I sure don t see it as a step forward in application development. I see Linux as a choice of OS I can run my systems on. SOAP, XML and State Management XML was everywhere, in every perceivable incarnation. Mr. Box is a co-author of the SOAP specification, and he delivered a fast paced overview of the design goals of SOAP, along with technologies you could use to implement SOAP in. This demonstrated the open nature and power of SOAP, that it was truly language and implementation independent.
Components are a logical target for a SOAP message.
Enabling components to describe their services to a consumer, in a SOAP consumable way will be critical in the very near future. Being able to operate in a distributed, Internet based programming model is sure to challenge some programming assumptions. I was surprised to learn that they ve shipped as many thin client computers as they have and was also impressed by their EON strategy for supporting the whole wave of portable, wireless devices being connected to the Internet. They showed off advanced versions of their transcoding technology, allowing for late discovery and adjustment of the presentation characteristics based on the accessing device. My first article for HQ looked at the importance of pervasive computing and how components would form the heart of a distributed computing model.