost of doing business. The effort to reduce the carbon emissions going into the atmosphere is becoming a critical discussion in terms of both the future – and the present quarter. As legislation and credits have been established, accounting for these transactions has become a natural extension to managing the business. Cloud Apps – Platform for Carbon The process of carbon management includes a process of measurement, planning, and executing change. Cloud Apps has delivered a carbon platform for activating a program, this technology lives on the Force.com platform. Counting and monitoring the use of physical assets touches concept we cover in the ReadWriteWeb called the Internet of Things. In this case, monitors of activity can push data of real world changes directly into a decision management solution to make decisions. In this context, it seems like SalesForce Chatter platform will be a important piece of this puzzle, as information an processes continue to merge, basic communications and escalations will be a key part of making real-time decisions. FinancialForce – Native Matters FinancialForce is the first native accounting package on Force.com platform. We spoke with CEO, Jeremy Roche, and found that he described FinancialForce as “speaking SalesForce natively”. The company shares product feature screenshots on how the product maps workflows and generates reports on the state of the business. Shown here is a view of cash flow for the organization. The natural expansion of the SalesForce platform shows us several things that seem key to a thriving business environment. In particular, this partnership shows off the case of specialization of services that are complementary and worthwhile to business leadership. Perhaps it is too soon, but here’s one vote for Marc Benioff getting a nudge for the Nobel Prize . It’s one thing to build a case in Powerpoint, entirely another to command a platform. Have you counted your carbon today? Photo credit: otodo Discuss

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When Steve Jobs and Apple announced some of the new features and APIs that would be available in the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0 upgrade , they managed to sneak in a feature that has gone largely unnoticed. On a slide showing a smattering of new APIs, “Full access to still and video camera data” sat quietly at the bottom of the screen, and when Jobs named off a few of the APIs, he left this one out. Mobile augmented reality (AR) developers, who have been champing at the bit for access to raw iPhone camera data insofar as to petition Apple for it , immediately took notice of the feature. Sponsor But wait, can’t apps already access the camera? Until OS 4.0, this was only partially true. Yes, developers could access the camera and include either stills or video in their applications, but the ability to actually analyze a live video feed has been severely hampered. Previously, applications could pull screenshots of a video feed at a rate of around 15 frames per second, but now these applications will be able to analyze the raw video feed. This will help applications that currently rely on analyzing video stills to complete their tasks much faster, and will open the door for new applications to process the live data for new types of visually aware apps. Mobile AR developers have been previously forced into creating “blind AR” apps that are merely using the video feed as a backdrop on which to place geo-tagged markers. With access to the raw video data, the environment being captured from the camera will now be able to play a much larger role in accurately placing these markers into 3D space. While in Colorado for Boulder Startup Week I’ve had the chance to chat about AR with a few developers and engineers who are excited for live video access in iPhone OS 4.0. Both Brendan O’Connor from SimpleGeo and Vikas Reddy from Occipital agree that this new API is a huge step forward for mobile AR applications – something both companies are looking to delve into further in the near future. Layar CEO Raimo van der Klein, who chatted with me via email Thursday, says the advancements in the new iPhone OS are “a great opportunity to improve Augmented Reality experiences” across the mobile platform. “We are very excited about this additional API,” he added. It will be very interesting to watch the advancements in mobile AR and other fields as developers start discovering new ways to make use of live video data. With a rumored front-facing camera coming to the next generation iPhone, mobile AR could also take some steps forward that will allow experiences much like those seen in desktop-based applications that use a webcam. For that to happen, however, developers have needed the access to live video data. Now they have just that. Discuss

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It’s no longer a secret that China’s online gaming industry is booming, and growth is set to continue with companies such as Shanda Games , Netease and The9 leading the way. In 2009, China’s online gaming industry earned nearly $4 billion, growing 39.5% from 2008 . Each day, millions of high school students trying to forget the pressures of college entrance exams and young adults discontent with their jobs flock to Internet cafes to play online role-playing games. They’re part of China’s 384 million netizens , and they sit in front of rows of computers in dimly lighted smoke-filled rooms for upwards of eight hours at a time, living in virtual worlds to escape the pressures of contemporary Chinese life. Sponsor Guest author Joel Backaler writes The China Observer , an award-winning blog focused on Chinese technology trends and consumer culture. His writing has appeared in and he has been quoted by the Wall Street Journal China Journal, BusinessWeek, and Seeking Alpha. Joel is a Mandarin-speaking former Fulbright Fellow who has worked and lived in Taipei, Beijing and Singapore with Frontier Strategy Group. Follow Joel on Twitter . But beyond the Internet cafés, social games have emerged as a convenient alternative for students and workers alike to gain a sense of release and revitalize themselves before tackling the next assignment of the day in their everyday lives. They take breaks to tend to their garden on 5 Minutes’ Happy Farm (Kaixin Nongchang) farming game, or steal their friend’s car parking space on Kaixin001 ‘s Qiang Chewei. RenRenWang (formerly Xiaonei), Kaixin001 and Tencent’s QQ Xiaoyou are leading SNS portals, and are the go-to sites to access China’s most popular gaming applications. The widespread popularity of social games is not solely limited to white collar workers in their 20s – social gaming appeals to China’s youth, their middle-aged parents, and even elderly retirees looking to share a common hobby with relatives spread throughout the country. The social gaming landscape is developing at an extremely rapid pace, with competition growing increasingly fierce by the day. What Makes a ‘Winning’ Social Game in China? The most popular social games in China are simple to play and appeal to a broad audience. These winning games take place in easily recognizable environments such as kitchens, gardens and parking lots, and only require a few clicks of a mouse to have a shared social gaming experience with your friends. Happy Farm is the most popular Chinese social game to date. Created by Shanghai-based social game developer 5 Minutes, the game is quite similar to Zynga’s FarmVille. Players own a virtual farm where they plant fruits and vegetables. They purchase supplies like seeds, pesticide and fertilizer at a virtual market. While part of the game is about growing and protecting your own harvest, the real fun is sneaking into your friends’ farms to steal their vegetables. The game is easy to learn, taps into traditional Chinese farming culture and is extremely addictive – appealing to the young, the old and everyone in between. Which Social Game Developers in China You Should Know About? 5 Minutes (五分钟) , CEO: Shaofei Gao 5 Minutes was founded in 2006 by three college students. In November 2008 it released Happy Farm (below) and achieved immediate success, partnering with leading SNS portals, and receiving a one-time multi-million Chinese RMB payment from Tencent for full rights to the game on its QQZone platform. At the end of 2009, 5 Minutes received $3.5 million in venture capital funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson . Rekoo (热酷) , CEO: Yong Liu Founded in 2008, Rekoo is one of China’s leading social gaming developers with several domestic partners: RenRenWang, 51.com, Alibaba, Baidu and Sohu . Rekoo also has strategic overseas partnerships with Facebook, MIXI, Myspace and Cyworld. Rekoo’s most successful games are Sunshine Ranch and Animal Paradise. IsMole (奇矩互动) , CEO: Edwin Chen Founded in 2008, IsMole started off as a market-leading game developer for social networks, but quickly lost its competitive edge to others like 5 Minutes and Rekoo. IsMole’s is best known for its Xingfu Chufang (below) cooking social game that has been released in five different languages across seven countries on thirteen different SNS platforms. Kingnet Games (恺英网络) , CEO: Yue Wang Founded in 2008, Kingnet first released Tower of Babel in April 2009, and within three months had over 500,000 users. In July 2009 Kingnet received venture capital investment from KPCB China. In October 2009, Kingnet had over 2 million users on Facebook. Challenges Facing Social Game Developers Social game development in China has entered a period of tremendous growth, but it has yet to fully mature. Companies compete fiercely with varying levels of experience and capital to create the next winning game. Two major challenges have arisen as a result of this environment. 1. Lack of Innovation: There is an overall lack of diversity in gaming context. Copying is rampant amongst competitors – once a social game is proven successful, competitors begin producing their own versions. For example, there are numerous games that take place in farms such as 5 Minutes’ Happy Farm: Rekoo’s Sunshine Ranch, Kaixin001′s Kaixin Huayuan, and Zhiming Xingtong’s Happy Farmer. 2. Lack of Continuous Improvement: There is a tendency for developers to stop investing in the game after it is on the SNS platform. In some cases this is due to lack of sufficient capital, while others stop because they’re trying to make multiple games to obtain a quick return on investment. This lack of continuous improvement creates short game lifecycles, as user experience ultimately suffers, and a short period of success finally leads to replacement by the next popular game. To win in this environment over the long-term, it is unavoidable that operational costs will continue to rise, as developers must continuously improve the quality and uniqueness of their games to fend off domestic competition and maintain their market share. This Is Only The Beginning Despite these challenges, there is tremendous growth potential in social gaming in China. The first years of growth in China’s social game development have served as a foundation. The next few years will see a convergence between social games and 3G mobile gaming. The social game user base that is predominantly comprised of students and young white-collar workers will continue to grow with even more older players joining the crowd. While Chinese companies will continue to face a competitive market at home, the best companies will develop unique winning strategies domestically and localize them to win success overseas. In a recent interview, 5 Minute’s CEO Shaofei Gao was quoted as saying : “China’s netizens are becoming more mature, they are gradually becoming more accustomed to paying for gaming, and social gaming market opportunities will definitely continue to increase in the future.” Discuss

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