On 3/6/07, noah_mendelsohn@u... <noah_mendelsohn@u...> wrote:
> If by "these boxes" you mean XML appliances that package XML processing
> outboard from the main computer, then I'd suggest you check with Rich Salz
> personally see it as commoditization.  On the contrary, the commodity
> solution (good or bad) seems to me to be to take a very cheap general
> purpose computer.  The XML appliances are not at commodity price points,

I guess I was using this more as an analogy....and I agreed that these
'appliances' are a bit lower down the processing stack.

> for example.  On the contrary, they tend to be relatively low volume
> products priced much higher than typical desktop computers.  What they
> offer is packaging, management, software, and sometimes custom hardware

yes, I distinctly remember when datapower was bought; I used to share
offices with the guys who wrote sablotron (xslt processor), here in
czech, and I remember having a conversation with some cisco people if
they needed to embed an xslt processor on a chip somewhere on one of
their 'boxes'. Don't know if they ever got around to releasing their
own xml appliance.

> tailored to the special job of dealing with XML messages.  Rich may be
> able to give you a more nuanced or possibly different answer (and you
> certainly have my permission to forward this reply to him).  Thank you!

thx!

I can see interesting possibilities for building on top of these appliances;

what I personally would find interesting is the potential for the
basis of a 'semantic' firewall/filter; does IBM allow any development
on the hardware...I guess this is a question for Rich.

cheers, Jim Fuller