AV
I had a note in my inbox from the effervescent Ashlee Vance yesterday, after I had forwarded my blog over. Ashlee is the editor at El Reg that knows Sun the best, and contributes the most to the theory that they are not dead, but rather just going through a long winterish period. He would have you believe (I have to admit, I wasn't being British enough and thought he was a she, though Ashlee reports from Chicago...confused) that Sun's problems are perception and I would agree for the most part though we both see that execution could be tighter. I was very pleased to find that my efforts have not been in vain, for he will certainly take the message of Sun's rise (albeit the Sharing campaign, which is (again) an effort to boost Solaris in order to stave off the splintering of Java into a thousand pieces - - valuable pieces, but no longer a whole) to his writing. As I said to him, I am a big fan and would like to see more analysis of Sun's efforts at SOA as it is just an acronym/moniker to describe what everyone wants to do with integration. You don't have to understand UDDI, EDI, and Security on the back-end, you just have to track what Sun is doing. Really. All the others are trying to create new paradigms when Java remains the constant. BEA's announcement is comical (though I like Bill Roth - - "get a haircut"):http://www.theregister.com/2005/06/09/bea_launches_aqualogic/
They are running pretty hard away from JSR 208, a.k.a. JBI. Who believes their 'non-Java' story when the products have to have been written in Java? What are they hiring the only .Net Framework developers? As an aside, JBoss, don't get tempted. Leave the interoperability to Sun. BTW, what a painful plug for JBoss in the BEA article. And ATM unleashed on BEA here:
http://news.com.com/BEA+dives+into+application+assembly/2100-1012_3-5737947.html?tag=nefd.top
We knew this day would come. We made it happen on October 28, 2002:
http://www.sun.com/2002-1028/feature/
Without a white knight (or maybe they were thinking they would be Sun's white knight), they must increasingly look to be purchased by Oracle, for they no longer bring value, inlcuding innovation, as an independent company. It's been a little less than three years, but I would give them until the end of 2005 to sell-out. It's for the best. I have been predicting Oracle-BEA acquisition since 2000, and the time has come. Oracle can't run with a second rate OSS platform for an app. server, and BEA can't support a first-rate Java infrastructure on their own. The time has come, take the $2B if you can, settle for $1.5B and be done with it.
I guess this is my parting shot, but it is based in reality. All the BEA people can figure out how to climb the Oracle ladder, maybe even create a whole new Java organization for setting standards, as that is what some of the people do best. But the end is near, and for those who don't want to wait to find out their PSFT-like fate, the time to jump ship is now. AquaLogic does not stop the bleeding, and after AS 8.1, EE, Sun is no longer an option. Even with all of the attempts to build a natural cohesion (kill Creator, create an integrated JES), BEA's glory days are numbered, and their real strength as a division of Oracle is at hand.
I have enjoyed my time with you all, please e-mail me with any comments, as I will be looking to build new material for this blog. It is time to turn away from enterprise computing, at least until some reality movements are completed. I may sign-in periodically to cover J1 or something like that, but my last three posts should tell you all you need to know about the world of Java web services. Out.
posted by douglas dooley @ 6:15 AM
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