Views on the Industry

MSFT

Good afternoon, hello, it is Friday again, and time for a new post. Not much has happened this week, pretty much the lullest week of the year. I would hope that the real big news of Microsoft being at J1 will actually amount to something. My bet is that there is nothing of substance to come out of the great alliance for another year. What more can be done? I think they have pretty much taken care of the directory issues, and the only thing that would be of consequence would be an improvement in the JAX-.Net story. So J2EE and the .Net Platform would become interoperable. That would mean something. But that would require certifying .Net SOAP with the J2EE RI, and then you would have an unfair advantage for GlassFish. How could the agreement to settle with MSFT not include this? Well, it is only because when you negotiate with MSFT, you are most likely in a disadvantaged position, as management was, and therefore you think that doing something with a dead product like Directories is worth the future of your company. I think it is not. Now you have Microsoft running around the world claiming interoperability, because Sun says so, and there is absolutely no proof that they are. Name one time in the history of the empire that it has actually kept its word. It has never happened. But McNealy and team have bet their survival on interoperability. It's a joke, and a costly one. Gates is an impediment to moving the software industry forward because he has a maniacal mind bent on domination, nothing has changed except his wife has decided to give away some money. I thought Ellison's move to fund an analysis of when money is spent correctly on public health is great, and should put a stop to Gates thinking he has carte blanche on world issues. Microsoft is a great company, but it is run by a man that smells blood everywhere because he has created a bloodbath, and I am personally offended that he has taken the fight to Sun. But the most offensive part is that (literally, unbelievable) Sun has gone along with it. It would be one thing to agree with Dell on blade specs. so that there could be some interoperability, that would actually be a good move for Sun. McNealy sees a fight everywhere, and Gates sees a victim everywhere - - they both should go. Their era is over, and it is time to pass the reigns to a new generation of leadership that can put the in-fighting behind it.

Next on target: JBoss. The one company that threatens everything that Sun-Microsoft is trying to accomplish, they represent the convergence of OSS w/ JEE, and there is no way for the two of them to control either of them. GlassFish would be interesting if it could ship sample apps. and ISVs on the .Net Platform, but it will not be able to catch JBoss in the medium-term. That would only come from a commitment to Solaris w/ AS, EE, but for whatever reason that does not seem to be a priority. As we have talked about, Sun has all of these initiatives but no coordination. But just because Sun can't get to them, does not mean that Gates won't try to get to them. It must be some kind of rush to be in the cross-hairs of that man, especially when you have him beat. Sun is handing an entry in to the competition by thinking that Liberty is for some reason relevant. Microsoft will gladly accept a life-line to their fledgling middleware strategy. No one is doing .Net, and why would you. Ultimately, there will need to be an argument for doing .Net infrastructure over JBoss infrastructure, but until that day comes, Sun will seek to bolster the claim that .Net is relevant. It is not. It has not shipped anything of relevance, everybody that is doing VB continues to do VB, and VB.Net is just a piece of some puzzle to make it seem relevant to its constituency. Until there is some demonstration of SOAP integration via JAX/.Net, then JBoss will not have to be a Java web services company. And as long as that goes on, BEA gets to claim leadership in a nonexistent market via Liquid. Sun has screwed all angles up by not tying in J2EE with .Net, and yet MSFT gets to claim that they have tied in with .Net, because that is the kind of lingo they are familiar with (Sun signed an agreement with us, so now we are compatible). I am tired of pseudo-legit business deals going on when the developers keep Sun alive, and Microsoft hopeful. Its almost time for a Manifesto, I think there needs to be some statement of what is needed, and what the plan is. I don't know if I am the appropriate person to do this, but I think the time has come to provide a base for what the future holds, and this time, it is one without the guidance and direction of Sun Microsystems...

posted by douglas dooley @ 4:08 PM