SOA refers to a systems design approach that eschews monolithic applications and instead designates various processes, such as running a credit check on a customer, as interoperable “services” that allow code to be flexibly reused.

AmberPoint’s software is used to monitor the performance of SOA-driven applications and help users solve problems. According to an FAQ document Oracle released Monday (PDF), it is “highly complementary” to Oracle’s own SOA software and will “enable increased control and performance of critical applications across the enterprise.

It’s not yet clear how the deal will affect road maps for AmberPoint’s products. A review is under way and more details will be forthcoming, according to Oracle. And investment in the products is expected to increase.

According to Tony Baer on the On Strategies Perspective blog, AmberPoint was one of a dwindling group of still-standing independents delivering runtime governance for SOA environments.

He added, the move “patches some gaps in its Enterprise Manager offering, not only in SOA runtime governance, but also with business transaction management — and potentially — better visibility to non-Oracle systems”.

And in the first half of this year, the deal is expected to close.

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PCWorld editors Ed Albro, Jason Cross, Robert Strohmeyer, and Nick Mediati take a look at the facts surrounding Flash and HTML5. Is HTML5 almost ready for prime time, or is this just more posturing from Apple?

Meanwhile, the sudden rise of e-book readers may now be threatened by the upcoming crop of tablets. Is it time for Amazon to give up on the Kindle and shift its focus back to content?

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South Korea boasts the world’s highest average connection speed at 14.6 Megabytes per second (Mbps) and also has six of Asia’s 10 cities with the fastest link-ups, all with average speeds above 15 Mbps.

According to the report by US-based network provider Akamai Technologies, Japan had the second highest average connection speed of 7.9 Mbps, followed by the Chinese territory of Hong Kong with 7.6 Mbps.

The other countries in the top ten are Romania, followed by Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and the Czech Republic, with the United States at 18th place, with an average speed of 3.9 Mbps.

The survey classifies “broadband” connections as those of two Mbps or more, and “high broadband” as five Mbps or over, while link-ups at 20 Mbps and better were categorized as “extremely high speed connectivity.”

The report said, South Korea, 74 percent of connections were “high broadband,” the world’s top rate, while the figure was 60 percent in Japan, followed by Hong Kong with 46 percent.

The United States came 12th, with just 24 percent of its connections at five Mbps or more. Worldwide, the high broadband percentage was 19 percent.

Akamai’s ‘State of the Internet’ report for the third quarter of 2009, said the growing demand for online high-definition video content is driving demand for faster connections.

As the quantity of HD-quality media increases over time and the consumption of that media increases, end users are likely to require ever-increasing amounts of bandwidth, said the report.

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