SAN DIEGO - November 19, 2008: DefenseWeb® Technologies, Inc., a premier custom software developer and systems integrator for the U.S. Department of Defense and other federal government agencies, announced today the launch of its formal Open Source program.

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), the practice of grouping functionality around business processes and packaging them as interoperable services is the subject of Bridging the SOA Divide for Deployed Assets. Cameron Matthews, CTO of Sentek Consulting, writes about the strategies behind using SOA in forward-deployed operations.

In this op-ed from the July 10th, 2008 Mar-Ex e-Newsletter, Joe Keefe writes about a worsening American economy, the weak US dollar and the out-of-control energy costs driving inflation. Keefe believes these economic problems will merge in time for the November elections to form a "Perfect Storm" that hopefully will force the American public and its lawmakers to make some hard decisions about a "rudderless national energy policy."

The past five years have seen remarkable transformation in how military Command and Control (C2) systems are designed and procured. Proprietary and costly custom developed systems are now giving way to commercial off-the-shelf networking products with the same level of reliability and capability. While the benefits are numerous, the resistance from traditional vendors and contractors is equally significant.

Douglas W. Burke, CEO of DefenseWeb Technologies, Inc. writes about the need for, and importance of, communications systems to support the overseas deployment of non-military personnel.

In this feature, Joseph Myers writes about the lexicon of the war on Islamist terrorism, and how recent U.S. policy changes establishing a new "speech code" for the war show a fundamental misunderstanding by policy makers of the enemy, its motivation and its mission.

The on-going Holy Land Foundation trial has established important facts about the resident domestic Islamic jihad threat inside the United States. Although evidence brought forward in documents and testimony has explosive implications for US Homeland Security, the intelligence community, and every American citizen, relatively little media attention has been paid to it.

In light of three tragic events that have happened over the last few years at American universities Steve Cody, of the strategic communications firm Peppercom, writes about the need for every college and university to have a crisis response and communications plan in place. In this piece Steve highlights that the key to crisis preparedness is to identify potential scenarios and realize the institution's ability to respond in a proactive and timely manner.

Carl Hospedales writes about the need to reform the current terrorism lexicon, that some media catch-phrases may in fact hurt the War on Terror, and suggests terms the media should be using instead that are more appropriate, not only in communicating with the Islamic community, but with the rest of the world as well.

In this article, Tim Daniel writes about the need for solid communications interoperability, and an effective and efficient information sharing platform for use by the network of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, public infrastructure, emergency management and public health that are diligently working to protect the U.S. from the specter of weapons of mass destruction.

This article was originally published in April 2005, and updated in January 2007.