Snow in Texas

Greetings:

More snow in Texas as I pack up to head out tomorrow - maybe it will move on out tonight. Doesn't matter, really. I can always head out the next day. What's on the agenda for OMG/PRR this year? Actually, we should be trying to define (1) what is a rulebase engine, (2) what is forward and backward chaining (and the various combinations), (3) is conflict resolution absolutely necessary, (4) how can people who have never worked with the engine itself actually set standards for the rest of the world to follow?

The last one is easily answered: They have the money and you don't. So, they get to set the standards by sending someone, anyone, to the conference to represent the company to try and set their idea of these things as standards for the rest of the world to follow. 'Twas always thus and thus 'twill always be.

New rumour: PegaSystems bought Chordiant, a really neat little business flow management company (more of a CRM actually), for a paltry $161M. That puts Tata consultancy and CitiBank in partnership with Pega as well as Chordiant now. Pretty soon there will be one big company (probably IBM or Oracle) that will own everything and nothing will work properly because everyone is trying to get their stuff to be he "standard" by which all others will have to follow. Something like PRR at OMG. (See? You knew that I would bring everything full circle eventually, now didn't you?)

SDG

jco