Views on the Industry

lit up, burnt, and rendered irrelevant

I have to admit it takes some effort on some mornings to crawl out of bed after 9 a.m., as I am unemployed, when people like Bill Roth ("get a haircut"), Franz Aman, and Marge Breya are busy running BEAS. For those who know Sun, these three played the dubious role of doing absolutely nothing while under the mother ship, and were extensively brought in to BEA to help smooth out a merger of "equals". Before going on to the news of the day, I am going to announce that I am in a fighting mood, and dare, yes dare, Jonathan to pull the trigger on an app server acquisition. Considering Glassfish, under any other circumstance, that would be grounds for removal, a mere one month in to the job. However, even considering BEA's desparate straights, and Jonathan's inexperience in the middleware market, I don't believe that is going to happen. He appears to not have enough influence, and yet also maintains some credibility with the OSS market.

Bill Roth on the other hand, does not:

http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=40709

In the annals of TSS history, I cannot remember a piling on as extensive and as one-sided as what has occurred since the dubious publication of Alfred ChUang's article in El Reg:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/24/bea_open_source_sun_jboss/

Its moments like this that make my blog better than Jonathan's. There are reasons for Bill Roth's gaffe. For one, he was the man "in charge" of Enterprise Java while at Sun, which for those in the know means he did nothing. He went to conferences, attended some engineering meetings, and basically ripped on iPlanet behind the scenes. That was the extent of his job. Ohh, and ride me about getting a haircut to comepnsate for his boss in the waiting's outdated ponytail. (sorry, call it like I see it) Bill is a good guy to most who know him, and yet he is a lightweight, with pseudo-developer credentials, and wouldn't know a good business model if it were placed at his feet, which is what JBoss has done for BEA by open sourcing JEE, along with Glassfish, JOnAS, and Geronimo. WebLogic is comepting with who exactly? Outside of lock-in which I discussed in my previous blog, why on earth would these famed customers that Bill references pay a dollar for licenses?

I like the AquaLogic move, but it is one of pure desparation, kind of like Chuang and Bill's vendetta against JBoss. The real story is the developer, of course. BEA once owned the developer market as Sun and IBM had only production app server, so by default WebLogic locked up the market. BEA people will tell you that it is because of their technical superiority, their manner of execution in the marketplace, and their personnel. I will reveal to you that it was a conspiracy organized by JavaSoft, with the support of Sun's GSO.

Man, I remember 2002 like it was yesterday. I'll never forget that summer week I spent in San Diego at eWorld. For those with good memories, you'll recall the first public look at the WebLogic Workshop environment. Damn good idea, good team, good position in the marketplace, etc...

But it failed so miserably, that only now is BEA getting around to an AquaLogic development environment. Why? October 28, 2002 is why:

http://douglasdooley.blogspot.com/2005/10/102802-102805.html

Bill, Franz, and Marge bailed to cush jobs at a fairly (or should I say previosuly) respected software company, with titles like VP of Developers and Chief Marketing Officer! The reason I began this post with my morning routine is that all three are making a career on my efforts. I launched Sun ONE Application Server 7 with PP, which sent BEA realing for cover, as GSO finally began to ask why do I have WebLogic on my price list. BEA in turn saw that Sun did some great things to get back in the app server game, and rewarded the three people that could brandish about their role in this effort. I have long ed for this day:

Bill, Franz, and Marge had absolutely zero to do with the resurgence of the Sun application server program. Your bad move, BEA. You hired them and now you have to live with innane posts like that which comes from Bill Roth or comments that make no sense, such as when Marge Breya steps on stage. They have no love for me, why should I protect them any longer? The game is up, WebLogic is done, it is only a matter of time not even execution by competitors. Investors should be running for cover, instead of propping up a dying company. Today's efforts in TSS only demonstrate more clearly how lost the cause is...

posted by douglas dooley @ 11:39 AM