(InfoWorld) - Improvements to the open-source Spring Java framework and a companion Web technology focus on annotations, scripting, and Java (Java Platform Standard Edition) 6, developers of the framework said. The upgrades are being unveiled on Monday.

Officials of Interface21, which oversees development of Spring technologies, will reveal plans for Spring Framework 2.1 and Spring Web Flow 1.1. Both will be available in a release candidate form at the JavaOne conference, which begins in San Francisco on May 8. Final releases are planned for June.

Having been downloaded 3 million times, Spring has become popular for Java application development because it combines simplicity and power and can be used in mission-critical applications, said Rod Johnson, founder of Spring and CEO of Interface21.

Themes around the new releases of Spring and Spring Web Flow focus on ease of use and exposing the products to different categories of users, such as those who want to use annotations heavily.

Spring's accommodations for annotations will probably be the most noticeable improvement, Johnson said. Traditionally, Spring has emphasized the use of XML meta data to externalize configuration data from Java code. But in version 2.1, annotations, which are source-level metadata, can be used.

"Application configuration becomes simpler," Johnson said.

Use of source-level metadata is akin to adding notes to code, such as to a message declaration or a field. "It doesn’t change how the code executes, but it adds metadata that can be used, for example, by frameworks," said Johnson.

The key point is some developers like to use XML, but another camp likes to use annotations, said Neelan Choksi, Interface21 vice president. A third camp likes to mix and match, he said.

Annotations was called "a great time-saver and a good productivity feature," by Brad Shimmin, principal analyst at Current Analysis.

"Annotations have been around for a while, but they're now just starting to really take off, primarily with the introduction of Java EE (Enterprise Edition) 5 and now enhanced through Spring 2.1," Shimmin said. "What they do, which is pretty cool, actually, is they let you describe the use and meaning of different objects."

Java 6 capabilities in Spring 2.1 include out-of-the box support for standard annotations, affecting such capabilities as application configuration and initialization. Also from Java 6 is enhanced ease of use for Java Persistence API, which offers object-relational mapping capabilities for accessing relational data from a Java program.

Scripting functionality in Spring 2.1 adds support for the Rhino implementation of JavaScript featured in Java 6. With Spring, scripting enables developers to quickly apply container services, such as configuration capabilities and declarative transaction management and security.

"You can apply all those capabilities to components written in any of the supported dynamic languages," Johnson said. Spring developers thus get the advantage of the Spring component model and the greater ease of use offered through scripting, he said.

Also featured in Spring 2.1 is support for Java Component Architecture for advanced integration between Java applications and systems like mainframes.

Spring Web Flow is a Web technology for setting the flow of interactions in applications, particularly in e-commerce systems. An example would be setting up a series of steps for booking a seat on an airplane. Featured in version 1.1 is significantly enhanced integration with JSF (JavaServer Faces); developers get the full power of the Web flow model, Johnson said.

"The benefit of that is that JSF provides a standard component model for Java Web development," said Johnson. JSF is becoming increasingly popular and serves as an alternative to the more traditional template-based approach to Web development, he said.

Spring and Spring Web Flow are offered via an Apache license.

(InfoWorld) - Growth in its wireless and broadband divisions pushed first-quarter revenue higher at Verizon Communications, although earnings declined from a year ago because of asset divestitures and merger costs.

Revenue for the quarter climbed 6.4 percent to $22.6 billion for the quarter, Verizon announced Monday. Adjusted earnings were $1.6 billion, or $0.56 per share, down from $0.60 per share in the first quarter of 2006.

The adjustments included a reduction of $0.05 per share from a tender offer related to Venezuela's nationalization of its telecom services, Verizon said. It also incurred costs related to last year's merger with MCI.

The company added 1.7 million wireless customers in the quarter for a total of 60.7 million, up 14.5 percent from a year ago. That includes 58.5 million retail customers, which is more than any other U.S. carrier, according to Verizon. Revenue from the wireless group was $10.3 billion, an increase of 17 percent from last year.

In its fixed-line group, broadband connections increased 416,000 to 7.4 million, up 30.1 percent from a year earlier. Verizon now has 348,000 customers for its FiOS digital TV service and close to 1 million video customers in total, including its satellite TV service.

Revenue from Verizon Business, which serves large businesses and governments, increased 2.3 percent to $5.2 billion. That helped to offset a decline in its consumer fixed-line business, where revenue fell 3.5 percent to $4.2 billion, the company said.

Verizon needs to offer complete packages of services to compete with cable TV companies on the consumer side, which have been taking customers, and AT&T on the business side, said independent telecoms analyst Jeff Kagan.

"Verizon's performance looks very strong," he said in a research note Monday morning. "They are actively and aggressively transforming the company from a local phone company to a full service provider of local and long distance telephone, wireless, internet, and television."

(InfoWorld) - Chinese Internet company Alibaba.com is planning an initial public offering (IPO) for one of its business units, the Wall Street Journal newspaper reported Monday.

Based in Hangzhou, China, Alibaba is one of China's biggest Internet companies, counting business-to-business trading site Alibaba and consumer auction site Taobao among its online operations. In addition, Alibaba also owns and operates Yahoo's Chinese operations in 2005 as part of a $1 billion deal, which saw Yahoo take a 40 percent stake in Alibaba.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Alibaba plans to take only its business-to-business unit public. The report, which cited an anonymous source, did not say when the listing will take place or how much Alibaba hopes to raise through the sale of shares.

Alibaba spokeswoman Christina Splinder declined to comment on the report.

Why Alibaba, which has long resisted going public, would pursue an IPO was not immediately clear.

Last September, Alibaba CEO Jack Ma said the company was in no hurry to list its shares. "We spent $750 million to buy out all the small investors and let our long-time employees cash out. This is why it's not urgent for us to go public," he said, referring to money gained from Yahoo's investment in Alibaba.

At the time of Ma's comments, Alibaba had more than $250 million in cash and the Alibaba.com site was profitable.

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(InfoWorld) - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest contract chip maker, celebrated 20 years in business on Monday with a new growth forecast for the global chip industry.

Chip industry revenue overall will grow by 5 percent to 10 percent per year over the next decade, and the contract chip manufacturing sector will continue to outpace the industry average, said Morris Chang, chairman and founder of TSMC, speaking at a conference in Taipei.

Last year, global industry revenue increased 8.9 percent over 2005 to a record high $247.7 billion, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), a global trade group.

It's a bold prediction for what appears to be a maturing company, with $9.7 billion in sales last year and tough competition. The fastest phase of TSMC's growth came in the first decade and a half of its life, peaking about the same time as the dot-com bubble, and market leaders almost always lose market share to competitors as their industry expands.

TSMC manufactures chips that are designed by other companies, a business model it pioneered. Prior to the Taiwanese company's founding, small chip design firms had to ask Intel and other big chip makers to make their chips, and these companies would only comply if their factories weren't already full. The smaller companies had no choice. Setting up their own chip factory would have cost around $1 billion each, a huge hurdle for a new company. Today, such plants cost $3.5 billion.

Chang founded TSMC to take over the manufacturing side of the business, giving small chip designers a chance by ensuring they had reliable production and didn't have to pay the hefty price tag of a new chip factory just to get into the business. The result has been steady growth for the foundry industry and the chip design companies they service.

Last year, the chip design industry accounted for 20 percent of global chip revenue, or $49.7 billion, according to the Fabless Semiconductor Association. Mobile phone chip developer Qualcomm and graphics chip designer Nvidia are two examples of chip designers that have been wildly successful, despite not owning their own factories.

The success of the chip foundry model has given rise to a number of new competitors, including heavyweights IBM and Samsung Semiconductor on the top end, and several Chinese rivals, including Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), on lower end chips. These new rivals have been able to survive, and in some cases thrive.

But even as the number of rivals in the contract chip industry grows, TSMC appears to be maintaining its edge.

TSMC took a 45.2 percent share of revenue in the foundry market last year, according to Gartner. Revenue for the entire foundry industry was $21.5 billion, or nearly a quarter of total chip industry revenue, the market researcher said.

The company's nearest rival is United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), which saw its market share drop below 15 percent last year, mainly at TSMC's expense.

One troubling trend for TSMC is market share gains made by Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Singaporean chip maker has benefitted from a technology alliance with IBM, which also includes Samsung Electronics, Advanced Micro Devices, and others. Chartered has won orders for AMD microprocessors through the alliance, giving it fuel to expand research and development for more advanced chip manufacturing techniques.

Developing closer relationships with chip design companies will be a key strategy for TSMC in the future, as will continuing to be at the forefront of chip manufacturing innovation.

"This is a company founded on the idea of partnership," said Chang.

(InfoWorld) - Less than two weeks after unveiling a road map for its enterprise content management (ECM) software, Oracle released the first of the revamped products laid out in that strategy.

Previously known as Stellent Universal Content Management, Oracle renamed the software Oracle Universal Content Management 10g Release 3, to reflect its status as a component of Oracle's Fusion middleware, and made it generally available on Monday. It's the first product Oracle has released since acquiring ECM vendor Stellent for approximately $440 million in December.

Oracle Universal Content Management acts as an ECM platform enabling users to capture, store, manage, locate, publish and retain unstructured content such as documents, video and audio. Oracle has retained the Stellent's software ability to interact with a variety of third-party products while tightening integration with its own Oracle software.

Users now have more choice about how they store their content, according to Michelle Huff, principal product manager for Oracle Content Management, who was formerly with Stellent.

Universal Content Management has a new file store provider architecture so users can opt for a variety of storage options for their content from Oracle, BMC Software, Fujitsu, and Network Appliance. At present, the Oracle 10g relational database is the only one available as an out-of-the-box option, but, depending on demand, Oracle may eventually provide the same functionality for third-party offerings, she said.

Oracle Universal Content Management also features integration with Microsoft's SharePoint Web content management software. Previously, Stellent offered a SharePoint add-on for another of its products, Unified Records Management.

Oracle has worked to improve the integration between Universal Content Management and its own Oracle Portal Server and Oracle WebCenter Suite, as well as third-party portals from BEA Systems, IBM, and Sun Microsystems.

The software can also convert the native format that content is stored in, from a Microsoft Word document to a PDF (portable document format) file, for example.

In the past, Stellent embedded an OEM version of the Verity enterprise search software in its Universal Content Management product. Then, in response to user demand, the vendor allowed companies to use Verity, now part of Autonomy Corp., or rival technology from Fast Search & Transfer. In the new Oracle release, customers can also use Oracle Secure Enterprise Search (SES). A dedicated use license for SES is included with Oracle Universal Content Management so content managed by the ECM software can be indexed and accessed by SES.

Primary competition for Oracle's ECM software comes from EMC's Documentum family of products, with the vendor also coming across IBM, which acquired FileNet last year for $1.6 billion, Microsoft and Open Text, according to Huff. Oracle hopes its ECM products will resonate with existing customers who already use its database, middleware and applications, and with those who've yet to embrace content management.

Oracle plans to integrate Universal Content Management with more of its software in the future, including its enterprise applications.

Oracle Universal Content Management 10g Release 3 is priced from $100,000 per processor.