Hybris v5 new features (updated)

In march Hybris made an announcement of a new release. For a major version release the announcement was very low profile. It does not even say that it is a release at all, it just mentions some new features. Maybe they will make a more official announcement yet, who knows.
The release is much more about internals being updated than about radically new features, although there are some. Here's the stuff that caught ^my eye:

• Architecture
• New cockpit framework (a cockpit is a small web application directed at a specific task)
• made up of widgets: multichannel screens that may user multiple datasources
• Application Orchestrator: a graphical workflow tool to link widgets
• Accelerators now have Addons: extensions without modifying the accelerator codebase. They may contain frontend functions
• Mobile SDK
• HTML5
• sample apps with  GPS, camera, QR-code scanning, NFC...
• Clustering without multicast
• Better caching (EhCache default)
• Default lazy loading
• Media storage plugins + Cloud media support
• Graphical workflow preview
• Order Management Services (OMS) cockpit
• single inventory view (multi shop, multi shop)
• sourcing and allocation
• pick/pack/dispatch
• expected for V5.1
• return management
• back orders
• Commerce Infrastructure Services (CIS): 
• framework with pluggable payment, taxes, address verification, shipping, fraud detection, geolocation...
• third party plugins for various services
• InStore module: module providing services in brick and mortar stores
• QR code, barcode, NFC identification
• show rich product info
• access to stock and order management

DZone Cloud Provider Overview

DZone has published an abolutely free (though you have to register) overview of cloud providers, with

• A definition of different cloud types
• A presentation of vendors for each type
• A feature by feature comparison of vendors for each category
• User survey on cloud intention

The guide does not contain a real evaluation of each product, but still is a great overview of the cloudscape.

SAP acquires hybris (updated)

German enterprise software builder SAP announced that it is acquiring the Hybris e-commerce platform.
From a product perspective this makes sense: e-commerce software always needs to be integrated with enterprise ERP/CRM backend systems. With the growth of e-commerce SAP needs this to offer an overall solution to its customers and its own WCEM (Web Channel Experience Management) was too limited and too much linked to the SAP backends. Of course we can expect SAP technology creeping into Hybris in the future, like strong integration with the SAP backends and SAP's im-memory HANA database.
Care should be taken that these integrations do not reduce fexibility. Software moloch SAP does not exactly fit Hybris' catch phrase agile e-commerce. Let's hope agility prevails

online retail trends (updated)

A recent report by the UK Center for Retail Research shows the expected rate of online retail increase. Increasing by 50% by 2018, almost one out of three non-food products will be bought online.

Retailer networks will need only 70 stores to cover the UK, compared to 250 in the mid 2000s.
Even the consumers that buy in brick go online to select the product they want to buy.

Here's what people are buying online (in Belgium). If you combine hotel and travel than holidays is the most important online sector.

In other countries the online retail market share is lower:

In Belgium, according to a study by retail organisation Comeos, the online retail market share is 3%. This is the level the Benelux market was at in 2008. If Belgium follows the global Benelux trend the market should double over the next four years.
Half of Belgian respondents prefers to buy in a Belgian webshop. 70% would like the goods to be delivered at home.

Excel negative time differences

When you calculate the difference between two time cells in Microsoft Excel (2010 is what I'm using) displays ##### as a result if the difference is negative, because Excel can not display a negative time.

• One solution is to convert this to a number, which can be shown as a negative value. Internally Excel has the time stored as a number of days, so convert this to the unit you want to display. e.g. to show the difference between time b1 and a1 as a number of minutes

= (b1-a1)*60*24

• Doing so, you loose Excel time formatting
• Sometimes the second time (b1) is always later, but because it can be after midnight its value  can be smaller. In thiscase, simply test if time b1 is smaller than a1, and add 1 day if this is so:

=IF(b1>=a1;b1-a1;b1-a1+1)

1st Web Site

Here's the original CERN website (11/1992).

earth day doodle