Link to the Show / Show NotesIrving Wladawsky-Berger, Rod Smith, and Gina Poole have all played important roles in the history of alphaWorks, IBM's early-adopter developer program that is widely regarded for its business model and success rate in nurturing emerging technologies. The three share their thoughts on the impetus for the program, as well as successes and lessons along the way. Since 1996, alphaWorks has offered early-adopter developers worldwide a way to experience the latest innovations from IBM and to contribute in a development dialogue, with a resulting 40 percent of technologies posted to the alphaWorks Web site having been incorporated into IBM products or licensed to third-party developers. alphaWorks' business model has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Harvard Business Review. alphaWorks also received the 2003 Software Developer's Journal Jolt award for best developer Web site.

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