Views on the Industry

prolific Java

"I'm the illest MC, and a man of my words. When I came out (people) didn't understand it at first. I'm known to roll upn my sleaves, and put my hands in the dirt. We're at war, and I got a battle plan that could work." (Talib Kweli)

Java is officially dying on the vine. I don't know what the Java market is to the people at Sun. I know what it is to the people of IBM, Oracle, BEA, and Red Hat, and that is lock-in, though I'll give JBoss the benefit of the doubt as they implement JEE5. But there is no plan, and there is nothing but back-stabbing competition. IBM and BEA won't support JBI. Oracle won't put out a reall Enterprise java app server, instead opting for a bloated platform for Fusion. And Red Hat is just along for the ride, as they figure out how to integrate an app server in to the OS.

Jonathan is taking Enterprise Java for granted, not even giving it reference in his announcements of Sun's momentum:

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan?entry=congrats_folks

Maybe his "OpenJava" comment is an allusion to Glassfish, but for some reason, he chooses not to direct attention to the core of Sun's strategy. maybe its because of MB or me, but irrespective of the motive, the reality is that Glassfish is growing in significance on an almost weekly basis as innovations come out. But I am telling the Glassfish team right now that technology only goes so far. You need to have a business plan - - how are you going to make revenue, how are you going to account for Sun hardware sales attributed to Glassfish? And please let me know how solutions will be built on JEE5.

I am so tired of custom implementations on app servers, it is time for the ecosystem to be built that will allow the next generation of app vendors. I do sound repetitive, but ultimately there will be some acknowledgement that Sun cannot do it alone. Look at the comments at the end of JS's blog entry. Its all about the channel, which is good for the hardware sales, but vital for software sales. Make some kind of move. Storage is in place, JEE5 is in place, and SPARC/AMD is in place, now its time to build a Java ecosystem that competes with IBM GS. This would be a testament to a maturing CEO. If not, revenue will stagnate...

posted by douglas dooley @ 11:51 AM