Views on the Industry

Sun software spin-off

2012-01-11T13:02:00.000-08:00

If its not going to be used to sell hardware, then it should be given its own life, outside of Oracle, its wasted value, just to be specification Reference Implementations, that is comical, its industry-grade, and can stand on its own, it should be set free. MySQL, SSO, ESB, JEE, even NetBeans could sustain a whole new company, and these are redundant assets within the parent company's offering, they are not investment worthy, so why not let someone else do something with it. Cannibalization is possible, but considering the pay-back on green environments it could get to and turn-back in to maintenance revenue with a simple agreement from parent and spin-off, there is very little logic that just letting them wither on the vine in the argument that Sun was bought for hardware alone, and it is in keeping with the long-term principles of holding off Great Plains in medium-sized accounts. I have said this all before with some degree of implementation plan, like my earlier logic on a fork on Google Code, i dont need to see that exactly happen, but it needs room to breathe, and right now the oxygen on Glassfish, in particular, is being cut-off from ExaLogic sales push. This is not the only value of Sun, more can be done, and the only way I can see anything getting near its true value is for a spin-off.

This reminds me a lot of iPlanet. Back then, when the Sun-Netscape Alliance was in its first year, there was a lot of hype for the Sun investment in Netscape products. I was a kid, on my first job out of grad school, and actually advocated for an IPO, i was naive, but eventually fell in to line that it would work better as a vertical solution. And it did, it served Sun well, even though it caused us to work over-time to clean up the iAS 6.0 mess, it served Sun well. That didn't show up in the acquisition price, but Sun would have been virtually a worthless chip designer had it not been for the middleware assets. Oracle is doing its best to revive Sparc, and i applaud them for that, I think they should continue doing it, its great for the Valley, great to overcome Google's black-hole of data center design support, other companies need non-Google cloud data centers, and Oracle with Sun hardware fits the bill. Good job whoever worked on that, even Solaris seems to be safe for existing accounts. But the other side of Sun is breath-takingly innovative. All the middleware assets are better than JBoss and Spring Source, and by not addressing their value, Oracle is giving legit competitors a little more breathing room. Just keep 51%, split up 49% with investors who are savvy on enterprise software, and let some employees have a period of time where they could be employees of Oracle, still, while working on the start-up of acquired Sun software assets. Its really straight-forward, and is custom-made for an aggressive company like Oracle. It would appease the Sun employees who are not fortunate enough to work on Fusion, and give a little energy to the growing international monstrosity that is Oracle. It would simplify things for everyone.

Customers would know that they have the support of Oracle, if they invest in this new iPlanet-like company. Call it the Oracle-Sun Alliance, or whatever, just get some value out of it. Its like Oracle executives would rather keep WebLogic as the only option to punish customers, they are eventually going to get something better in IIS, .Net, and Great PLains, when it is all rolled-in to one environment on VS, only Glassfish stands in the way of this happening. Dont let it die out of fear of the unknown, like WebLogic will be dead if there is some innovation, WebLogic is not going anywhere, it is the development environment for BPM on the ERP apps, that is huge, like really huge, but it cant be expected to also fend off more nimble cloud purveyors as well, that is not logical. Oracle needs both, but that is not what is happening now, customers see the messaging about departmental apps, so no matter what Glassfish people tell Oracle sales reps, there is no way to get in the customer conversations, it is as an after-thought in Oracle strategic direction. There is no reason this should be the status quo, there is room to move forward, but it takes fresh thinking, and see the challengers as real, dont get caught flat-footed on your flank-side.

a primer on Glassfish

2011-07-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

Its predecessors in Netscape Application Server and iPlanet Application Server did not work, and so it took the re-write of the Reference Implementation of the Sun ONE Application Server to provide the roadmap that would lead to a stable app server platform, that could be open sourced and turned in to Glassfish. Now, it is being systemically dismantled in the hands of Oracle as all the real money is in the big-ticket product lines of WebLogic, Oracle DB, and PeopleSoft ERP, and no one seems to notice. This leaves a market where only JBoss is sticking to the Enterprise Java specification, and competing platforms such as Spring Source turn their nose at Oracle, and build cloud environments. This is a shame, after all the effort to get a viable app server platform from Sun, it is being killed from within, with no real sales strategy, and little in the way of marketing support. Something should be done, but the Oracle employees charged with the success of Glassfish, as they were at Sun have not come out with anything more than technical analysis, and do not understand the marketplace's changing tide toward the cloud, waiting instead for Java EE 7, while everyone else shuns Oracle's customer-hosted-only model.

What can be done? Forking with unlimited resources would be fun, the ESB is top-notch, the EJB container is fast, and MySQL is well regarded to give customers a complete deployment platform for the cloud, and it would be taking on a long-time nuisance in the throes of developer interests. Does anyone anywhere have positive experiences with Oracle developer support, they simply dont do it, their site is fractured and useless with case examples of successful deployments, or easy-to-use documentation, like how the Glassfish team initially set its sights on, and still we get no word from anyone at Oracle that they plan to sell Glassfish to their enterprise base. Put simply Glassfish is more potentially disruptive than anything that WebLogic will do with Fusion. And still no action, Oracle is well positioned to dominate enterprise computing, both hardware and software after getting Sun for a negligible amount, so maybe it is time to take them on, and put Glassfish back in the running for leading enterprise cloud environment.

All of this is well documented but what could be hugely different than anything that a previous fork has done, is actually put a company behind it, and pay the developers that work on it, not allow all of the benefits go to a single entity, though i would propose a company to organize all of the efforts, whats to stop getting paid on commission and equity. I have proposed this before, but i wanted to signal the charge again, as Oracle pays little attention to anything other than Fusion, the DB, and the Google lawsuit. What if Fusion never delivers, and Glassfish is forked, could not Oracle's huge customer base be primed for a move off old WebLogic and convert them to cloud purveyors on Glassfish? I dont know what you guys are working on currently, absent an Android app, the most lucrative field in IT is in the enterprise, and Glassfish is ripe for the taking, so consider your options well when investing your coding talents in to community efforts, and do not waste your time on Oracle's Glassfish, go for a forked version, just like they did with Linux off of Red Hat. It is doable, and the time is right to take Oracle to task for its opposition to the developer community. Join us, and begin the cloud revolution via Glassfish.

will Glassfish survive?

2011-04-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

i am just trying to reconcile how the better product receives 1/10th the resources, i mean WebLogic was dying before the acquisition, JBoss had it beat, and then Oracle picks it up for a song, somewhat cheaper than they got Sun, in relative terms, and turns it in to the base of Fusion, and ERP, and invests all this money in to it to become the enterprise platform, all while Glassfish was getting good, and ready to take-down JBoss, or at least take on Spring Source, and then the acquisition, and all funding dried up, all OSS community participation went away, and now its just a small division in an over-grown company, that has not innovated in a decade, but instead relies on its monopoly of the core piece of enterprise computing, and few hostile actions against erstwhile allies in the struggle with Microsoft, and it comes undone, Glassfish must be set free in order for Enterprise Java to survive, it will be irrelevant if it just goes the way of the Reference Implementation, it is too valuable for that, and so this is what i propose:

- Glassfish and MySQL spun off, with SSO, in to a separate company with 49% control by Oracle, and 51% control by all of us who will sign-up to the project, evenly divided among new and tiered for subsequent employees, but the company will always retain a bigger share of the control than Oracle, so as to not withhold innovations for the sake of the larger mother company.

- This will give Oracle a competitive wedge to go in to Red Hat, IBM, VMWare, and Microsoft accounts leading with Glassfish, to be ported to WebLogic when the time is right, for enterprise features, but build out Glassfish to be a cloud purveyor, so as to lead the market with Oracle benefiting without losing out on the focus of the internal sales force.

- Glassfish will in turn focus on becoming an intranet cloud provider, complete with hardware reference implementations, and core software builds on top of Linux, as ordered and copied and forked and implemented and enhanced by Oracle, so all Glassfish deployments will run on Oracle Enterprise Linux and Sun hardware, every last one of them.

- Oracle will provide the funding and make the determination when a VC should be brought in for help, if desired, the employees of the Glassfish/MySQL/SSO company will focus on delivering product and let the expert financial team at Oracle chart the future for its investment, with a solid understanding of the long-term picture, and the standing of Java if the company were to succeed.

- McNealy, Schwartz, Polese, Dooley, and Safa Catz on the Board with broad oversight of the direction of the company and an eye toward further integration with Oracle, further development of the Enterprise Java specification, and further build-out of clouds for Oracle's customer base that would like to look in to the opportunity available with the economics of hosted infrastructure.

- headquarters in GRand Rapids, Michigan with costs of office building, relocation of employees, and subsidization of international employees to work on the OSS projects, need to pay developers well, as this is a long-term view with no initial exit strategy available through stocks, as this company will not go public for an extended period of time.

all of this is accomplished with the introduction of a little risk-reward analysis by Oracle, that needs a jump-start and prove why it has been the biggest financial supporter of Java, and why it has earned the repsect of those who thought it could not innovate out of the dot-com bomb, and the resulting recession, they have proven to be the best bet in enterprise computing, and they have earned their chance at going for the biggest de-thronement in the take-down of Microsoft across the enterprise cloud infrastructure, with Linux, Java, Glassfish, and MySQL, it is all within reach, just $10M to start, open communication channels, and a little trust in the process, and it will be all there for the taking, its time to kick-start Java again, and nothing would do that better than GLassfish...,

glassfish as cloud platform

2011-03-17T13:35:00.000-07:00

The really impressive thing about the Glassfish 3.1 release is the position it puts the product-line in to deliver on a whole new open platform for Oracle to pursue over-time non-established customer bases, in all target verticals, customers or in many cases, enterprises, that have not committed their entire infrastructure to Oracle or SAP, or IBM for that matter. What it does, in a short-term sense, is provide the Oracle sales force with something that can be sold in to 'green' environments, where there is no established leader among the mis-matched product acquisitions that said businesses have made, on a plethora of software companies' product-lines. It reinforces Oracle as a provider of leading-edge Enterprise Java features, that seem to only be getting better for both developers and administrators, alike, as Glassfish 3.1 offers the scalability offerings that will get customers interested beyond departmental applications, that are just looking for something cheap and easy. What Oracle can now say to the thousands of customers that are looking at JBoss for standardization or even SpringSource, is that there is now something better with Oracle's support plan. It will continue to be a process of differentiating the comparative features of WebLogic with Glassfish, but by turning to the cloud for full featured deployable component-ized apps, Glassfish 3.1 will carve out a sizeable and growing niche for developers to understand and for administrators to test, while maintaining a share of budget for advanced, next-stage deployments.

The cloud has been a moving target, transforming from on-line storage to app customization in order to take the features of scalable deployment to the next generation of mixing and matching applications, and parcels of applications to run different features of a web platform. Glassfish 3.1 delivers all of the functionality to look at what could come next, in the development of the cloud, as usability is delivered in clusters, and integration with development environments, that are standard to JEE, for cost-effective testing in environments that are beginning to move to the cloud for deployments. It would not be initially beneficial to Oracle to run a cloud based on Glassfish, though it is conceivable that customers of Oracle could do just that, and by maintaining increased cross-platform support, but only with the core, Glassfish remains a stellar alternative to the other open source offerings in Enterprise Java, including some of Oracle's biggest competitors to emerging markets. Oracle is well positioned to offer a feature-complete cloud offering, that would rather than cannibalize sales of WebLogic could actually open doors, in to new business environments, particularly those that are not somewhat invested in Enterprise Java, as of yet.

The next stage is taking the product-line to the positioning stage, and really offer an alternative off of JBoss and Spring Source, which continue to dominate the standard and non-standard environments, respectively. Oracle would be well-served to open up about Glassfish's potential as a deployment platform for next-stage applications in the cloud, and as Enterprise Java continues to lead the standardization process, as Java continues to maintain its role in the enterprise, there is a need to spell-out how customers should view the two-tiered application server offering, but not to detail, that is still being worked out. Instead, Glassfish 3.1 marks a point where Oracle can actually support two deployment platforms, alongside WebLogic, though it needs to be aggressive with both platforms, the Glassfish opportunity is to gather enough momentum with developers, that has continued to build since v. 1, and move to marketing the feature-set as being ideal for the cloud, and get some named customers on-board that will use Glassfish for reasons that can be duplicated in the cloud. Things that enterprises don't typically do, but considering the economics of an OSS-model, would actually benefit certain customers with knowledge on deployment architectures.

This will take reference architectures on Sun hardware, it will take more-detailed deployment guides on various types of applications, also more competitive analysis on how it stacks up with other OSS offerings, and sales guides for when a customer states something about looking at next-generation development and/or cloud deployment. Oracle's customers are, for the majority, savvy enough to understand when one product-line is tailored for their needs, and Glassfish 3.1 meets the requirements of those forward looking businesses and organizations that need something fast and now, while giving them a deployment guide for when certain aspects of their development match a broader roll-out with scalability requirements. It is not too soon to spell out the differentiating value of Glassfish 3.1 as soon as possible to gather more coverage from the customers and media on why the product-line yields what has been missing from Enterprise Java in the last few years: a distinct leader on new features and advanced deployment capabilities. The cloud is but a term to use in conversation, the real work is only accomplished when detailed documentation provides additional language and materials to realistically put the features of Glassfish 3.1 in perspective. This is the call for Oracle to do, and the time is right to transcend the standard marketing, to take the product-line of Glassfish to new levels, appearing to carve out a respectable niche among paying customers.

google/oracle settlement proposal

2011-02-25T09:24:00.000-08:00

In the minds of Oracle, they got screwed on the acquisition of Sun, it was a mercy move, and they were the only ones with the cash to save Sun from just going bankrupt, so they bought it and dont have any use for anything in software, except that everyone uses Java, so if Google is going to use Java then yes, they should have to pay, and the terms of the agreement should be for Oracle to acquire the designs of Google's flawless datacenter operations, so Oracle can productize under the Sun brand, and in return Google will get Glassfish and use of Java, or perhaps just the right to utilize Java is necessary to settle this, i'll do Glassfish for Oracle at the right price, but sooner or later people there are going to have to respect me for keeping Glassfish alive this long, all that was me on the way out the door, nothing was gained that i did not start, so try and discredit me and you will lose that battle, only i can run Glassfish, and i know there are people in Oracle who probably know that, as well, so whats the wait, those are the terms: Google gets Java, Oracle gets Datacenter Designs, and i'll take Glassfish, why not, who would be threatened by that?

google chrome OS

2010-11-08T13:23:00.000-08:00

soon enough, i will be purchasing a Google Chrome laptop, based on the new operating system from the internet company that seems to be threatening every other vendor at present, so it is with optimism that i look to their new OS to feature all the aspects of web computing in terms that i relate to, like always connectedness, transparent pricing, and easy access for apps that i utilize in frequency, like Blogger, Twitter, Picasa, Gmail, and Youtube, enough to make me a potentially habitual netbook, or as these will be called: smartbook user for the foreseeable future, determined as i am to work with Google on Glassfish, instead of with Oracle, i will probably very much look to work more on Google Code and Sites to build-out my proposal to them to participate in the evolutions of the middleware space as they are the only vendor with the initiative to satisfy my requirement of being competitive from the word go, just as i have done in previous endeavors in the application server marketplace, so investing in a Chrome OS computer is a no-brainer for me, for if i want to learn everything i can about Google, i have to understand their products, even without an Android phone, i can learn a lot from them about their plans for new computing techniques through the base of their future OSS development in every corner of Chrome.,

basically what it is is a browser with a backbone that sits on the machine, and executes code on the periphery, so that all executables are done following a command from the web, very much like a traditional browser but without the overhead of a standard OS, and there will be none in the way of saving to the desktop as i am want to do, so i will have to utilize Google Docs ever more, to portray my writing as more than just blogs, if i want to get past this form of free-hand, commas and elipses, included, i need to expand my book, and write professionally, in addition to writing for my own entertainment, as i get little in the way of efficient feedback, so i dont know if anyone is really paying attention to all the topics that i write about, bit by bit i am becoming one of the most prolific writers on the web, with writing accounts spanning the spectrum getting my activities across, in a timely manner, and advocating for all sorts of ideas, from Lilith to tennis, to hiphop just back to software, and all sorts of topics on music and basketball, sometimes, enough to satisfy another requirement of my day to stay engaged, and not fall off the radar of acceptable logic, like i am sometimes inclined to do until i find the path again to sanity, and i think the Chrome OS smartbook, will overtly help me achieve this goal, sustaining me as i try to reach some other heady goals....

i think i could build a Google competitor if given some resources, like some cash money to invest in a couple of companies that i have in mind, and build the Glassfish codebase from scratch, based on what is currently available, amidst the mainstream acceptability of the current product-line is a very real sense that things are stagnating for Glassfish endeavors, much to the delight of those currently in power, and only i can save it, and if Google wants to do that with me, but until that day, i will continue to track toward learning Google's entire ecosystem, and this now includes Chrome, which i have used as a browser over time, and now will get the OS, if they have enough supply, we will see i will look for it on day one, starting this month, and then will see what i can build from there....

glassfish continues, part II

2010-10-04T22:22:00.001-07:00

The Glassfish team has made some rather strange tweets lately, as if Google does not have a point with Oracle being heavy-handed, i mean where would Java be without Android?, it would not be relevant, so a deal is needed to assist with the transformation some might say a revolution of approaches even it seems so unlikely to get Glassfish under Google, and let Oracle gain from Google's knowledge on the database of cloud datacenters better than any other vendor out there, Oracle would greatly benefit from having Google on board, and trusting them to take the simple task force of upending Microsoft wherever it tries to hide, as it enters a death spiral, let Google with its unusually large lead in a valuable web commodity, like paid advertising on-line, to help Oracle out with Java, and make the battle on their terms on, with some encouragement round the cloud, the middleware space, and get Glassfish encouraging developers to flock to Java through Google, and let Oracle take royalties and focus on actually shipping Fusion, instead of masking its delay, Google should pay Oracle a yearly billion dollars for use of Java, and in return Google should get all the Glassfish properties to help portray a yielding front to nothing, not even Microsoft, together Google and Oracle could do some serious damage to the ability of Microsoft to run in due course to the server....

Glassfish product managers need to decide what they will try to do without Google, as if having two app servers is beneficial to Oracle, and Google needs an enterprise story, let them work together, and let Oracle get paid for its investment in Java, and dormant-defying by saving Sun, they will be regarded unlike any other vendor in time they will have their reputation back, and only by looking through the prism of Google, can they substantially cash in on the value of Java, that should be an annual payment, to keep Android going, but in return they deliver user and administrative rights to Glassfish for Google to manage, this will keep Java fresh, it will keep Microsoft at bay, while things are transparently figured out, with no threat of potential competitive aggression from Red Hat, Spring Source, or nary any other would-be ally in the fight to remove the stain of Microsoft from the annals of high-tech, only through a Google Glassfish alliance can this be realized, and only payments will get it done, Google needs to satisfy their end of the agreement and pay for using Java to the enormous benefit of the Android network of manufacturers and software developers that are making real money transcribing various flavors of Java in to an easy to use environment for business, even beyond what Apple is doing, so start working together Oracle and Google, we need you on the same team, and only through a lasting system of negotiated payment and transfer of Glassfish will this come about....

i have done my due diligence regarding this proposal, and i think it will be the way forward and around Microsoft, it is time to join forces on the front-end and work together on datacenter implementations on the back-end, to gain a formidable barrier to Microsoft's attempt at the enterprise that is truly their last vestige of wiggle room, make it so that this does not come to pass by aligning Java on Android with Glassfish, and then paying Oracle for the right to innovate on this level, it only makes sense to naturally remove the event that these two actually go to court, and fight over control of Java, just share it, and pay up where it makes sense, like over customized Linux, blade servers, datacenter designs, and middleware, along with development environments and ESBs, get this all standardized, and make it a Google/Oracle team that confronts seriously the threat of Microsoft getting free, lets kill off the great monopolist once and for all, and make Java the standard going forward with nothing to look back on or contend with, make Java the hallmark of true enterprise systems, so that Google has a new revenue source with which they compensate Oracle employees, at first, then take the code, then build an eco-system of open source round-the-clock developers, and build something great out of Glassfish, make it Google's and watch it grow from a would-be contender, to the leader in the enterprise space, all while paying Oracle along the way, it only is going to be tougher the longer now that this trend toward lawsuits bears out, this is a battle than even the browser wars were for, this should be for innovative Java, not legal wranglings, always look to settle snaking away from contentious and frivolous lawsuits that are the other enterprise technology's only way of staying in business, get together and watch it flourish....

Google and Oracle, part II | JavaWorld's Daily Brew

2010-08-17T19:04:00.000-07:00

Google and Oracle, part II | JavaWorld's Daily Brew

Glassfish continues | JavaWorld's Daily Brew

2010-08-13T22:54:00.000-07:00

Glassfish continues | JavaWorld's Daily Brew

atomic object

2010-06-14T04:30:00.001-07:00

atomic object

a. How did you find Atomic Object?

b. What excites you about the idea of working here?

c. What can you offer that will excite us about working with you?

a. I follow Atomic Object on Twitter, and since being back in Grand Rapids from 2003 to the present, I have been on the look-out for innovative firms, especially those in the software development space. I wrote a recent article on why software innovation is critical to the re-emergence of the Michigan economy. You can see that article on the Grand Rapids Social Diary's web-site, here:

http://www.grandrapidssocialdiary.com/

b. I find Atomic Object's posts on Twitter to be informative and inspiring, and so I keep an eye out for projects that the company is involved in to further clients' requirements. I am also aware of the immense focus on providing a well-balanced work environment, with open offices, open source software, and less messy politics that larger companies have to contend with, to be refreshing.

And I love software, everything about it. I love that in digitized form, you can create communities, enhance commerce, and make the world safer, simply by creating better software products. I love Java, and I love Google. I have been a Macintosh user since I was in the 6th grade as my dad was head of the computer science department at Aquinas College, and he always brought home the newest, color Macs for us to use on school projects.

I miss software, and want to get back in to it, through working with a company that makes its living off the quality of its software output. I miss the struggle of deadlines, mixed with creativity, that truly only software development brings. I like to plan, and make project schedules, with deliverables that are realistic, but forward-thinking. In a sense, I couldn't work anywhere else other than a company dedicated to technology to solve problems.

c. I live Google, all of their products. I have an open source project up on Google Code, here:

http://code.google.com/p/astrocloud/wiki/PageName

I also use Google AdWords for my current employer, and all of the Google consumer facing applications. I believe in the cloud computing revolution. I saw Atomic Object's recent foray in to cloud computing with Blue Medora, and immediately thought how it would be great to get the Tivoli management console on Google's App Engine, as well as Amazon's cloud. I have a passion for open standards, that lower the cost of ownership, and therefore, allow companies to save their IT budgets for more advanced initiatives, like building out their web-sites.

I believe in a future with a marketplace of inter-operable software components, most likely built around some version of Java. This would give developers worldwide the ability to charge for their work as micro-payments, every time a component was used in the cloud. I appreciate .Net, and all of Microsoft's back-end software server technologies, such as Visual Studio, BizTalk, and Great Plains. But I believe in open standards more. Google, Oracle, IBM, Red Hat, Apple, and the thousands upon thousands of software shops and customers that have invested in open standards allow me to think that the future of software is limitless. There is truly no economic problem that cannot be overcome with the right code.

Therefore, I am invested in staying up-to-date on the latest software trends. I regularly read the Register, out of the U.K. (http://www.theregister.co.uk/), and follow developer sites, like The ServerSide (http://www.theserverside.com/) and infoQ (http://www.infoq.com/). I tinker with easy to use software tools, that make my on-line experience more productive and more expansive. I don't know what Atomic Object is looking for, outside of software craftspeople, but I would make an energetic project manager that could shepherd major initiatives through the development process. I could research and write the corresponding documentation that goes along with software products. I could become a solid team leader for any number of projects that go on within a software development shop, like AO.

I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak with you further about what I have written, and even beyond. Thank you.

5 years of Glassfish

2010-06-07T17:12:00.000-07:00

Although I am in the process of advocating for new ownership, I am not going to overlook the tremendous work that has been done by the Glassfish team of product managers and engineers, even though it seems like they ditched product marketing, in favor of developer outreach, they achieved incredible penetration in a saturated marketplace, that most had assumed had solidified around WebSphere, WebLogic, JBoss, and SpringSource. But along came Glassfish, and it upended the economics, as well as the delivery cycle of the Java EE specification, to create a viable contender. It is sad to see it die in the arms of Oracle, but I do not fault, whatsoever, the people behind the project, it is first-rate, it was always honest and open, and though Sun did not know how to quantify their investment in an app server program, dating back to the time I launched Sun ONE Application Server 7. But it is still there, and there is still a sliver of a chance it will survive, it just has to be in the arms of another corporate entity.

I don't know if Google will ever get around to saving it, by giving Oracle their Linux implementation in exchange for controlling interest in the Glassfish properties, but at least it is possible, and at least Oracle has something that Google just may want, or even need. They don't need Sun's servers, they don't need Oracle's database, they may never use the Fusion ERP set, in-house, or as a supported platform for their enterprise push, but Glassfish would give them something to give back to developers, and keep them in the conversation when discussing Enterprise Java, which is not going to die, any time soon. Glassfish after five years introduced the best clustering solution in Shoal, the best ESB solution in JBI, and the best open source system, even considering what JBoss continues to achieve. Its just not in Oracle's interest to keep it around, and therefore, it is time to do a deal.

App Engine is nice, it compliments the cloud story at Google, but its not realistic to expect the myriad of Google enterprise AdWords customers to deploy on the cloud for some time. Its a testing ground, a play that keeps clients in the game as the cloud shakes out what it really wants to be. But by having an app server program, a Google account rep. does not need to say Guice in the face of .Net, they can repeat the extraordinarily successful mantra of Java on the server, and maintain credibility. It gives Oracle a return on investment, even as people continue to blind themselves to the reality that Solaris is dead. No one is coding to it, only legacy apps are reserved for Solaris, everything is on Linux, and with the slow death of Novell, there really is only Red Hat as a supplier, and that is too much control in one vendor's hands, especially if IBM buys Red Hat.

What would an Oracle Linux program look like, if it were given access to Google's version of it in the datacenter? It would immediately remove the need to copy and fork Red Hat, and put the engineering teams of Google and Oracle OS working together, with a combined R&D that would not be matched even if IBM were to buy Red Hat, and it would give Oracle cache, at a time that they desperately need to show something for their inflated Sun acquisition. There does not seem to be much clarity on the hardware strategy, even considering what Fujitsu is saying about Sparc, so Oracle needs something, and they do not need the cost of a second app server program, even if it is the Reference Implementation, so let's do a deal, and get the two heavy weights of Silicon Valley software on the same side of the competitive argument. Glassfish needs a home, and I just don't have the resources to pull off a fork, and Google probably doesn't need the drama that would come with a fork, why not just give Oracle their flavor of Linux, and get an app server in-house.

So, as we celebrate the 5th year of Glassfish's existence, why not give it a second-life, and extend Enterprise Java in to the only competitor in a position to fight proprietary extensions, whether that be from Apple or Microsoft. I know I sound like a broken record, but what would the eco-system look like, if Oracle and Google were to work together on Java: it would provide cross-platform portability between the two vendors, and along with JBoss, there would be three guaranteed platforms to deploy to, and that makes a marketplace. Google does not need to ditch Spring, and IBM would be forced to stay in the standards game, whether or not they buy Red Hat and get JBoss. Its a natural win-win, and all Google has to do is give up their secret sauce on Linux, which actually helps them in the medium-term, as Oracle account reps carry Google Linux in to accounts, and gets Google a place in the enterprise. Follow on that with WebLogic and/or Glassfish, and you have a competitive hedge against anything Microsoft does with .Net. From there a true inter-operable applications marketplace is within reach, and could even extend to Java components, that will be part of the cloud, eventually.

I congratulate all the Sun people, whether employees or not, who contributed to making Glassfish relevant and viable, but now it is time to turn it over to a company that can truly invest in it, and with Google you have an entity with favorable resources to take on .Net on the server, whether thats Great Plains, BizTalk, or Visual Studio. I may be myopic sometimes, but this one makes sense, and it is time for Oracle to get a deal done, and time for Google to get value for their Linux asset, by getting Oracle to sell it. Give Glassfish away, let Google make money off of the account control that they would exert with Glassfish in their arsenal, and let WebLogic get completed with Fusion. I have yet to think of a reason why not to do this, other than Google's historical reluctance to give up their secret sauce, or Oracle's reluctance to have competitors in their markets, but this one makes sense, its a calculated risk, that helps the Enterprise Java developer. Neither Google nor Oracle wants to see Java EE die on the vine, and so by working together, they extend its life and quite possibly counter the coming push by Microsoft to convert enterprises to .Net. Please give me a reason not to do it.

douglas dooley web cover letter

2010-05-29T12:09:00.001-07:00

2010

Douglas Dooley

douglasdooley@gmail.com

resume: http://docs.google.com/View?id=df3cskrr_236cgn8cxfv

To whom it may concern,

I am attempting to find a job utilizing my skills in Google AdWords, Blogging, Social Media, and project management capabilities to further a client's on-line marketing initiatives. I am a regular contributor to the enterprise software market through my relationship with JavaWorld, the on-line publication for the Java developer community. I also write for a local publication, called the Rapidian, and maintain topical blogs, on four areas of interest.

Therefore, I could help with establishing an on-line presence for a client through the creation or expansion of a corporate blog, as I did while working at Steelcase. In addition, I have implemented a comprehensive daily on-line advertising plan for Gemma Redux, utilizing Google's vast advertising system and associated metrics, through Google Analytics. Together, AdWords and Analytics are the most effective and efficient use of a client's on-line advertising spend.

I am experienced in the project management requirements of bringing a large on-line marketing initiative to market, as I did with Sun Microsystems, by leading the world-wide launch of the Sun ONE Application Server 7, which was free for use, the first of its kind by a major enterprise software vendor, and was downloaded over 100,000 times by developers around the world. I successfully set-up developer resources to make the transition to the new product straight-forward, and helped build a community of users that submitted best practices among each other.

I delivered presentations to many of Sun's Fortune 500 clients, as I was the lead marketing representative within the company on the Java application server market, and presented to developers around the world, including in China, Japan, Prague, London, Paris, and Singapore, as well as throughout the U.S. I am familiar with the major trends going on within the technology markets, and could speak to many of the issues facing companies which are beginning to research the lasting impact of utilizing social media.

I utilize Google Wave for project management practices, Google Docs for collaboration, and Google Sites for simple web page design, that can help keep version control of a project in check. I am a strong believer in the ability of the web to simplify as well as expand the opportunities facing companies that are looking to achieve better contact with their customers. It is my opinion that all marketing initiatives must have an on-line component to them, in order to achieve the desired returns. This is what I have learned through my ten years of experience in marketing, since graduating from business school.

I would be happy to provide references to any of my work, to date, and would appreciate the opportunity to clarify some of the concepts that I wrote on this page. Only through ongoing conversations, and monitoring of the on-line landscape, can the best route for success be determined for a particular client. I appreciate any feedback on my blogs, and I feel I could make a strong positive return on investment for many different types of clients.

thank you for your consideration,

Douglas Dooley

2010-05-29T12:07:00.001-07:00

Douglas Dooley

447 Wealthy St. SE #3

Grand Rapids, MI 49503

616.366.5537

douglasdooley@gmail.com

Employment Summary:

Experienced on-line marketing and customer service professional, with skills in bringing optimization to go-to-market initiatives, writing resources for all levels of communication, and helping achieve maximum exposure and returns through Google web properties.

Job Goal:

Creating an on-line strategy that incorporates social media, blogs, advertising, and community building with employer and/or client's user-base to attain specific success metrics.

History:

Director of Customer Service and Google AdWords Campaign Manager for Gemma Redux (www.gemmaredux.com)

2008-Present

Field all on-line inquiries from new and existing customers to maintain relationships in order to facilitate repeat business.
Manage daily advertising spend on Google AdWords, to target keywords applicable to business, and monitor metrics in order to drive traffic and increase sales.
Develop and implement web-site plan to incorporate social media awareness of offerings, promotions, news, and future plans with general public.

Consultant with Astro Solutions (sites.google.com/site/douglasdooley)

2006-2008

Worked with clients to build marketing initiatives tailored to specific requirements.

Marketing Specialist for Steelcase, Inc. (www.steelcase.com)

2005-2006

Managed market entry in to four target verticals that introduced specific office environment solutions for different industry requirements.
Planned and executed the introduction of the official Steelcase blog (blog.steelcase.com).
Presented and delivered go-to-market plans for Dealer and Sales force initiatives that increased sales, and furthered relationships with Fortune 1000 clients.

Product Marketing Manager for Sun Microsystems (now a division of Oracle: www.oracle.com/sun)

1999-2004

Lead marketing representative on product-line that consisted of over 100 engineers, 20 product managers, and nearly 1,000 sales force personnel in all major economic regions worldwide.
Successfully launched three successive versions of product-line in 2000, 2002, and 2003 with worldwide press and analyst briefings, worldwide sales training, and on-line developer outreach to achieve a 100% increase in product adoption.
Delivered product presentations to Fortune 500 clients, traveled to Asia Pacific region, Europe, and throughout the U.S. for industry conference and seminar presentations, and wrote all sales force outbound positioning for company's initiatives around Java application server market.

Eduction:

MBA, College of William and Mary, 1999

Master of Public Policy, College of William and Mary, 1999

Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science, Aquinas College, 1996

Areas of Expertise and Involvements:

Blog Profile: http://www.blogger.com/profile/14090268825679684025, 2005-Present

Writer for the Rapidian: http://therapidian.org/users/douglasdooley, 2009-Present

Writer for JavaWorld: http://www.javaworld.com/community/user/189, 2008-Present

Member of Aquinas College Alumni Board, 2005-2008

Leadership Grand Rapids, 1995-1996

google and oracle

2010-05-27T13:37:00.000-07:00

Google should sell its hardware distributed computing designs for x86 to Oracle, in exchange for controlling interest in all Glassfish properties, and the two should work together on the Enterprise Java Reference Implementation, that is Glassfish, the two are not in each other's way, and they would hugely benefit from the swap....

Google undoubtedly is the best hardware designer on the planet, and Oracle needs some help there, while Glassfish provides Google with a complete OSS middleware enterprise software offering, that is best in class, and would greatly impact the survival rate of .Net, as developers would flock to a Google-sponsored initiative....

Google does not want to sell hardware, the margins aren't there, but they would benefit from a hardware maker knowing their spec's, and innovating through their own R&D how to keep Google supplied for the immense build-out that is about to take place, as cloud computing explodes in every direction....Oracle with Sun's engineers are the only logical supplier of Google, their roots are the same, they live near each other, and employees swap back-and-forth between companies, their cultures are the same, it only makes sense to create an alliance to take on Redmond and IBM....

Glassfish, as I have written extensively needs help, and a fork would be too controversial, just come to an agreement and get the assets turned-over to Google Code, and build the developer base from there, while Oracle can concentrate on Fusion, which will be a good thing for Google, to have higher productivity Java, in the ERP space, as its built on WebLogic, just get it done....

google glassfish

2010-05-22T17:01:00.000-07:00

What could be done to bring a non-hosted software platform to Google, in the form of Oracle's Glassfish application server? It would be a fork job, which is not unprecedented, but would be the very first salvo opened up in a Google-Oracle competitive front, if either of them even actually want to initiate that. But every day that Microsoft comes up with VisualStudio, .Net, IIS, and BizTalk enhancements is another opportunity for the incumbent to wriggle free from the death spiral that Google has created for them. It is time to engage in the enterprise software competitive front, and take on Redmond from all angles. It is my determination that Glassfish, even a fork effort, is the best option to get engaged on enterprise software via Google Code. There would be an over-pouring of developer interest in getting involved in Google's Glassfish effort, and it would not have to be a purely Enterprise Java effort, it could include Go, Guice, and Web ToolKit, among others, which also could include Spring.

Essentially, Google could make their own app server on the back of the OSS Glassfish, which is the most feature complete platform, JBoss included. Glassfish's Shoal clustering feature could be supplemented with Google's own distributed computing efforts to create a truly cloud app server, and sell it to their enterprise clients, or simply give it away, to create more interest in the Code site, to bring more developers on-board Google's effort to extend and enhance Java. The entire Glassfish ecosystem is ripe for investment, as it begins to languish in the arms of a software vendor that is too busy selling WebLogic Fusion to give much resources or attention to their other app server, Glassfish. Google has the resources to test out the strategy and let the developer community help decide the future direction of the Enterprise Java Reference Implementation. With some execution, Google would form a competitive front to Microsoft's .Net on the server-side, and give their vast enterprise accounts something to play with, and possibly invest in, while still following Google's next moves on enterprise Java.

As Google makes nearly all their money from advertising, they are somewhat exposed in the medium-term to a scale back in ads, or in a new competitive effort to scale back their 70% money machine in ads. Enterprise software is the next category for Google to conquer, and it is a market that is ready for some disruption, as SpringSource has shown. Google would not be hurting their relationship with VMWare on the clouds, as Spring runs on Glassfish, and it would diversify their options for developers to code in Java-like apps for the enterprise. An optimized Glassfish for Google technologies would be hard to beat, and by keeping it open source, it would not be a major resource drain, at a time when they are clearly ramping much development on Android. An enterprise software strategy would very simply give Microsoft no room to run. By looking at the available documentation, and the right team, a fork of Glassfish would be doable, and the potential long-term benefits could be more than predicted at present.

Simply by investing in bringing more open source projects to Google Code, like what a fork of Glassfish would provide, would cement Google's place in the minds of Java developers, worldwide. This is a market opportunity that is tough to ignore, with Oracle not in a position to devote as much energy as Google to enhancing the Enterprise Java platform, Google could be the standard bearer for the specification, as they are already part of the expert group. There are so many different features, from single sign-on, to cloud infrastructure, to enterprise apps, that would benefit from a Google hosted app server program, that it begins to play out as a logical next move for the company with the most to gain from entering the enterprise software market, officially. The fork would take at most 9 months, about the same time to get Chrome OS out-the-door, and would be on par with its significance, as it would be hurting Microsoft, while helping millions of developers looking for direction, following the Sun acquisition. I encourage your comments to suggest further arguments on why Google should enter enterprise software, and whether you agree if Glassfish is the next logical step. Thank you for reading.

5 years on

2010-05-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

Its been five years to the month, since I started blogging here, and its been an eventful experience to learn how to write better on-line, even though i still utilize the comma and elipse as much as anyone, i think it has been good for me, and I have received positive feedback from developers and others in the industry....this is my original blog, but as you can see from my profile, I keep up others based on interest areas...

In that time period, we witnessed the long demise and eventual death of my former employer, Sun Microsystems, which I believe was a management failure, as much as an economic reality, they just failed to build on Reference Architectures, that would have actually sold a system and not just hardware, and free software....they had the best, little app server program on the market in Glassfish, and now, we are witnessing the slow slide to irrelevance of that product-line, as Oracle goes after revenue on the high-ticket-item-price of WebLogic...

In recent posts, i have called on the second industry fork of a major enterprise OSS software product, following on Oracle's copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux...I think Google should do it, and get in to enterprise software with an app server, but i am not currently in contact with anyone at Google, so i continue to write and hope that someone thinks the same....Oracle irks me, not least because some of the same people who ran me out of Sun are now in charge of their software strategy, and what better payback could i think of than to fork their better app server, beat them at their own game, and sell-out to Google? I know vendettas are typically a huge energy waste, so i try and keep it professional, but something about Glassfish intrigues, not least because that was my baby, i created that product-line w/ Sun app server v. 7, and was the first in Sun to advocate for the app server program going open source, so i think it might come full circle....

Other than that, i am concerned about the recent back-and-forth, and confusing messages around the JBI product-line, called Fuji, i think, or at least anything to do with the OSS ESB, as Oracle clearly does not have the capacity to push this forward, in the direction of portable JBI components on the open marketplace....JSR 208 is a great achievement, regardless of what MuleSource will tell you, and subsequent JBI work was heroic in developer terms....it actually could simplify integration of back-end systems for the first time in the history of IT, and that would be worth billions, so if there is a second fork, i would take the Sun ESB and make it part of the Glassfish fork, and build a company, but i think one of the former Sun guys is on that with Hudson, though i might be a little mixed up on his plans....

As you can see, I typically have a negative axe to grind, when it comes to enterprise software, as i just dont see a lot of good execution, which is why it is ripe for a take-over by Google, i just might try it, if i get the developer supoprt first, but the resources and the competitive afront to Microsoft that Google represents would be nice to have in building a new company, based on a controversial fork of Glassfish....I will try and stay positive and let the great team of current Glassfish managers work out the roadmap, but i just dont see a future for distributed clusters of Glassfish when it makes no economic sense for Oracle to go down that path, and confuse WebLogic customers, for limited revenue....

so, after 5 years, i am still in the same position, holding on to a dream of compatible, portable EJB components, that simply plug-in, on-the-fly, in the cloud, and are sellable in an open marketplace for allowing developers to take back control of IT, and i only see Glassfish and the ongoing viability of JBoss as making that possible....we need both to be viable for the EJB component promise to take hold, and so i am willing to do my part, if given the opportunity to shepherd Glassfish forward, as JBoss is well covered....

what are you going to do?....

replicating the Glassfish ecosystem

2010-03-01T16:23:00.000-08:00

There is quite a bit of built-in advantages to the Oracle machine, even if Glassfish has been relegated to "lightweight" deployments, considering the extensive support systems in place, not to mention the already established best practices on java.net....but its not inconceivable that some organization could come along and take the open source licenses that Sun supported via CDDL and GPL 2 to create a new application server company, i mean it is possible....

My contention is that the ecosystem built around the JEE Reference Implementation is worthy of sales to enterprises, while Oracle contends that status is reserved solely for WebLogic, and so the developer community is left wondering why: why would a product-line that has next-generation features in integration via Fuji with the ESB, in portal via Liferay with WebView, and in clustering via Shoal with fail-over?...

What I am suggesting is that the Glassfish ecosystem could be forked and replicated and provide value-add applications and services on top of the platform while continuing to stay current with the evolution of the RI, and it wouldnt take much in the way of resources, say from a company like Google, at least initially, it would be a developer effort that would be compensated from the specialization that could be applied to an already established app server....what i envision is something that would be customized to the cloud deployments that require, at least eventually, if not inevitably a run-time, with common infrastructure....

something akin to what SAP has done with NetWeaver, that could be integrated in to Guice, Salesforce.com, EC2, and a whole host of applications that are beginning to be readily available on Google and Amazon's cloud offerings, by just looking at what is available today, and what is going to be taking place over the coming years....the model is set already, as well, ironically though Oracle's Enterprise Linux fork of Red Hat, where a community model has been quasi-continued with a corporate structure that takes advantage of one company's work, like with Fedora, and replicated to provide a new run-time that can be supported by a team of developers that take in revenue based on maintenance support....

Version control and issue tracking platforms are readily available today, and my preference is Google Code, though there is JIRA and Sourceforge, as well, among others....java.net is referenceable with all of the bug fixing and issues that have arisen in the course of building an open source application server, and it would be rather straight-forward to chart a course that adheres to the standards, the development of Glassfish from Oracle's efforts, and also additional services that could be implemented alongside the app server, such as with Access Management or Java applications or even Google's services for consumer or ad-facing apps....

I dont mean to sound like a broken record with this initiative, but i truly feel it is only a matter of time before the roadmap is released that will relegate Glassfish to simply being an RI for JEE releases, and not being sold for deployments, and that is the essence of a fork, taking an OSS project that has lost its traction by its corporate sponsor, but has value in the marketplace for customers and developers, alike....there are limitless directions, but it does not have to start with the creation of an app server, it is already there, and established, and does not require the heavy lifting of an enterprise software vendor to get going, it can be copied...

copied and taken in new directions, and i challenge anyone at Oracle or even JBoss for that matter to suggest a path for open source software that provides revenue to the developer community for their work on building an enterprise Java platform, the revenue would be directly attributable to those developers that brought deals on to the forked Glassfish, and then the entity that supports the project would be compensated enough to build new features that will eventually peel off the Oracle Glassfish radar, from lack of focus and functionality that will inevitably arise when you save all accounts for an inferior app server in WebLogic....

thats right, Glassfish is better than WebLogic is almost every way except that it is not the basis of Fusion going forward, and so i understand the decision from a corporate Oracle standpoint, but from no other vantage point does it make sense to kill off Glassfish for simply an RI implementation, it is too good, too much invested, too much game changing features to watch it die, and that is why a fork is the only logical next step....

why the cloud scares Oracle

2010-02-09T09:05:00.000-08:00

It takes some effort to look below the surface and additionally look past the comedic routines of its CEO on stage, but i am sure there are more people in the industry that ask, besides me, why the purveyor of the most robust database appliance in the marketplace offers nothing towards the cloud-based movement of apps running on virtualized hardware: in other words, why is Oracle running hard from hosted infrastructure?....

Even considering security and Identity management webinars coming up, based around cloud-infrastructure and the little salesforce.com competitive hedge that Ellison is invested in: why would oracle not be in the driver's seat when it comes to offering a competitive cloud based offering around MySQL and Glassfish, along with the ESB, BPM, and tools, not to mention Amberpoint?....

That is the question i have for the roadmap determinants, when they finally release a clustering schedule for glassfish v. 3, and it is a question i have had for Sun for some time now, why is MySQL and Glassfish not reserved for scale-out deployments, when the core Fusion/Oracle DB can handle enterprise accounts?....

Is it resources, that keeping two competing application platforms within the same company would be too distracting, too costly, too cumbersome, too cannibalizing, or too threatening to the money makers of WebLogic and Oracle DB, to just build a cloud org., in the form of MySQL and Glassfish, and put to rest the roadmap questions that will come if Oracle offers anything other than full enterprise-wide, web-wide support for the Sun software assets?....

My only answer can come from the open source model of the Sun infrastructure product-lines that never had a chance in a hardware scenario, but could become true deal makers in a software sales force's hands, and that is Oracle refuses to abide by a competitive affront to their proprietary model of selling high license cost, and even higher maintenance cost products, that do not have competing organizations, whether they be channel, SI, or ISV to under-cut them on price....

They have spent a lot of money on Sun, for a dying company that was doing great things in OSS terms so they have to get their investment back, through more than just hardware margins, and that means pushing Fusion out the door with little to no impediments to competitive pricing, and honestly where does that pricing pressure come from: not from IBM and WebSphere with Global Services offerings, only Red Hat with JBoss stands in the way of WebLogic pricing, now that Glassfish is safely behind closed doors, or so it seems.....

So, I respect the Glassfish people at Oracle, and will listen to them to be patient, and wait for the roadmap, but it is pretty tough now to back-down from what was said two weeks ago with the web event to announce some details of the Glassfish and MySQL purposes within a new Oracle software organization, and wonder why Oracle continues to deride something that everyone else is planning on, in the form of cloud-scale deployments....

It takes integration of apps and data, and it takes open standards, in the form of web services, and honestly it takes Open Source Software in order for those things to happen, and i am not so convinced we are going to see an investment beyond Fusion for engineering resources to be applied to scale-out deployments, like what it would take in the form of Reference Architectures and the like in order for non-techy sales people to translate for customers....

OSS is not what Oracle likes to do, except unless it means hurting or at least attempting to hurt Red Hat's model for Enterprise Linux by doing their own fork job, and though Mike Lehmann, Thomas Kurian, and Ted Ferrell are saying that OSS will continue, can they promise or agree to definitive support for the open source communities that were built around java.net at Sun?...i dont think they can or are willing to do that, considering the immense under-taking of getting three world-class ERP systems on one app server platform, along with all of the ancillary products to accompany it, in the form of Fusion....

I wonder, and then stop to wonder why there is no cloud future for Glassfish and MySQL because honestly, that was the major threat to Oracle Fusion in the form of technology parity and pricing pressure before the merger, so what is the incentive now to continue them now that they dont have to?.....lots of questions still remain but it becomes clearer as to what Oracle will ultimately prioritize in the face of hard choices on resource allocation, that will come regardless of current promises, and irrespective of amount of money available beyond what Sun had....

The reality will be a hard lesson for anyone trusting altruism from a company specialized to turn a profit at the expense of what is best for its customers....thats not all i am saying, but it begs the question, Oracle: what is so bad about the cloud to your business?.....

"forking" Glassfish

2010-02-03T08:49:00.000-08:00

i dont buy it, i just refuse to capitulate, and i dont have to as i am not an employee of the world's largest business software provider, and say that Glassfish is a 'departmental' application server, to be upsold to expensive WebLogic licenses, that frankly offers an inferior product to what has been built in the OSS community through the long-gone independent java.net....someone needs to explain to me the art of forking because the only company or organization that i have heard do it have been failures in the form of Apache's attempts with openJDK, and Oracle's attempt to copy Red hat's Enterprise Linux....but to me, it is time to explore the option of forking glassfish and continuing to invest in it as a platform for cloud-based, high availability, enterprise-wide and web-wide deployments, that scale beyond a developer's studio....

so, i am calling on those in the industry with the means to look at code, namely the Java developer ranks to get glassfish on to google's Code site, and begin the process of forking the OSS content that has been built over the past four years, since Glassfish's announcement and inception...there is no logical play for Glassfish within Oracle's stated product strategy with Fusion, and therefore there is a significant market opportunity to take the assets under GPL license and form a new entity that will support enterprise-wide deployments, and even build within Google's cloud offerings to make the Reference Implementation the premier app server in the marketplace....makes sense, doesnt it?....

I would say that the most natural person to do the rallying for this is Marc Fleury, himself, though i know it would be a tough sell, as this is not his code base baby, but JBoss has morphed in to something else beyond what he originally started, and perhaps his non-compete is coming up to expiration....just think of the developers he would attract worldwide, if he were to sign-on to a fork of Glassfish, and just think of the resources that could be potentially available from Google, if we were to make an app server cloud oriented, and on their Code site, its like a built-in acquisition guarantee, from the company with the deepest pockets....there is even a scenario where Google will need Glassfish to do business, as they move in to the enterprise, so with some luck and lots of execution, it could be a high, high premium paid for the work of a fork job....

I have also proposed portable applications across JEE servers, perhaps even components for vertical implementations for HIPAA, SWIFT, FMEA, and other industry standards, so the project could grow beyond just an app server platform fork, and include applications that would run on JBoss, and perhaps even WebLogic and WebSphere with some work....but the real test is in finding Glassfish a home, and getting the write-once-run-anywhere promise going with some apps that run in the cloud that can be deployed on compliant platforms from any vendor or company....forking Glassfish means taking on Oracle's stated product strategy, and it is about time someone does it, as Fusion toils along, with no word whatsoever on its delivery schedule....all they do is buy more companies to divert attention from their timelines for release, and now they have kicked the most valuable Sun asset in to the ranks of 'departmental': Fail.....

i ask you all in the industry to consider a world where JBoss is the only JEE 6 app server left for deployments, as WebLogic and WebSphere have basically not even supported JEE 5 yet, within their product-lines, so now we have a uni-tier app server market on standards, with Spring Source being the natural beneficiary of this splintering....it is time for the Java developer ranks to get paid for OSS work and not let companies like Oracle take all the work in-house and mis-market it, with a term that make me cringe: 'departmental'....

take a look around, what do you see in the marketplace other than a lot of invested companies looking for answers on what is next for JEE, and the answer had been coming from the Glassfish org., and now that org. is essentially dead, so forks dont usually work, they are seldom ever attempted, but this one is worth it, this one could introduce Google in to the enterprise and could make the developers on the project a lot of money that Oracle is leaving on the table with their positioning that basically says we will not sell Glassfish, and we will only sell WebLogic....i say to all those not satisfied with the decision, to rise up, and begin to build the ranks of those willing to fork glassfish for the industry to stay afloat of portability....it only takes some momentum to really build something unique, and only you are one of many who could make it possible, so take a look at my site, and tell me i am not on to something....

it is time to fork Glassfish:
http://code.google.com/p/astrocloud/wiki/PageName

glassfish is google's

2010-01-24T10:33:00.000-08:00

with the acquisition of Sun complete, and Oracle set to announce their roadmap for Sun products and technologies, the one thing i will be looking for is how they justify investment in the set of products that fall under the Glassfish moniker...with WebLogic as the run-time for Fusion, and by extension the ERP apps, and nearly all the database deals that will be bundled with an application server, there is virtually no way Glassfish survives beyond the year, even as Oracle is obliged to keep MySQL alive for the low-end implementations....its a shame, but it makes sense, perhaps Oracle will take the ESB and take some of NetBeans, but there is not a chance they will risk diluting their investment in BEA, by supporting yet another app server, one that only has cache within the Java developer community, and has yet to penetrate the enterprise, even though it probably is a better product-line than WebLogic...the train has left the station, and there is no turning back on Fusion, this far in to the development process, which is already massively behind schedule....

so, what is a Glassfish user to do, other than wait for a fork?....i suggest that as it is the Reference Implementation of Java EE, it would be best served as a project at google, and by that i mean a project living within Google Code, so that an enterprise product could take root at the ad/search giant, and give them a way in to the minds of Java developers worldwide...this is why it makes sense:

- Google builds cloud apps, and Glassfish is the best cloud app server on the market...

- Java is still the base for Guice and other development efforts at Google, so getting their feet wet with enterprise Java, only further positions Google as a necessary counter-weight to .Net and Microsoft....

- Glassfish is feature complete, and would greatly benefit from the engineering resources at Google to make it more tailored toward consumer facing applications....

- Oracle and google are natural allies, aside from Ellison's public campaign against clouds, they do different things, and do not get in each other's way and they have a common enemy in complexity of IT, which only benefits IBM Global Services and Microsoft's one size-fits-all mentality....

- Google needs an enterprise story, and building a middleware stack from the bottom-up would take too long, and would not be accepted within the marketplace for some time, too long to stay pace with .Net....

so, Oracle should de-emphasize the investment in Glassfish, as they are determined to shake resources out of Sun and make it profitable, and give the code direction to Google to make a viable enterprise platform for the legions of developers that are now circling around Guice, Android, and Chrome, all while giving enterprise Java a needed shot in the arm following the delays of JBoss 6 and the insurgency of SpringSource to fragment component portability....

this would not necessarily be a future threat to Fusion, and would continue to give Oracle some room to bounce ideas off of a well-financed engineering team without the necessary investment in in-house resources....the product managers and engineering talent could easily transfer from Oracle to Google, as they are down the highway from each other, and would give google a lot of talent to work on their enterprise strategy all while supporting open source development, as they have been doing....

this would be a welcome transfer by Red Hat and IBM's calculation, as they do not see Google in their accounts, and Glassfish would merely be tuned to be a fine reference implementation, with future development as the base of all of Google's enterprise development to reach the Java customer base, that is looking for guidance on whether their decade-long investment in enterprise Java is worth continuing....portability would be all but guaranteed with WebSphere, WebLogic, JBoss, and Glassfish all surviving the consolidation of IT, with only an acquisition of Red hat by IBM being absent to provide a true triumvirate to compete with Microsoft via Google, IBM, and Oracle....

sooner rather than later, Google needs to get serious about its intentions within the enterprise, and Glassfish is a natural fit, as an open source platform, that is well ahead on standards and specification compliance, they could continue this leadership while building a number of projects around Glassfish that would help them better compete with Microsoft in accounts that need the enterprise capabilities...

it is likely that Oracle will pledge support for Glassfish, while at the same time beginning the process of de-emphasizing investment in its ongoing development, whether that be engineering or marketing or both...Google could bring a bridge from the past development to the future of enterprise Java, and not necessarily segment SpringSource out of the equation, as Spring runs on Glassfish, all the pieces are in place, just need to get it done....

JBoss and SpringSource

2010-01-22T07:44:00.000-08:00

Both are owned by corporate parents that have large market shares in their respective product categories: Linux servers for Red Hat, and corporate data center virtualization for VMWare, respectively, which allows the two subsidiaries of the parents to exert some sort of free-wheeling and experimentation with messaging, such as JBoss' new non-Java EE push through other languages, and SpringSource's anti-Java EE push through their own language, of sorts....but make no mistake about the competition, it boils down to a heavily intensive fight for the mindshare of Java developers worldwide, with the eventual victor controlling what is left of the corporate IT spend that does not go to Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle...this is major terrain for the once-small start-ups to undertake....

JBoss appears to have the lead, since they held the initiative for so long, as the only open source application server vendor, that bled BEA Systems to death, and in to the arms of Oracle, all while advancing its reputation and influence within the Java community, via the JCP standardization process....but SpringSource has fought admirably, although their tactics have been suspect, in terms of deriding enterprise Java, basically on the whole, even as they adopt some of the specifications that comprise it....i find their most recent anti-application server vendor strategy around suggesting that OSGi is not ready for the enterprise to be interesting, to say the least, as Glassfish and JBoss played catch-up to delivering a micro-kernel architecture, right at the moment that they finally caught up, Spring Source pulled the rug out from underneath Glassfish, and JBoss, in particular, by saying that they are no longer interested in their customers deploying through OSGi, leaving fear, uncertainly and doubt in the minds of developers and particularly IT managers, over whether OSGi is in fact a "risky" proposition to deploy to....

JBoss has been successful with its version 5 release to coincide with JEE 5, even though it came more than a year after the specification was released, it was in keeping with its parent company's reputation of only putting out supported products that have been battle-tested and offering assurances that there would be no surprises in developing with and deploying to a Red Hat product, JBoss included....and they will do the same with JEE 6, allowing Glassfish to attract the bulk of the early adopter users, that have little influence in the decision-making process of corporate IT spend, all while developing iterations of JEE 6 to keep their foot in the game....enterprise Java needs JBoss, but JBoss is giving the message that they can manage without the latest and greatest enterprise Java for the time-being....

Spring Source is different, altogether, basically wrapping enterprise Java with proprietary extensions that they claim offer greater productivity for developers with higher assurances of reliability for IT managers, they did not even participate in the JEE 6 discussion, choosing to make their apathy to enterprise Java felt most strongly through a policy of not even voting their vote within the JCP....in one respect this is baffling, though when you are running a political operation of mindshare battles, it is not surprising, as Spring source essentially has nothing to gain from the ongoing development of a community standard that truly only benefits JBoss and perhaps Glassfish, with the latter's future still in question, considering the Oracle Fusion investment....Spring Source is better off with a fragmented community, as they are best-of-breed, apparently....

What comes next is anything but detente, as JBoss and Spring Source battle over everything from XML to integration to tools to eventually virtualization, itself....its a healthy competition, and i think the lasting impact of the EJB 2x debate is finally wearing off, as Spring Source cant say EJB is dead, as v. 3 makes clear, and EJB 3.1 takes even further with CDI, but dont count SpringSource out quite yet....this OSGi argument strikes a blow to Glassfish as they spent the past two years getting organized for it, and Spring Source is spreading successful FUD that it is not the right approach...JBoss will have to respond with assurances in v. 6 that it is enterprise ready, and can be trusted on Red Hat deployments, as VMWare certainly will carry Spring Source deep in to Linux accounts, it is going to be good....

Oracle will have to clear-up what they intend to do with Glassfish, as a stand-alone product-line, that is truly not in line with Fusion or ERP apps, and JBoss will have to respond with more than just JEE 6 marketing, and their tried-and-true open source heritage, they will have to become more of an enterprise vendor, and that may mean selling out to IBM's Global Services to get the coverage to go deeper in to accounts, as i have said....but this competition has clearly been healthy for enterprise Java, even if Spring Source turns their nose at the community...its JBoss' move with v. 6, and Spring Source will be waiting to play the antagonist of all the little holes that may add-up to a barrier to entry for JBoss in to the core of the enterprise accounts at Red Hat....

Only time will tell, but i think that this battle only makes things better for developers, more choices rather than .Net, and more innovation around Java, it will be a tough test for JBoss, but one that they can handle if execution is flawless, otherwise, look for Spring Source to drive a wedge between perceived and real advantages of JEE 6...sooner, rather than later, portability of applications will have to be demonstrated in order to counter the proprietary models, and that has not happened, Java Verified, notwithstanding....components on-the-fly, inter-operable between Glassfish and JBoss is the only way JEE 6 stares down the long-term threat that is Spring Source....

the legacy of marc fleury

2010-01-14T13:02:00.000-08:00

marcf is the founder of JBoss, an enterprise software company that i competed with, in my time on Sun's app server, and though they whipped us for a variety of reasons, the competition has heated back-up, with Glassfish v. 3 and JBoss 6, though both Marc and myself are long gone from our respective positions....the major difference being i sold my remaining sun stock options for something like <$20K, while Marc cashed in his majority stake in JBoss, via the acquisition by red hat, but he's still around doing something cool with remote control software to make it compatible across devices, and i still write about what i see in the enterprise software industry....

one thing is for sure, the marketplace would be by magnitudes different, had JBoss not punctured a hole at the right time in the WebLogic/WebSphere duopoly that has once again made middleware industry-standards based and cheaper and more important to overall market share of IT vendors...even VMWare bought a middleware company in Spring Source, in order to provide themselves with some diversification and a growth model beyond virtualization, that is becoming heavily saturated with no real top-line growth prospects beyond organic adoption....virtualization is important but not a market category in itself, as Red hat takes the life out of the value proposition by building it in to the operating system.....

Marc and JBoss went bigger, they went after the entire Java developer community as well as deployments with enterprises, alike, and succeeded where others like Bluestone failed, simply because they were crazy good business operators on a new model of open source, and too little can be said of what JBoss' overall execution meant to the acquisition plans of Oracle, as they forced BEA in to their lap, while simultaneously providing Red hat with cover to not be acquired by oracle, and so the dance goes on with Oracle doing their best to ignore the one hole in their arsenal for enterprise software, which is a viable operating system, even considering the state of openSolaris....i have argued for IBM to acquire Red Hat, which would be interesting enough to cause a major rip tide through IT, at a lot of levels, but none of this is possible without JBoss....

i am curious as to when, how, or perhaps whether Marc will get back in to enterprise software where he honed his antagonistic skills to the maximum to provide cover to a small ATL-based start-up, outside of the valley's VC reach for so long, all while competing with IBM, BEA, Oracle, and Sun, he just has to come back someday, even if the openRemote thing blows up, there is too much at stake in the middleware wars for him to not be a part of it sometime down the road...in the course of our respective careers, we will see a Google enterprise offering on the cloud competing with Microsoft's .Net cloud offering, and hopefully Oracle and IBM are still around to talk in the same room as the new giant and the incumbent who are at war over everything...i could never see Marc take a job at one of the major companies, but there is so much innovation going on in the cloud, that somewhere he must find a niche, and build another rock-solid company....

i met him once at Java One, though he wouldnt remember, as it was 2003, and i was a lowly staffer on the floor of the show, while he was the CEO of the upstart....but cordial enough, i have written extensively over the years of why Glassfish and Sun, in general owed JBoss such a debt of being able to follow a proven model that got them back in the middleware market, and for now have fended off proprietary extensions to the core enterprise java platform, which is all that matters right now for Oracle to be competitive with WebSphere Global Services accounts, these are huge stakes....

JBoss is at a cross-roads due to its role with Red Hat, and fighting off Spring Source has been time consuming, and less lucrative than initially projected with the acquisition, but Red Hat would be nowhere without JBoss, and JBoss would not exist and have thrived without Marc Fleury, sure it sounds like an epitath, but really its just a call-to-arms for him and his supporters in the industry to begin the brainstorming sessions again that led to JBoss, in the first place, i have laid out somewhat where i think that is going with Astro Cloud, but with middleware margins becoming ever more tied to the larger platforms they sustain, surely a couple of young start-ups could shake things up again....

if i was a betting man, i would be placing some money on Marc's next move if it does come in the enterprise software realm, and i would not be alone: he entered the market at the right time, and exited gracefully with a retirement plan that allows him to dabble and think big, that is a dangerous man for anyone who thinks that the world belongs solely to the big IT vendors, i am sure that someday start-ups will move from social networking to middleware cloud opportunities, and because of what he did with JBoss, and beyond, Marc Fleury should be considered a major possibility for version 2.0 of his model of upending the software industry...

i hope i am around to see it happen.....

google code

2010-01-08T12:04:00.000-08:00

For those in the Java industry, there are countless ways of exploring the ecosystem that nourishes developers to build the platforms and applications that counter the immense weight of Microsoft and other pseudo-proprietary solutions, and though some (not me) fret about the counter-weight of Google's influence on the community, Google Code (GC) is the best site for learning about next-gen products and tools for extending the immense success of Enterprise Java....

It all starts with open source and open participation in ideas that rely on individual contributions to a started project, which means that anyone can search the GC database, and find a wealth of solutions that may not be ready for mainstream, but are well on their way to being included in the discussion of whether Java vendors need to add additional functionality to their products based on the support a project receives on GC, along with its corresponding usefulness in real-world implementations....

i have only begun to survey the cusp of what is available, as Google started GC some time back to support their programmatic contribution to Java in the form of Guice....but from what i can see and what i have learned in the time that i have been using GC, it seems a natural location for project owners that are looking to build mind-share around an idea and gather the necessary support to turn a project in to a product....

some time back, i initiated a project around an idea i call 'astro cloud' which is basically laid out in a previous post on this blog, in the form of a brainstorming session with myself, of how existing enterprise applications could be extended to bring in the value of the cloud computing phenomenon...some, like Ellison, dont like clouds as a distinct product category, but it seems to me that the sheer weight of what Amazon EC2 and Google are doing, along with countless well-funded start-ups in the Valley and beyond, plus the economics of deploying apps to a distributed platform, here-fore known as the cloud, will make application development and deployment more efficient and simply better by getting them on platforms that scale without limit...

GC is a natural place for me to start such an idea as it costs nothing, and takes advantage of the version control and distribution capabilities of Google's developer offerings, and though i dont know the first thing about developing in Java, despite having been a product marketing manager on Sun's application server for four important years of its existence, i know there are literally thousands of Java developers using GC to do more in their spare time outside or perhaps even inside the office, to build extensions or occasional stand-alone functionality that is not in the R&D budgets of the major Java vendors....

it doesnt mean you have to turn-over intellectual property rights to Google, as far as i can tell, and it allows me to keep all of my established Google data in place, while building something that could become a Java business....i will not succeed or even start without the support of developers who share the same belief in open source development, or share the same strategic conclusions of what is needed to push enterprise java forward beyond what the application server vendor and customers do....because as we know there is a limit to what Oracle, Glassfish, JBoss, JoNas, WebSphere, Apache, and even SpringSource can do in house....

It seems to me that Google is building platforms with consumer-facing applications, and allowing their enterprise efforts to revolve around developer tools that help push AdWords as embedded functionality, and so it may be that the great Mt. View power comes in to the space of cloud apps for the enterprise in-time, i am betting that they will limit their exposure to cannibalizing what is being built on GC by individual and team development efforts, so they dont run in to a Great Plains-like scenario where all new development stops because the keeper of the platform owns the apps, as well....

In a former lifetime, as an employee of Sun, I pushed the concept of portable EJB components, that never materialized, to my surprise, but it basically was a mistake by most in the Java industry, as the whole cross-platform promise was premised on the supposed capability to plug one EJB in to any platform, and now that that vision is getting increasing viability with the JEE6 release, as component development matures, and as application spending continues to grow vis-a-vis spending on platforms, that are being dramatically reduced in cost thanks to the open source efforts of JBoss and Glassfish, it seems time for developers to begin to use their hard-won talents and market advantages to building stand-alone apps that can be portable across any Java platform....

GC is a place that i will continue to monitor for new projects that may share my belief in betting on apps or even components that can add functionality to an enterprise's IT environment, without major re-work on extensibility or integration...at the moment i am following JoNas, Multi-Verse, and some other cloud tools that seem to be good starts to the initiative to extending Java beyond the borders of the app servers, and give developers an opportunity to do something on their own, that may in fact turn in to a career, or even a company....nothing seems to be able to match the scale of Google, and combining the usability of GC with a Java application idea, could push the marketability of open source efforts at competing with existing solutions....

i am sure many of you in the Java marketplace have inspected GC at a cursory level, so i am treading on well-known territory for a lot of the Java development community, but it goes to say that by mixing and matching initiatives and functionality in a community environment, such as that found on GC, will provide the necessary foundation to move beyond merely iterative releases of platforms, and focus the corporate Java spend on apps, which is what was promised by Enterprise Java at its inception....SpringSource was right, too much focus on just the platforms, and its time to turn control over to the developers in businesses and individuals developing on their own for real innovation to happen....i think Google Code is one of the leading contenders to lead this evolution.....

IBM JBoss WebSphere

2009-12-19T09:52:00.000-08:00

With the release of Glassfish v.3 on top of JEE6, Oracle is back in the driver's seat with Java....they have overtaken Red Hat as the core community behind developing ease of use features for developers, customers, and ISVs, so that the ecosystem of JEE will naturally find more benefits in working with Oracle to port to both WebLogic and Glassfish, something that JBoss simply cannot offer, nor can SpringSource, nor can SAP, and especially not IBM, even though they offer Geronimo....

Geronimo is a failure, it has no traction in the marketplace, and IBM appears reticent or incapable of porting the entire suite of WebSphere product family to Geronimo, thus preventing them from being a major player in Java opportunities where Global Services does not have a strangle hold on the account...thus, its time to consolidate more and sell out Red Hat to IBM...its the next logical step and more sense than an IBM-SAP merger as JBoss is still going strong, and IBM would be able to go to customers, ISVs, and developers and give them one tool or one set of products that run on both WebSphere and JBoss natively, with better support for broader application server platforms.....

This leaves a three-tier marketplace lining up against Microsoft via Oracle, IBM, and SAP, with the possible emergence of Google in to the enterprise space, supporting the write-once-run-anywhere value proposition that is the ONLY way you beat Microsoft....no single company can do it in an account that is weighing Java v. .Net, it needs to be the entire community involved from preventing the entire enterprise space going to .Net over time....nothing Guice, Intel, or Java vendors can do on their own to prevent .Net from just getting perfected with Great Plains programming, and so it is time for IBM to step up to the plate, fork over a couple billion and buy Red Hat....

They need to get fully verified as a true Java vendor, even if it is controlled initially by Oracle, their arch-enemy, they need to see the bigger picture and secure more accounts for Global Services, while getting the only real Linux platform on the market....eventually Oracle will need to develop a true open source Linux community rather than just copying Red Hat, but until that time Solaris, Ubuntu, etc....just are not capable of competing with Red Hat, even considering Oracle's reach...its JEE6 on Linux all the way to the final confrontation with Microsoft which will happen over the coming decade....first, though, IBM and Red Hat need to respond to the overwhelming come-from-behind victory of Glassfish....

In no way should Sun's hardware be $7B valuable, and considering the margins are coming down for Oracle, it has to come from somewhere, and considering the MySQL hang-up in Europe, there has to be some reason why Oracle sticks it out with Sun, and the answer is Glassfish, all respect and responsibility to the WebLogic/Fusion staff as they have an ERP job to do, but in the Java space, its Glassfish all day every day....they have perfected the application server while welcoming Spring in to the fold, no other company or rather community could have done it but Sun's Glassfish community, and they did it....

Ease of development, ease of use, ease of support, and an ecosystem as an alternative to JBoss, it is simply the most successful application server of the past 3 years, and is probably best assumed to be the leading candidate for dominance and potential Google use in their wiggle in to the enterprise space....sure, they'll build their own application server, and work with Spring, and customize for Chrome, but Glassfish still intrigues, and Oracle has it, its now in a home that is not going away anytime soon, and thus generates customer assurances that can be backed up by the Oracle Database cash cow and maintenance revenue....

Glassfish is here to stay, JBoss is here to stay, WebSphere is here to stay, and WebLogic is here to stay, now what in that equation do you think stands-out as the next logical move in the industry....if i had money to burn on stock, it would be in Red Hat, because IBM needs to pay that premium and get the next best set of assets in-house, there is no second-place worthy of consideration, even, again, SAP, it is Linux JBoss, and that will give them wide-ranging room in enterprise accounts against Microsoft...

IBM v. Oracle with joint progress on JEE, thats a battle we have been waiting for for too long, it is time to get it on, and see what shakes out of that healthy competition....let Google get bogged down in a Microsoft war for the time being, while Java lives free as the development platform of choice for the enterprise.....

lots of money, there.....

astro cloud, brainstorming

2008-12-27T07:18:00.000-08:00

11/22/8
4:30 a.m.

Here is a laundry list of possible areas that could be addressed:

- traditional middleware
- cloud middleware
- security software
- development innovations
- SOA
- applications
- components

specific product categories, existing/known:

- ESB
- Rules
- Identity management
- Spring development
- BPM
- ERP
- JEE6
- presentation, portals, and CMS
- scalability for cloud deployments

I guess i see a couple of issues with making some analysis of what opportunities are available, and they really come down to these:

- Spring v. JEE6
- OSS
- Google sponsored

I don't think a decision necessarily needs to be made with respect to Spring and JEE, but eventually it becomes cumbersome to support both, and one or the other makes sense to do as primary. OSS is flat-out the only sustainable model going forward. There is an absolute certainty that Google will enter the enterprise software market within 2009; perhaps not in providing its own app server, but it will continue to sponsor a wide-range of development initiatives, such as Guice (http://code.google.com/p/google-guice/)...the corollary development is that all deployments, whether Google-sponsored or somehow independent, will be moving toward massive cloud implementations...

truly, the only sure bet in 2009 is that all existing enterprise software projects, from Mule to Gigaspaces to Hibernate to MySQL to Intalio to SAP will have to figure out the value proposition of their offering vis-a-vis cloud deployment: the economies of scale are so massively in favor of the cloud, that even pre-existing successful bets on hosting, such as Salesforce.com, will still need to be further re-defined to take in to account the exact nature of the cloud...only those software vendors that have code that fits in the cloud, and business development that understands the scope of partnerships needed to support customer deployments in the cloud will survive the incredible pricing pressure certain to come about through a recession...

any and all existing proprietary hooks, such as Oracle Fusion app server (non-WebLogic), non-Java related development tools, and legacy applications will have absolutely no value and no marketability if they are not able to rapidly re-configure to support the cloud value proposition...Google will have massive advantages by owning infrastructure to build code repositories that take from existing Google Cloud projects...there are literally dozens of potential projects that Google could productize, so that the only determination is not whether Google will have viable enterprise software, but will be which projects they fund, support, and extend to make the most of their massive investments...barring an unforeseen circumstance, all enterprise software vendors have no choice but to subscribe to Google's cloud terms, as the only legitimate stop-gap to a pure Microsoft implementation...

from .Net to Biz Talk to SQL to Live, Microsoft is behind in every category they compete in, by a wide margin; however, if competitors in point categories are not capable at integrating with the Google Cloud, they will have no chance at surviving the downturn, in the face of Microsoft's ongoing dominance and longevity and risk-free reputation...the only thing that is more important than JEE6 in 2009 is Google, and the only thing that can prevent Google from completely dominating every product category from ESBs to Portals to linear scalability boosters is a vendors' ability to out-manoeuvre Google within Google's own infrastructure...it can be done, though very few will succeed...

to me, the only ongoing viable strategy is to build applications for the cloud, as Google appears to be following the playbook of Sun's successful early shepherding of Java as a competitive alternative to Microsoft, which was to not focus on functionality, but instead maniacally adhere to infrastructure-only...the one and only place that has sustainable margins, innovation options, and clarity of market opportunity is in building and supporting cloud applications: everything else will be swallowed by Google...

what are cloud applications?

cloud applications are anything that could be used by a business to facilitate the execution of the acquisition of a product or service that would require large-scale implementation, such as a supply chain order, a customer service record, or a financial transaction of any kind...the most basic premise of a cloud application is that it will involve multiple sources, and is best described and previously known as:

a web services enabled data integration source file.

in other words, the years of enabling SOAP-like web services integration is finally available in deployment on the cloud, for the XML-heavy language barrier to performance is mitigated by the cloud's infrastructure, and functionality...a cloud application will often times be constructed out of available data resources, though will also be built from scratch from available development environments and pre-built code repositories...cloud applications will be horizontal and vertical in scope, and will be easily taken down when the duration of its lifespan has been completed...

there is no functioning business model for how cloud applications will be bought and sold.

there is no existing business that currently addresses the market opportunity that will become apparent with the advent of cloud applications.

there are literally dozens of ways that cloud applications could become a market on its own, and no way to predict which way will be the most efficient; therefore, software vendors and application developers that seek to address the cloud applications market opportunity will either need to be extremely specialized in a particular niche, or very well organized in order to fully support the wide-spectrum of cloud application deployment scenarios that will be tested...

again, there is no way to know how cloud applications will ultimately be transacted, but by the end of 2009, there will be at least enough use cases, for vendors and cloud application developers, alike, to begin to make more reasonable bets on which direction will most likely prove to be the most lucrative...the only known requirement to date of how to address the cloud application market opportunity is to fully understand the broadest scope of the Google Cloud offering, all its features, its future plans, and its offerings for developers...those who can fully articulate how the Google Cloud works will be best positioned to explain how cloud applications will be best implemented...

in short, the most relevant site to the cloud applications initiative is:

http://code.google.com/

though there are other OSS-supported, code repositories, such as java.net, Apache, Sourceforge, etc...there seems to be little rational for choosing over the Google Code site, as the clearing house for all available information on how best to integrate with the Google Cloud is found there...

taking out PTB

2008-12-24T08:05:00.000-08:00

i wonder if marcf is going to read this post, as i want everyone to know that i dedicate to him, for as we have all been made aware, he was the one who led JBoss to the ultimate defeat of BEA, and without him the enterprise software market would be different. I just want to put everyone on notice, that it looks like sometime in 2009, i am going to be able to take credit for taking out Jonathan Schwartz, as his program to revive Sun, is fundamentally flawed, and he will have no choice but to step-down or sell-out...

if you have not been keeping up on my IT blog, called Views on the Industry, you may want to spend a weekend making yourself familiar with the issues i raised, as Sun looks certain to implode as i have been saying all year...so, while marcf took down a once-proud "first to $1B" software company, i took down one of the great hopes of those who conspired to drive McNealy out, and frankly though i have some additional responses to repay to some people still in the industry, i took out the most visible one, as PTB will never be the same again...

his career, for all intents, and purposes, is over...

so, when you feel yourself getting uncomfortable re-reading my blog entries earlier this year, just remember, it is simply payback for what they did to me, i dont forget, i dont back down, and i want any future would-be assassin to know the simple fact about my life: I Never Lose...

Scwartz may have more money than me, at the moment, he may think he has a better life than me with family firmly established in SFO area, while i labor in GRR, MI, but one of us is done, and one of us is just beginning, and i am too focused to be done...

i will have zero remorse the day the badge is taken from him, i offered my services even after having the rug pulled out from under me at age 29, but i bounced back, stronger, and smarter than ever...

you guys cant touch me, i am beyond your reach, and unlike when i was in CA, while i live in MI, i have no fears...

if you have been concerned with what i have said to-date, you are completely unprepared for what i am about to do:

with help, tear down your entire system...

douglas john umar

11/27/8

~ 12:30 a.m.

(this is dedicated to my brother, who has done more than everyone, to maintain the dream...)

au revoir

2008-10-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

outside of the inevitable backlash from the targets of some of my blog posts, i have apparently accumulated some unknown and certainly unwanted additional antagonists - - in other words, i wake up today, and i find the cost-benefit is no longer positive, in trying to provide some context outside of the conventional wisdom...to some, this may sound like double-speak in an effort to clear my name, but unfortunately too many still live within in a system that favors a few with voices, and either disregards or attempts to destroy those who don't abide by the established system...whatever, i am still learning, and i guess i still need to learn some more, and add on top of that the always present reality that i don't get paid to do this blog or anything else, so why bother?...do i really owe anyone who thinks that things are as they should be any real perspective?...

the most troubling part keeps me thinking of something off of Sinead's Faith and Courage album (2000), where she basically apologizes for the pope-picture-ripping on SNL, by saying she is sorry for losing some of those who originally supported her, simply because she did something that made sense to her, but others didn't have all of the same experiences, so how could they completely understand...feel free to lambast my comparison with Sinead, hell, feel free to get Sinead, herself, to counter my comparison, i don't care...i live for myself, and that cost-benefit is haunting me right now...i have my own experience that tell me what i know is right, and those aren't the same experiences as what others have had, regardless of whether they are getting paid by the system to keep quiet...

so, as is customary: please accept my apology if i offended anyone, for most of my efforts, it was about money, and making business decisions not based on politics but on optimizing returns, which is the basis of business...i don't remember being a bigot, or unnecessarily making statements that didn't reflect what i thought was a legitimate economic or even social argument...but, it is definitely time to quit the pursuit, i just don't have the appropriate perspective to continue to fight for what i think is right...or, what i think is really the case is that the cost-benefit just does not work out for me right now, so i got to do whats right for me, and let what happens, happen...

for the first time in a long-time, i kind of understand Lauryn Hill, i mean we all want a new album, but that Unplugged effort must haunt her, simply because it is so correct and so unparalleled, and so accosted and used as exhibit A in the case against her that she is "crazy"...i can just see her looking in the mirror, asking: 'what do i owe them?...i know Talib has asked me to return, i know i could make a great pop album, i know i could make a great political album, but what would be in it for me?'...go ahead, lambast me a second time for comparing myself to Lauryn, i hope you realize soon enough that i don't care, and that is the point...

maybe, by me removing myself, for the most part, from the discussion, i can be a living representative of how the point of winning the fight is just simply not engaging in it...maybe the whole fight is a set-up to keep us all in check, while the real blessing is just living and forgetting about trying to save the world...i have had so-called addictions, but none of them even approach the impact that this nagging addiction to counter conventional wisdom has been on me, like many times in the past decade, i need to save myself first, and let you all, figure it out, especially those who are getting paid for it, and maybe even allow others to pick-up where i left off, and i know there is room for improvement...

i will be a living representative of someone who has survived the war, and not a soldier anymore, i will write poetry, or business plans, or something that takes me closer to my own goals, and trust that the world is actually ever-so-slightly skewed in the direction of what is right winning out over current conventional wisdom...i really don't have to worry about the opposite happening, anymore...so, carry on, blogosphere, Venture Capitalists, all defenders of conventional wisdom, soon a new day will come, when what i have said will not be the exception, but the standard, or even better, won't even have to be said at all, because actual peace and justice will reign over oppression...i no longer consider that a possibility, it is a reality...

writes itself

2008-10-06T10:42:00.000-07:00

Yeah, i got to say, this whole Jonathan Schwartz contribution on blogs.sun.com does make my blog a lot easier, i mean there is no way i could even make some of this stuff up, even through deductive reasoning based on press releases and product announcements, so it is with great satisfaction that the current CEO proves my point every time he engages his community, especially when he publishes internal missives to his executive team, which go a long way to explaining why they are all completely paralyzed trying to anticipate what to do, as in the face of all irrefutable evidence that a change is needed, PTB basically says Sun couldn't be better:

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/innovation_loves_a_crisis

I must admit i have never managed a single employee, particularly when your credibility is severely tested (nor been in a urban warfare environment, which seems to be somewhat comparable), so i don't know exactly what i would be telling Schwartz if i was his therapist or whoever he consults for advice that is not directly relying on him for their livelihood, and maybe i over-looked this responsibility if i truly do care about Sun's survival, but i think i have thrown enough ignored suggestions to convince myself that i am not merely a flame-thrower...but to save the mentally strained at Sun some time that they should be spent looking for other jobs as a back-up plan, i will provide some analysis on what the CEO is trying to communicate in his diatribe on politics, economics, and Sun's business model via the e-mail published above, which i can only presume is his only mass distribution statement on the current state of affairs:

(this is my take on his thinking, so the conclusions are based on my understanding of this analysis of the current conditions)

1. Congress is responsible for the current crisis, since it has not passed a "bail-out" package, as of this writing, though that has since been recitifed, so placing blame on politicians, and the political system in general for the decisions of the financial community is not necessarily a tactic that Jonathan will be able to rely on, depending on a whole confluence of factors, such as stock market stability, loan market liquidity, and number of businesses that exist at the end of 2008...essentially when a CEO starts playing political analyst to describe the market opportunity for his company, you better hope you are either in Russia or else run for the hills, because it is going to get ugly...

2. I know i am going out of order, relative to the points i want to make as they relate to the e-mail in question, but i got to respond to the question that Jonathan poses, and so toward the end he says: "which OS will we pick" in terms of a customer buying decision...hahahaha...i mean if i was on Sun's Board's compensation committee, i would immediately introduce a clause that says that if at anytime, Jonathan makes such a public statement again, that his bonus is deducted 25% for complete incompetence and lack of understanding for the market that he is supposedly competing in...for one, the decision on an OS is entirely predicated on the skills of the customer's IT department, so that if the IT minions are experts in SQL Server database technology or develop using Visual Studio, then yes, of course, they go with Windows for their x86 server line-up...if a customer has been savvy and over-spent on open source experts, then they have the flexibility to choose Linux...under no scenario, other than if the customer has an existing locked-in contract for Sun servers previously, would they ever choose openSolaris, that, in fact, would be grounds for being fired as an IT manager...so, this question that Jonathan poses, though i understand he has bet his career on its validity, is completely a false positive, it is not a true question that anyone, and i mean anyone, makes relative to Sun's OS...let's move on, just wanted to make sure we were still completely clear on why Jonathan Schwartz has no business being in this business...

3. O.k., so we got a cursory mention of Glassfish, so at least Jonathan could reference this e-mail in the future, when it finally becomes obvious even to him and his executive team that they have no competitive advantage outside of Glassfish, that they were aware of the asset they must utilize in these market conditions, but it is admittedly sindwiched in between the virtualization product-line and openSolaris nonsense (hahaha), so there is really no way for a Sun "leader" to pick-up this e-mail and say to themself: 'wow, i guess we finally are de-emphasizing WebLogic, and going to go after the Enterprise Java market opportunity', even though that is the only defensible market that Sun competes in...therefore, this e-mail, though it contains some of the basic premises of how Sun will survive, has absolutely no focus, is truly just a lingo-laden emptying of the brain of all things Sun-related, with no actual direction, and no clear instructions of how these "leaders" should take their orders in compete in these dire market conditions...one last time, well actually, i will continue to hammer it, until Mark replaces him: Glassfish is the only way forward...

4. No mention of how MySQL is to replace current database accounts, so the general assumption is that you take MySQL in to greenfield accounts, like where a customer has not yet selected a database: ummm, o.k., that is exactly like 3 customer worldwide outside of a brand-new start-up, every customer on the planet must begin their operation with the exact plan of what their database strategy will be, and here MySQL could be relevant, but the much more salient opportunity that Jonathan completely fails to grasp, and has failed to grasp ever since he spent $1B on MySQL is how to convert existing Oracle customers to the open source platform, that is actually viable, but somehow Sun, with all its infinite open source wisdom, has not understood, has not articulated, and therefore, has not executed on, which means that there is no way the Sun GSO sales force will have any idea how to present a migration strategy, simply because there is none...i don't 100% fault Jonathan for this, directly, but his inability to grasp software, fundamentally, means that he has not invested in a migration plan across Sun to replace Oracle account control on their hardware, and it basically means he is allowing Ellison, Phillips, Catz, and Co. to live for free on his dime...amateur hour reigns at Sun Microsystems, still...

5. Finally, there is plenty of additional fluff that i am not going to single out, as the above are the major points, and basically i will conclude this post with the argument that this e-mail essentially represents a massive missed opportunity, again, for Jonathan to demonstrate that he has any grasp of the compamny that he gets paid $10M+/year to lead...so, as i take a glance at finance.google.com and look up JAVA news and share price, we can see that they are supporting a market value of approximately $1B, with cash removed, so for all the status of the Java programming language and platform, for the installed base that is hard-won, and relatively difficult to lose, and the Silicon Valley real estate assets, the market essentially expects Sun to fail...

ahh, yes, and yet there is no movement to check this guy? i mean he sends out this e-mail in a tone that some psychologists would quickly dismiss as representative of a man in a state-of-denial, and there is nothing that anyone on Sun's Board does? we are all, Sun shareholders included, expected to just ride this out, and trust a guy who personally claims in this e-mail that he is well-positioned to lead the company because he apparently survived the dot-com fall-out, i means is that not his main argument in this e-mail, that only he is positioned to lead this company because of the job he did following 2001?...hahahaha...c'mon guys, vacation is over, the kids are back in school, you have business to attend to, and i don't want to see most of you go to jail for failing your fiduciary duty as a Board member, do something about this...

i guess paralysis is comprehensive when it comes to fighting him, i remember looking in the eyes of a lot of people at Sun who were paralyzed by his implicit threats, but those days are gone, the record, including this e-mail, speaks for itself, there is no longer any denying that he has failed, and more importatly, has no specific plan to get out of the mess he created...so, what are you going to do? wait for the Feds to clean-up? or are you going to just call a meeting and figure it out?...i don't know, maybe i am not seeing something, but it really doesn't look to be that difficult of a choice...i honestly don't know why you would risk your own livelihood for his, i mean, i just don't get that...i know there are some people, like McNealy, who i would consider sacrificing for, maybe not anymore, but there is no way, you could get me to hail a cab for Jonathan Schwartz, let alone stake my career on his turn-around prowess...

its going to get really ugly before it gets better...

Mark Herring for CEO

2008-09-24T18:26:00.001-07:00

It is time, the necessary conditions are present, with the destruction of the financial system, bold moves are warranted, and that means the Board of Sun Microsystems needs to call a private meeting, outside of the scope of the current CEO, to discuss a transition plan, and i would like to be the first to publicly nominate Mark Herring for the to-be-available position of Sun CEO...Mark, I apologize if this public statement is undesired and makes your life more difficult, but these are dire times, and you owe Jonathan nothing...

Following the debacle at the end of 2002 or the beginning of 2003, when he signed-off on the disgraceful removal of your responsibilities to run the Java Web Wervices product team, to be replaced, by the wholly incompetent Joe Keller, who i have no concern what he thinks of me, as he signed-off on my demise (pay-back is a b*tch, Joe)...I remember when the re-org was coming in the summer of '02, and there was a buzz about Mark and Jonathan being close friends (something about BBQ's), or at least colleagues that relied on the advice of each other...i actually listened because i thought Mark was pretty cool, his diatribe that he sent out when he took over following the re-org was cogent and impressive...

I was motivated, and still believe that i was the only one doing any work on the application server in Mark's group during that year, as my colleagues check-ed out, as i have discussed already...in a flash, Mark was gone and i left some months later, and in deep hibernation Sun software went due to the complete disgrace that was Orion (apologies, Kampmeier), only to be resurrected with the release of Glassfish some years later...it is time to put wood behind the Glassfish arrow and promote someone who actually understands middleware, and the way forward for Sun...that person is Mark Herring...

I honestly thought he had left the company, but have seen him in press releases throughout the year, and i know it would be a tough sell to the Board, as they would be taking a huge flier on a middle manager, but honestly not as big a flier as when you replace the demi-god, Scott McNealy, with a complete neo-phyte in Jonatahn "PTB" Schwartz...Mark is the kind of person that would shake the conventional wisdom of openSolaris that has spread like a cancer within the company, and while you are at, get rid of Anil Gadre, John Fowler, and Rich Green, and promote some talent, not yes-men who are too scared (or too dumb) to come up with an idea that falls outside of Jonthan...

I am free, i can continue as long as it takes, Mark Herring is the kind of guy who works hard and knows the industry, and someone who employees would rally behind, and change the trajectory of this company...it is time for hard decisions, there is very little time left, i am simply calling on the Board to ask Jonathan to explain what his plan is to turn things around, and then realize he has none...

Glassfish and MySQL are the future for hardware sales, not openSolaris...Mark Herring understands this, Jonathan does not, its as simple as that...the announcements this week around openSolaris, Oracle, and Fujitsu only demonstrates that this is the case...Red Hat will do a deal for $100/yr.: do it...get going, i will not stop until someone gets tough over there, and demonstrates that there is something other than fear that runs the company...Jonathan Schwartz is done, whether you can bring yourself to admit it or not, he has failed on a truly epic scale...bring in someone who can save this company, maybe Mark could use Scott in an advisory role, whatever it takes,

just get it done...

Schizophrenia

2008-09-18T23:24:00.000-07:00

Keeping up with Sun PR has me feeling like i need some meds:

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/pressreleases.jsp

I mean one day I am public accosting Jonathan, then i realize that this xVM virtualization thing has some legs and issue a public apology, basically because i have such a warm and fuzzy from the Glassfish ESB move, and then Sun PR gets back to doing what they do best: issuing inane, irrelevant, and utterly pointless openSolaris press releases...

I know i have basically lost a lot of readers by going negative and even broaching the nuclear option of eliminating Jonathan, but can anyone defend Solaris to me, well, please don't even try, this is a dead issue to me, i am kind of pissed that i am even writing this entry, as my historical post from this week on the JBI-influenced ESB market that has re-written the economics of middleware will no longer be at the top, so please do wade below this entry if you are stopping by, because i am not a flame-thrower for the sake of a personal grudge, i think, or at least that is what i tell myself...

But look at the September 17-18, 2008 press releases from Sun on the link above, i mean, is anyone even qualified at Sun to be talking about the IT marketplace anymore, let alone is anyone in the PR department have any say in what is marketed, or do they just take orders?...this is just a re-hash of the same problem that has been going on for more than 5 years now, that because Sun sold a lot of boxes to start-ups in the dot-bomb era, they think that makes Solaris permanently relevant, its just mis-guided analysis, i guess the whole concept of press releases needs to be re-thought, as well as product releases, and partner announcements...

I have a tough time staying positive, when Sun Tech Days does not even mention Glassfish, i have a difficult time ever saying sorry anymore when Jonathan allows the openSolaris cancer to continue even when he has the opportunity to put a lid on it, and i have a very tough time believing that Sun is going to have financial results that provide some cover to the people that are betting on its ongoing survival, i don't know why, some days, i look at Google Finance for JAVA news, as it just brings me down, and i am not sure if i am making a difference re-stating the obvious state of the company, when Jonathan just keeps on smiling and getting paid...

What will it take to see change come to this company, i mean Glassfish is alive and well, MySQL needs massive investment, and Red Hat needs to be brought-in to sell some hardware, what else can i do, i honestly feel run-down, like i am just coming out of a psychiatric break from reality, like i am just entering recovery from an episode, this whole raise the spectre of what is hurting Sun has hurt me to a certain extent, and Jonathan keeps on allowing openSolaris press releases...

will someone please save me some sanity, and explain to me where do we go from here?...

JBI and Glassfish ESB

2008-09-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

O.k., Jonathan, I apologize yet again, i got emotional, and you trumped me with the virtualization announcement, i'll let you live, i am still down on a lot of things, but you may have something with the xVM product-line, i think it will be a tough sell to the sales force, for them to comprehend how to position it, but i see your logic, so mea culpa, i'll take a step back from the brink, and let you do some work around that announcement, maybe you know what you are doing...

You had better send a nice e-mail, though, to your Glassfish team, because they are absolutely killing it right now, as evidenced from the announcement around Glassfish ESB:

https://open-esb.dev.java.net/glassfishesb/

and:

http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=50684

I have some ideas that i want to float by the community of Sun followers, ESB players, Java developers, and general interest readers, so bear with me, as i lay out the battle-plan for a JBI-influenced middleware strategy, something that, no doubt, Mr. Bauhaus thought about long-ago when he brought together this specification, but it probably needs a new characterization to get things going again, and this time, make it sustainable for all the constituencies involved, here we go...

Maybe i have discussed this in a previous post, i know i have gone around and around with Dave and team at MuleSource (good luck, Dave, on the new venture in to the cloud), so i am going to try and not do too much of the value proposition of JBI and rather just assume competence with the readers of this entry, that by-and-large understand that a standard means moving on with business, and not having to explain so many things that a non-standard implementation must go over with customers and developers, that is the thing that i have been hammering Mule on, that it is just a waste of time to argue that speeds and feeds matter more than a standard to follow, so lets move on, we all agree here that JBI is the way to go, its just a matter of time before all ESBs get on-board, absent any new development in the standards process, and i know that Oracle and IBM may join Microsoft in ignoring the JBI specification, but everyone else will be there, sooner or later (hows that for a statement and a run-on sentence)...

It is important to go on the second link that i provide above and see Frank's response to my question about compensation and how developers and vendors can work with Sun on the distribution of the Glassfish ESB which is a productized effort coming out of the openESB community: it is a very encouraging development, because it is Sun's and perhaps the industry's first foray in to a model of truly pushing revenue out to the partners, in this case JBI developers, instead of clamoring to maintain all revenue in-house, it is in short, Sun's largest competitive advantage over IBM Global Services and Oracle Fusion, that they can begin to build an army of experts that will build solutions that can be supported by Sun Services, Sun PS, and Sun GSO, this is a major development...

I am not going to spell-out the value proposition of JBI, but i am going to spell out the benefits of working with Sun on the Glassfish ESB, even if it is potentially obvious to some of you...first, just like the economics of the application server market initially, the developer community does not have to worry about the pain and effort of 'rolling-your-own' and can just rely on the distro. of the ESB to take care of most of the infrastructure plumbing and build solutions on top of it...second, there is obvious scale advantages in working with Sun even as they do not co-opt all the revenue, as may happen with working with IBM due to Global Services or with Oracle due to their fanatical need to maintain licensing margins on Fusion, and Sun can take partners in to all corners of the worldwide IT market, and you don't have to build offices in Sri Lanka or Texas, you can just get on-board with Sun's global presence and pick-and-choose your moments where you over-invest in certain accounts....

most importantly, it is the ability to grow account presence based on innovation as opposed to proprietary upgrades, where the customer knows that they will not be locked-in, and will be able to rely on inter-operable components from different vendors that should by-and-large work together...at this point, i should be hearing from the negative nay-sayers who claim that standards are never perfect and do not allow inter-operability let alone portability, well, i just have one response to that, and that is that it is infinitely more reliable than say the Spring model where you have to carry along the Spring platform in order to maintain compliance...in this case, with JBI, you can write to the specification that happens to be community organized and driven, and maintain a level of abstraction away from a specific vendor...maybe i am being naive and there is always some level of power that is being given to the sponsor of a standard, in other words, which vendor, Sun or SpringSource, is more altruistic, i guess only time will tell, but at this point, if there is even one additional vendor supporting JBI, that is an improvement on what Spring, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, or Mule can offer...

So, what have i missed, is this the realization, on the back-end of a dream that i have talked about was my initial motivation for getting involved in the application server market back in 1999, and why i pushed so hard for an independent market of EJB components?...has JBI achieved what EJB has so-far failed to do - - to turn the economics of Java developers in to a true competitive advantage over Microsoft's model of ubiquity?...are we at the precipice of making plug-and-play on the ESB as easy as it sounds?...or will there be a new effort within Sun to dilute the promise of standards turning power over to the developers?...i have a lot of confidence in the people running Glassfish, and so i am willing to state that this is the single biggest opportunity for Java developers in the 10 years that Enterprise Java has been chugging along: bigger than WebLogic initially, bigger than writing JBoss apps, and ultimately on-par with the value proposition of Visual Studio and .Net,

there is real money to be made with Glassfish ESB - - can anyone else in the middleware market make such a claim?...

Jonathan Schwartz is incompetent

2008-09-14T01:21:00.001-07:00

There, i finally did it, and said what all of you thought i was thinking about all along, and i have to admit that even i did not know how deeply i felt about this issue, but i can't even begin to express how visceral my reaction is right now to the most recent "blog" post my PTB:

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/focusing_on_storage

I completely understand the pressure that the man is under, and i understood why he took the latter part of the summer off from explaining Sun's financial position, and their deteriorating reputation, as he needed to collect his thoughts and come out with something that would give perspective on the situation...

so, i waited, and wanted to believe that he had some ability to comprehend the incredible predicament that the Sun sales force finds itself in, and the reality is that he doesn't, he has no idea how to run this business, he got to the position on a fabricated set of circumstances that look more-and-more to me like a corporate coup of insiders placing this guy in charge for their own reasons, and not for the benefit of shareholders which is the legal responsibility of a publicly-traded company....

he is an abject failure as i have outlined in previous posts, and has no capacity to make the necessary changes to make Sun viable, if there is any independence left in the Board, or the institutional shareholders, then they will dispose of the CEO before the company goes under...

i have nothing left to say about his completely myopic approach to openSolaris, and now that cancer is infecting openStorage, and forcing him to do reckless moves like sue NetApp, on bogus terms, he is not capable of making an adjustment, he is not a visionary, he writes a blog, that is the extent of his contributions to the business model established by Sun...i am embarrassed to say that i defended his move to CEO, as i said earlier this week, that decision has basically cost Sun everything, the only thing remaining is its ultimate demise, as will be evidenced from the Q1 call...

to Sun: i charge $15K/quarter, and now have a few further stipulations since i do not work with incompetent old-school management:

1. I will not discuss a single decision with Anil Gadre; and will not take any directives from Rich Green or John Fowler.

2. Jonathan can suggest his preferences, but will not be allowed to make decisions on software strategies, except to provide financial support in the way of lining up acquisitions or moving resources within the company to further product development.

3. I will make Glassfish the leading application server, openESB the leading integration server, and will give Sun an ERP business by the close of FY09, if allowed to work with the individuals that i choose within Sun.

eventually, you will be scared in to motion, by your fiduciary duty that is regulated by U.S. shareholder laws, to try and save this company, and i think we have established how the working relationship will work...i can sit in the same room as anyone, but will not take orders, i did that once, and it did not work, so if anyone is more interested in saving Sun more than saving their own career, you know how to reach me,

i am more than willing to work for a fraction of what any other pseudo-consultant would charge, but i am dead serious about the additional stipulations i have laid out above, and this must be written in contract if the relationship is to be established,

call me whatever you want: naive or whatever, but if you really had the guts to try and save this company, i would have an e-mail in my inbox by the end of the week, unfortunately, i worry that the longer you wait, the more contentious the arrangement will be; for me, i don't care one bit about anyone at Sun's executive management level, so it is not a problem for me, but it will be more difficult for you to explain and manage this executive team under Jonathan,

so, if you want to wait, more power to you, but things will not change, and your job will only be more difficult the longer you wait,

get in touch, a.s.a.p...

ERP on Sun

2008-09-10T07:17:00.000-07:00

A salam alay kum, everyone...its a good time to remember that for all the mis-management, bad analysis, and lack of clarity over how decisions are actually made at Sun, there is still some ability to lead, and make a difference in such a staid marketplace...unfortunately, my proof point on this claim is some completely unknown Belgian ERP vendor supporting Glassfish and MySQL, presumably at the run-time and not as some integration project to get cheaper support services from Sun...I will link to it, but don't hold your breath that this is the obvious marker of a turn-around:

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1873528/

and

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2008-09/sunflash.20080909.1.xml

I made some statement some weeks back that Sun should abandon any account discussion that involves ERP, with a specific reference to Oracle, but also finally settled on the costs of supporting a SAP implementation being not worth it, and really making the argument that Sun is the ultimate Web-tier vendor, where all of their money comes from, and their only competitive advantages lie...the only problem with that analysis is not the installed base, because Sun is going to lose that anyway, the problem is that ERP actually works, and is essential to running a business, and therefore, is at the forefront of being web-influenced, and will need to be a part of any infrastructure decision...so without issuing a back-track, I will ask: why not buy this Belgian company?...

I mean, you could probably get it for less than $500M, and have a new area for conversations in all sales discussions, built around MySQL and Glassfish; it seems like this little announcement just fell in to the laps of Sun PR, as there is little in the way of fanfare on the site to explain to the thirsty followers of Sun what it means to pour millions of dollars in to Sun software, I mean, honestly, outside of E-Trade in 1999, and potentially Telstra in 2002, has there ever been a multi-million dollar deal for software at Sun?...(don't give me any crap about Solaris, or i'll shut you down in 1 comment)...

for all the problems at Sun, that start with a neophyte as CEO, extends to his choices for a product management team (Fowler and Green) that have no ability or guts to call him on bad or expired ideas, and ends with terrible, completely atrocious marketing execution (yes, Anil, there is nothing you can do, at this point, to redeem yourself, as far as i can tell), the end-game scenario probably does not happen soon, and that is surely a testament to the unparalleled leadership of Scott McNealy during the first 20 years...i was one of the last to get on-board the campaign to move Scott out of day-to-day leadership, and personally felt that Jonathan was not ready to become CEO, but he wanted it, the Board wanted it, and i ultimately agreed that the time was right to have Scott move on, and give the youngster a shot...

That single decision has cost Sun the bulk of its innovative legacy, its reputation, its cash, its installed base, its swagger, and its ability to survive another severe down-turn...so, we look with cautious optimism that the worst of the American-inspired financial crisis is behind us (even considering some hick-ups, like Lehman Brothers), and that more than ever, companies of all sizes and types will look to IT vendors on the basis of ROI, not some other TCO analysis, but actually how is the installation of a set of software programs running on a set of hardware servers going to improve my bottom-line: that is the only metric that matters, and it bodes well for Sun Microsystems...

Sun can do this, not on the back of Storage or Solaris, but on the back of Glassfish, as the announcement above should make vanilla-plain and clear...there is no option left, but to double-down on Enterprise Java, and force the conversation to be on Sun's terms, where only they control the nature of the implementation, and therefore, have a built-in, irrefutable competitive advantage that results in customer ROI being more than justifiable to support the premium on Sun products...I mean i love the Glassfish people, i think they have done something that no one predicted, and some are even unwilling to admit: defeat JBoss at their own game...Sun is in a position to turn the corner, i have complete confidence in the Glassfish guys and the developers worldwide who are betting on it...

I just got to think that ultimately they are going to have to pay me to keep doing this, to show the way, to give perspective, and to bury the hatchet...i mean, if anyone needs reminding in Santa Clara, I didn't pick the fight, the fight came to me, and i responded, i don't roll over, ever...i will fight for what is right, and that is what i have always done, there is nothing that is going to change, i will be here, Sun will need me, and i have no problem doing whatever they ask of me, except:

apologize or change....

the state of Hardware servers

2008-08-30T23:02:00.000-07:00

O.k., Jonathan, apologies for the obsession, and apologies for discounting your analysis on the U.S. server market, as Dell reported weak server numbers at 5% growth for the quarter...

Combine this with IBM's most recent server numbers which grew a rather paltry 10 percent (4 percent, adjusting for currency), and perhaps i indulged in hyperbole following the Gartner report...

So, should i get on-board and accept that the U.S. server market is dead for the time being, and that the growth will have to come from BRIC and other emerging countries?

Should I issue a mea culpa and start taking expertise from Sun's CEO on the state of the Information Technology marketplace, and stop harassing him?

Perhaps...but, not yet, and I promise not to back-down from the openSolaris critique, this is something that I have assessed over a period of about six years, ever since Solaris 8U6, and still feel that Red Hat is the buoy that will save Sun...

But what to make of the hardware market, absent some all-encompassing analysis from Ashlee, who must be on vacation this week...:

I don't know, i still believe in the promise of multi-core, mixed with some middleware pre-installed and pre-configured for vertical solutions and/or high-performance computing requirements, whether that is "cloud" or not...essentially, I feel the Glassfish/MySQL combo on the T2 will be Sun's only competitive advantage, even considering the openStorage push that is about to commence from Santa Clara...

Dell will sell the "cloud" well, and IBM will grow on the backs of administrators worldwide tied to mainframes, or those who simply cannot manage their IT departments by themselves...HP will essentially pick-up the scraps (though significant scraps) from Dell and IBM in both areas...Sun, on the other hand, just doesn't have a choice but to fight, get, and stay out in front on so-called innovation, even as this thing we call a hardware market goes through intense change and margin reduction, accompanied with Unix-replacement by Linux, Vista-maturity, and Oracle consolidation...in an election year, coupled with international geo-political/economic instability, and basically little competitive differentiation, there is not much the vendors can do to demonstrate a business model for leadership...

so, Sun, you may appease the base investor community (in other words, JAVA may stabilize at its 52-week low, and not retreat much beyond that) with claims of maintaining 10% market-share as a success, but I am not going to take it lying down...absent Rock processors coming out anytime sooner, T2 and the upcoming T3 will have to hold the fort...this is doable, though scary for the faint-of-heart, especially as the cash is evaporating, not-to-mention goodwill, momentum, installed base, and even potentially a raison d'etre...

Glassfish is simply dominating the Enterprise Java market, as JBoss 5 falters and lacks clarity in its actual purpose and timetable, WebLogic tries to become Fusion, and IBM evaluates whether to even support JEE5 and 6 with WebSphere, proper (outside of Geronimo noise)....MySQL is a nice thing to have, and I am not going to do any second-guessing as long as the target is enterprise deployments, and not any unnecessary Web 2.0 banter...so, as i have said many times the Niagara hardware with T2 and T3 could be enough with the middleware, if Reference Architectures were resurrected, and if Red Hat were supported...but instead of such focus we get the openSolaris nonsense, masked in openStorage marketing, supplemented by an openSPARC inspired OEM division that is a non-starter...

I know it is infinitely easier to take pot-shots than run a Fortune 500 company, but i am trying not to be 100% inflammatory, for I do want to see change more than demise or eventual failure, I don't want Jonathan's job (i am not moving back to CA), I just want a way to piggy-back on some badly needed success, and make some money off of Glassfish, so i understand that the challenge is almost over-whelming, but there is a sliver of a chance that things could turn around, especially by 2009; i know Q1 is going to be brutal, and I know i will host another session of criticizing the public statements of the CEO and CFO, especially if it is even close to the last call...but I am willing to bury the hatchet, if Sun can do the same, i am offering an olive branch, but will fight with vigor if the response remains the same...

Sun is well positioned, and the pot of gold may be within reach, contrary to my headline quotes from previous entries, but its not going to be easy and its not going to come from simple inertia, its going to come from tough decisions, and a change of emphasis, and more of what I have been saying all summer...I am not claiming to be infallible or the only one possessing the right answers, but i feel pretty comfortable that i am right about a good deal of it, and no one has contested some of the major provisions of the turn-around plan, if paralysis has set-in, and things don't change, "Sun Alumni" will just be another way of explaining a Silicon Valley truism: almost everything goes away eventually...

openStorage

2008-08-22T22:50:00.001-07:00

I am relieved to have been distracted the past week (Usain Bolt, people), but I am keeping my eyes open, and have a simple request to the few stragglers at Sun that glance at my blog either through a hidden bookmark, or on JavaWorld's page:

get Jonathan to read my blog...

I know, self-aggrandizement and self-promotion are two qualities that do not go well together, but every Monday from here until the Q109 results come out, I am going to cringe looking at finance.google.com and searching for JAVA news and stock-price: I mean, when is the investment community going to give-up? apparently the Sun executive team and the compliant PR department don't think as soon as most everyone else, as they allowed this press release to come out:

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2008-08/sunflash.20080820.1.xml

Now, I know openStorage is going to feature more prominently in marketing, as indicated by PTB in the FY08 con. call, but it is just a new way of saying the same old crap about openSolaris, something that no one - - and I literally mean no one - - is paying attention to...I can't even bring myself to analyze this release of old news, as it is all well-documented in my previous posts...

Something I will talk about is server marketshare, as the most recent update from Gartner came out last week:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/22/gartner_server_q2_2008/

No, actually, I am not going to do much justice, because i am just going to get emotional and inflammatory if I do go in to it, as readers of this blog will no doubt understand that my take on Jonathan's and Lehman's assessment of a struggling server marketplace is a flat-out lie, and categorically a mis-leading analysis...

go ahead, read the article on El Reg, and justify to me the statements of the CEO and CFO that the economy, in general, and the server customer-base, more specifically, is contracting: not to Dell, IBM, and HP...what do those three have in common: secondary support for Solaris...what do the two shrinking vendors - - Sun and Fujitsu - - have in common: primary support for Solaris...

So, of course that is not a statistically relevant comparison, but then again, give me another reason: x86 v. non-x86 emphasis? perhaps, but even that does not seem to be spelled out in HP and IBM's relative strength...all I am asking is for someone to give me some data that dispels my basic argument over the summer: Solaris is killing Sun....

openStorage is fine, go 4 it, make some headway in the growing storage market, and make some efforts to justify the enormous investment that Sun has made in recent years, with nearly nothing to show for it, through open source noise, but don't give me another d*mn openSolaris-influenced press release...enough is enough, you guys (Sun executive management) are holding nice jobs today, and your inability or, more accurately, your lack of will to check your totally out-of-control and myopic CEO is going to result in your unemployment soon...

and all those other Sun employees that have been 10% RIF'ed-like scared in to making any protest to the dominance of Solaris even in the face of all market conditions, forces, and facts, i feel for ya, i have been there, and when i protested something, i lost about 90% of annual income, so i know there is nothing to do...

these blog posts that i make are not intended to be deflating or de-motivating for the truly peerless talent that Sun has in middle management and in the development ranks, but rather, they are intended to be an outlet, for change, for rallying forces to get the CEO to move beyond his own head, and start making decisions that are reflected by factors that are defensible in the marketplace, and stop making excuses, like the pot of gold is just out of reach, and may be attainable in the 'next' quarter...

openStorage is fine; openSolaris is even fine, but it is not the primary mission of Sun, it is a legacy after-thought, though you wouldn't get that impression from the emphasis that has been placed on it, by this losing shoot-the-moon strategy to catch Red Hat...sooner, rather than later, that long-held and morally (i mean, business-wise) non-supportable 10% marketshare of the overall server market is going to evaporate, and instead of Sun commanding a leadership position, it will be gone, like poof, gone...

someone needs to intervene, and i am just in a position to provide the context, the changes, the issues, the arguments, and something of a plan that will be needed to overcome the damage done...someone needs to intervene...

Xeon servers

2008-08-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

This is a good announcement for Sun:

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2008-08/sunflash.20080819.1.xml

and:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/19/sun_idf_boxen/

Just get that momentum going for some real change, and make the deal that will place the T2 as the compliment to these systems...

stick to standards, bury the hatchet, and start executing, Sun...

openSolaris

2008-08-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

Up to this point, I have focused my arguments on the irrelevance of Sun's effort to make Solaris as viable as Linux on the data point of adoption, and so it is...but there is more to the story, and if i can stay awake, i would like to make an effort to explain the opportunity costs argument as to why openSolaris is a problem that needs to be corrected if Sun is to stay in business...

First, the adoption story, which can be rather easily distilled down to numbers, though i don't have the energy to go look it up, it is well-documented that customer, developer, and ISV adoption of Linux is orders of magnitude bigger than Solaris is tracking, and this trend is not going to change, as the recent GPL legal cases only strengthens the viability of OSS, which benefits Linux more than openSolaris...

But it is more of a contextual argument as to why the emphasis on competing at the OS level, with or without OSS, is further diluting the goodwill that Sun had built up, the credibility that it achieved over the first 20 years of its existence, its ability to accommodate evolutions in the corporate IT landscape...that argument, though under-quantifiable, is that there is an incredible opportunity cost of marketing an OS that no one cares about other than Sun managers and customers that do not have the resources to invest in retraining their staff on Linux...

Linux is a global standard, openSolaris is a new project that, unless someone has something to add that i have not thought about, does not have a target user base other than die-hard, Solaris-only developers, and perhaps some customers to try in testing environments that want to utilize multi-core hardware from Sun...is there any way that openSolaris will catch Linux in adoption? No...

Will it have more features that make it competitively advantaged vis-a-vis Linux? Perhaps, as has been argued by Sun's Solaris team with DTrace and ZFS being referenceable as to why developers and customers should choose openSolaris over Linux...does the market appear likely to shift according to demand for these features? apparently not...

So, it is with anticipation that we wait for openSolaris output and Solaris 11's release to see if there are any other features that will re-set the marketplace...i am not holding my breath, and actually feel that this initiative to make openSolaris and the resulting Solaris 11 code more feature rich an investment in badly needed resources that are more needed to address the rest of the Sun portfolio, while customers bet on the far less risky proposition of whether Linux will be supportable by additional vendors, magnitudes more developers, and deployable and integrated with thousands more ISV apps...

I usually, at this point in the thought-process, think of Glassfish, though i understand that openSolaris and Glassfish are not necessarily mutually exclusive, in that you can do both and still operate as a global supplier of IT systems...in other words, the Glassfish team does not necessarily need the openSolaris developers and managers, but the marketing emphasis would certainly be more effective competing in a market where Glassfish has a chance to replace JBoss, WebLogic, and WebSphere in the middleware market, though I really don't think anyone could argue that openSolaris is going to replace Linux...

Where i think the openSolaris development team and managers would be better utilized is making the hardware that Sun sells at a competitive advantage on the T2 chips for multi-core systems, as well as the associated openStorage offerings compatible with Red Hat's Linux...i don't know where we stand in the discussion on whether DTrace and ZFS can be ported to Fedora, but i think the party-line remains that it is not technically feasible; is this a problem? maybe for the customers that have standardized their deployment platforms on these technologies, but not for the vastly larger marketplace that has not bet exclusively on Solaris...

That is the opportunity cost, exclusive of the finite resources that Sun has, including the reality that Sun's resource base continues to decline in the face of less demand for its hardware; and its a virtual cycle, where less demand leads to less resources, which leads to less capability to invest in further enhancements to products, which leads to reduced demand...that is part of the reason why i suggested that Sun is in a death spiral a few posts back; but it really is more about the myopic focus of Jonathan, Fowler, Green, Anil, and Solaris managers to think that competing at the OS level is priority one, as other initiatives languish, and more importantly, the hardware becomes non-viable because it is not supported with Red Hat....

I just don't see what the execs at Sun have against Red Hat, is there bad blood? if that is even part of the reason, those execs should be replaced, because it is fundamentally killing opportunity for expanding the market opportunity for T2...if there is another reason, like fear that Red Hat will get in the hardware business, i would have to chuckle, that just does not seem to be a priority to Red Hat, i just don't see them competing with Dell, HP, IBM, and other suppliers of their software to customers...what could it be? i just don't get it, and i think Sun owes the marketplace an explanation of why after 5 years of promoting a Solaris-only hardware business even after claiming its support for Linux, there is nothing to show for it, other than some absolutely pointless marketing banter about Ubuntu...

In conclusion, openSolaris is the primary and border-line only reason that Sun is hurting right now...it is diverting resources and attention away from its innovations, leadership, and advantages as a tier-1 supplier...in my weaker moments, i question Jonathan's motivations about driving the value of Sun's acquisition price by a hedge fund to an accomodatable level; in my more realistic moments, i unfortunately come up with an even more inflammatory reflection that he is simply not up to the job, and that he is fundamentally mis-reading the market...what will it take to change course? not much:

a. put openSolaris out to graze as an option for large Solaris shops to maintain support for their older Sun deployments, and offer it as a legacy part of the business...

b. sign the deal with Red Hat, and get working on T2...

c. start the apparently painful but necessary break-up from Solaris-only hardware, and focus on middleware deployments again, as was done in the late '90s with WebLogic, only this time, Sun has Glassfish to maintain account control...

it really is that simple, barring some claims that Solaris managers could come back with on the limitation of working with Red Hat...but the "more features" in Solaris argument is not convincing, the marketplace has spoken, and it would take something much more than ZFS and DTrace-like innovations to fundamentally shift the marketplace in Solaris' favor over Linux...i have looked through this issue, and would like to hear back from someone in the Solaris camp as to why i am wrong; i think this post summarizes the position of Sun Microsystems, circa 2008, and without a change in tactics,

there will not be a Sun Microsystems, circa 2010...

Java marketing

2008-08-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

This is the area that I know best, and apologies to my new readers via JavaWorld, which has invited me to be a "syndicated blogger", whatever that ultimately means, i know that i will reach at least a few more developers via this arrangement to be co-listed on Blogger and JW...so, when u see that i have posted a new entry, please understand that i have never in my life written a single line of Java code, that i am aware of...the closest thing I come to the world of the JavaWorld readership is playing with Marimba's Castanet in the '90's, and installing Glassfish on my laptop...apologies, all around, but thanks to the editorial team of JW for the invite, and hopefully I will bring something to the table...

Some relevant moments from the recent week have been:

a. Release of WebLogic 10g Release 3

b. Discussion on JEE6

c. Sun announces availability of Mobile Enterprise Platform

There was a time, not so long ago, when these 3 items may have been all the same concept, just different variations on the same product-line, as my time as the product marketing manager on Sun's application server was during the glory-days of WebLogic within Sun's sales force, and also when WebLogic was the banner-carrier for the non-product team of Enterprise Java, who worked within Sun, and ultimately the interests of a great many pseudo-decision makers within Sun software, who were pining for a BEA acquisition (or was it vice-versa, i can't keep it straight, after all these years)...

In the aftermath of the dot-bomb implosion, Sun had to do some soul-searching on the fly, while still performing in the marketplace, and this caused people to actually work, imagine that, the easy days were over, and the top so-called Java people either sucked it up and made contributions to the evolution that would become Glassfish, or they left, and for the most part, took jobs at BEA, itself...i say this with some reservation, no not really actually, i will never be able to demonstrate that it was actually a cause supported by ex-Sun employees, barring a release of some e-mail thread, but there is little doubt in my mind that some key people checked out of the Sun application server program in 2002-04, and plotted for a BEA merger...

As early as my first days at Sun in '99, I was predicting instead that Oracle was the natural home for WebLogic, and this must have been clear to others, outside of the opportunists that thought BEA could take-advantage of a languishing stock-price to pick-up a hardware division...so, it is with a bit of relief, inevitability, and satisfaction, that i point to the three items listed above, as the fight to fend off a ridiculous coup negotiated, or at least implied within the ranks of BEA and Sun's Java division, has ended: Glassfish is here to stay, and Oracle has a viable application server program, to the benefit to all involved, except perhaps a few former employees of BEA and Sun...

good try, guys...

Moving on to business at-hand, the announcements above demonstrate that this is a critical time for Enterprise Java, as competitors and naysayers (one-in-the-same?), continue to deride the "legacy" JEE platform, and we have little to show for support in the ranks of the purported supporters of Sun's JEE effort, namely: Oracle, IBM, and JBoss...all have varying degrees of support for the specification, and all have hedged their bets that ultimately, or at least perhaps hopefully, there will be alternatives to Sun's dominance of the middleware standards-setting process...I am on the record as saying that WebLogic is a good money-maker for Oracle, and is finally home, that IBM needs to re-write the entire WebSphere branded product-line with Geronimo as its base, and that JBoss needs to get a viable application server back in the market...

Taking a bigger-picture look, it would seem that all of these items will be resolved with JEE6, as long as these 3 competitors to Glassfish sign-up, support, and eventually release a compliant JEE6 product: not a guarantee, however, that this will all happen...Oracle will have its hands full with Fusion, IBM will have a great deal of incentive from Global Services to maintain proprietary lock-in, and i have no idea what JBoss is thinking or doing these days...so, even though there is a great deal of money in the Enterprise Java marketplace, there are vendors, developers, and even customers that are looking for an alternative, whether that is Spring, SCA, or some combination of forces...

What can Sun do? I am not sure, though will develop some thoughts on this throughout the next posts that will lead-up to a release of the first draft of JEE6's final release of the specification, which is rumored to be here by the end of the calendar year...so, that will be my focus for the upcoming months, as well as keeping a close eye on the management and performance of Sun itself, as it needs to stay in business to fulfill its grand strategy around Enterprise Java, as control and stewardship is still impossible under any other scenario, at least as i can see it today...

so, even though i will leave the analysis of particular technologies within the JEE6 specification to other experts, i presume some of you will find some useful contributions in this blog for how to evaluate whether your skills, your time, your attention, and your aspirations are being appropriately well-represented within Enterprise Java...that is all i can do, and i am open to your suggestions for how to fulfill this objective...

Sun v. Oracle

2008-08-06T22:46:00.000-07:00

Note to Jonathan: It's not about data, its about applications. I re-read this blog entry ab/ Sun's self-congratulatory analysis of MySQL's market opportunity:

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/mysql_wins_at_linkedin

and could only think of how little this guy understands about what OSS is all about, even as he portrays the company that he runs as the pre-eminent open source provider, which it very well may be.
It is with desperation these days that Jonathan talks about market opportunities, and in reality, he is missing the target that needs to be addressed if Sun is to regain account control. That target is Oracle.
The problem with banking on people or customers to take openSolaris seriously is that it ignores the fact that its most acute competitive threat comes from within: in the form of commodity chips from
Intel, running Linux, and Oracle software. Oracle has not been shy, discreet, or even concerned about the nature of their relationship with Sun: it is simply about installed base, as they have no intention
of doing expansionary deals on Sun boxes, no new accounts on multi-core, and no shared revenue on software. I might have been a bit harsh on Jonathan's competitive analysis friday on the earnings call,
with his reference to IBM hardly competing with Sun, but it could be argued that he may be on to something that Oracle is truly the number one threat to Sun's viability. It is time to compete head-on.

The markers are WebLogic and the Database, of course, with Glassfish and MySQL being uiquely positioned to under-cut the hell out of the top-line and margins that Oracle commands on their middleware
and mainstay database businesses. The question is not whether some Web 2.0 company, that has absolutely zero revenue plan, liked LinkedIn, invests in free software with some support contracts, the question
now is how to transfer account control over software pricing and functionality. This is the way to bring many hundreds of additional T2 multi-core customers in to the center of Sun's installed base. Of course, this
assumes that Jonathan ditches openSolaris. It just pisses me off that a simple change in direction, a multi-tenet partnership with Red Hat, and a new marketing chief could turn things around in one quarter. But
I am going to stay on message, and try not to pain myself with the thought that all that i say here could be just window-dressing if the operating systems disaster is not taken care of...

Back to my original note to Jonathan at the beginning of this entry: MySQL can perhaps manage data updates from members who change their favorite colors on their profile, but can it handle asynchronous, multi-
integration points, EJB fail-over application updates? That is the question you have to ask your team, and find out what direction to take MySQL, because leaving it up to the community is exactly what you do
not have the luxury of doing following $1B; leave that to Drizzle. Utilize the core MySQL kernel to bring about a new Enterprise Java focused business plan, and hit Oracle where it hurts, on the middleware
market where standards matter, and where portability is possible. The same could be said about SQL-to-SQL conversions for Oracle databases, but the low-hanging fruit is the middleware market, and then
convert the database customers.

I can only assume that this blog entry will be seen as a positive step for Sun, and not a hit against Oracle, as they are doing fine without Sun. Now, if a real competitive front were to be established, it would be a
delicate dance between the former sibling-like allies, especially with the sales force. But we are talking about the ongoing lifespan of Sun, and sooner rather than later, a tough decision will have to be made in
Santa Clara, and I suggest that getting Oracle off the price list is just the sort of move that makes things more risky, but certainly more interesting, and with one move, a potentially game-changing move toward
relevance again. I have said it about a dozen times before, about this price-list issue, but it is only a matter of time, until Oracle Linux takes away all Sun accounts; perhaps, maybe I am just dreaming here, but perhaps
it is time to fight back. I honestly don't know what to say anymore, I know the problems are plentiful, and complex, and long-term, but I have run from such problems before and they only get worse over time.

Wishful thinking on openSolaris, partnerships with enemies, and bad leadership are no excuse. It is time to change, and I am generally pretty inexpensive to bring-in to correct the middleware problems. I mean
what else is there to do: bring in McKinsey to advise on where to do the most effective R.I.F.'s; c'mon, do better than that...

JEE 6

2008-08-04T23:48:00.000-07:00

Well, lets just say i do have the capacity to move past financial news and make some comments on something that is going right at Sun: of course I am talking about the impending release of Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 6 (JEE6), as this seems to be the only thing that is consistently executing in a leadership position right now, and that includes the competition with Spring and .Net...there is not much in the way of comparing JEE6 with Spring 2.5/3x and .Net 2/3x, as they are each fulfilling their own niche, so i won't do that justice, i'll leave it to a discussion on TSS to vet that one out, but I will talk about what Enterprise Java means to Sun's overall business, as I have made some references to it in previous posts...

For your background reference, details about the JEE6 platform can be found here:

http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=316

There are a lot of big questions remaining over what this release will actually deliver on: with JEE3, there were some JAX web services integration via the Web Services Pack; JEE4 formalized that JAX integration; and JEE5 re-wrote the EJB and JPA specs to make it more viable to more developers...now, with a focus on making JEE6 more palatable to more developers, especially at the "web-tier", there is this thing called profiles that is being introduced:

i think this is a mistake, but i have been wrong before, and do not feel like fighting it, in the limited scope of what such a protest would make...essentially, profiles means that after years of arguing with my former colleagues at Sun about calling the Sun Web Server a 'light-weight' application server because it served up JSPs and Servlets, that is exactly what the JEE6 expert committee is about to certify, with the real significance being that Tomcat will be able to call itself "JEE-compatible", as will the Spring Application Platform...

why is this important? well, to state the obvious, it destroys the very value proposition that made JEE the de-facto Internet application development paradigm, as customers faced a far-less costly portability exercise...for instance, develop a JEE application in Glassfish, with or without EJBs, and there is no explicit guarantee that it will work with other so-called application servers, as it is up to the vendor to determine which 'profile' to support...

why would the expert committee shirk its main responsibility of providing a standard specification that allows for full compatibility with Java? arguments have come from far and wide, and i wouldn't mind hearing them again, as i don't get them, and i even boil it down to a political manoeuvre to splinter the JEE market...is this paranoia? perhaps, but i have yet to hear a valid argument that dispels this possibility...

o.k., so with profiles, you can supposedly write a standard servlet and have it run cross-platform, and perhaps this weird-thing called 'EJB-lite' might apply to this principle as well...but anything that Sun's main customer base is going to do with JEE, in particular banks and telecos, will be utilizing enterprise features such as JPA, JAX, and even full EJB - - what then? it is up to the development team to choose what works best for them, but for the platform architects, a much more informed analysis is needed to know what will be essentially "standard" and what will be a profile...why is this good? as stated, the argument is that more developers (meaning more novice developers) will be able to utilize the power of JEE...

as u may have gathered, i am less than convinced that this will result in better options, in fact it may force developers to move to a more standard specification in the form of Spring, as at least they will know what is coming, what is portable, and what platforms support it...and this really comes back to Sun...what on planet earth is going on at the company?

I have been pretty clear about my lack of support for openSolaris as a driver of Sun's business; in fact, it is JEE that is the driver of Sun's business, as Enterprise Java deployments are custom-made for the T2 hardware business, and have additionally been the mainstay of Sun's revenue for the past decade...why splinter this effort? I know that the JCP is a 'community' process, but there has to be a reason why Sun has resisted completely turning over the direction and final decision-making in favor of having final veto...my thinking is that the veto might be best used to strike down the profile effort, even as it would result in an unprecedented uproar from many of the JCP's most prominent members...

or would it? SpringSource would be upset and would more vigorously disparage EJB and also to JEE, to a certain extent; Oracle and IBM may be upset with Sun's heavy-handedness this late in the stage of development of JEE6, and Apache would of course be up-in-arms (for something other than licensing this time), but really who would be affected by this: so-called developers who are waiting in the wings for profiles? i doubt it...

I am nearly sick of hearing myself think about the lack of management savvy at Sun, and it would seem that the executive team has more pressing things to worry about, such as a diving stock price, and a diminishing installed base, but it would signal to the Java marketplace, that compatibility, portability, and ultimately, re-use are the driving forces behind JEE; with profiles, this argument may die...i am a bit on the tip of being negative about everything coming out of Santa Clara right now, and i am not convinced that JEE6 is the area where concentration should be directed...

but i do know that JEE6 is important, Glassfish is vital, and the Java developer community is the only constituency sticking it out with Sun, so perhaps some leadership would be welcome...I don't know what else to do about this company, it is so severely entrenched in myopia that i cant imagine what meetings are about except the day-to-day tactical initiative to keep customers from jumping ship, but somewhere, at some point, a decision will have to be made to release JEE6...

considering the inability to get anything else right, maybe this is a good, safe place to start: eliminate profiles and market JEE with Glassfish as the whole center of the business, i can't see something else with more upside, i am open to alternative suggestions...

reflections on friday

2008-08-02T22:51:00.000-07:00

I don't even care to apologize for some of my analysis on friday's Sun Microsystems FY08 Q4 and full year earnings call. I guess what I would like to do is provide some background on what has brought me to this place of
seeming uni-focus on one company. There are 2 key explanations for it:

1. I grew up on Sun. Much like my internships in college and graduate school, I was early-on influenced by the magnitude of this seemingly innocuous strategy of Sun's to sponsor a programming language that would at once be viable,
while at the same time being magnanimous in its implementation, basically by allowing it to run on something other than its own Operating System: Solaris. Essentially, it was 1995, and I was struggling to figure out what to do with my life,
as undergraduate days were passing by and I was getting sick of politics, which is the area of study that I had chosen (no regrets). Alongside Netscape, which to any college-age student at the time, was the ultimate in freedom of expression,
as one could now access the world wide web without restrictions, Sun introduced Java and its bastard-incarnation JavaScript (albeit this was actually Netscape's way of making Java perform). I remember working out the early drafts
of a business plan that was undoubtedly inspired, required the use of, and ultimately bound to the concepts of Java's multi-platform, re-use, developer intrigue value proposition. This was spring of 1996, and it was a plan I still have
somewhere.

Essentially, it was to allow students to write applications that would be accessible on-line, and they would be paid for the use of these programs. I am slightly embarassed to admit this, as I know of several incarnations of this same idea
that have been attempted, but it was 1996, and it pre-dated the official release of Marimba. I remember working on this plan, as it included some "cloud-like" attributes, such as an operating system for the applications the students would
write (essentially, what would later be known to me as an application server), a mechanism to deliver the applications in a customized manner (what would later be known to me as Castanet), and a customer-base that would pay for
usage, not just to have something pre-loaded on their computer, as Microsoft had established with all of their profitable products. Though my focus on the 'education' market, of empowering students to write applications was a bit
cumbersome for figuring out how and when students would do this plan, it was my catalyst in to the world of pre-built software components, that would form the hallmark of my days leading up to and ultimately as an employee of Sun,
in the early form of the Sun-Netscape Alliance.

I am extremely proud and fortunate to have had the opportunity to work on Netscape's campus, the original brown-stone-ish 2 and 3 story buildings in Mountain View that I believe are now occupied by that networking company that
began with a "V", I can't recall, but whatever, anyone who is anyone in the Valley, knows the old Netscape campus, and not only did I get to work in building 23, but I got to actually work with Netscape employees, who by then in
September of 1999 were AOL employees. I was hired by a Netscape middle manager, and the basic truism for Netscpae middle-managers, as far as i could tell, is that they were by far, without question, the coolest and smartest
people in software. The browser-based middleware strategy of Web, App, and Directory Servers was the reason why BEA, Oracle, and IBM even knew how to compete with Microsoft for developers, it is because of the immense
talent at Netscape that Java even has a chance today, even as we long-ago have forgotten about that company called Netscape.

My final year of graduate school afforded me the opportunity to travel to the Bay Area a couple of times, first for my cousin's wedding, and then NYE on my way to SE Asia, and then for Spring Break. During these social visits, I
made every effort to talk with people in the Java market, as I knew that if my educational application development start-up idea was not going to initially work, I wanted to work on what I thought was the only place that I could:
in the very early-emerging Internet software market. I talked with Oracle, I talked with Silicon Graphics, I talked with Network Computer (that thin client operation sponsored by Ellison), and others, but I was somehow, through the
distribution of a short paper I wrote on the to-be-announced Enterprise Java platform, able to get some informational interviews with Sun people. I basically made my way through the NetDynamics ranks of Sanjay, Rakesh, Ratnesh,
and the guy who changed my viewpoint or at least gave me the confidence to pursue my career path, Dan Graves.

I still remember sitting in his office, and his drawing up the basic constructs of the Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) component-model for re-use across multiple platforms. It is relatively unclear to me if he was the only one willing to dream
that big, or was the only one willing to talk about it, but it was in-line with what I had been thinking about for student development, and Dan was suggesting it was the only reason that NetDynamics had just been acquired by Sun. This
was following BEA's acquisition of WebLogic, so the market for application servers clearly had some potential. I figured it was where I needed to be, and after much harassing of Yuan Huntington of Netscape, I got a job in the fall
after graduating from William and Mary. No experience, no programming knowledge, no connections beyond what I had made in 1998-99 throughout the NetDynamics org., and yet Yuan took a flier on me pretty much based on my
excitement for the possibility of a new kind of "operating system" called an application server.

I started and remained at Sun for about 4.5 years, never once changing my title as the Product Marketing Manager on Sun's application server: Netscape, iPlanet, Sun ONE, and finally Sun Java System. I have many little stories to be
filled-out over how I maintained that position on a relatively crucial piece of Sun's future business strategy, but suffice to say, I left on my own terms, under huge amounts of duress, that does not eclipse the fact that today Glassfish lives,
and my apologies to all the Netscape, iPlanet, and Sun people who I worked with, but there would be no viable application server program at Sun without me. Arrogance, myopia, and inertia aside, I gave my career, sacrificed my
well-being, and stood up to injustice in the name of that damn product, so i could give a f*ck today what people at Sun who think I am being inflammatory or harsh on the CEO think. I grew up on Sun, and I think I have earned the
right to talk about it today.

2. Sun is in a death spiral, and it is simple math or at least information technology math, that once you take away the aura of inevitability, such as for customers to start to think: 'hmmm, perhaps Sun won't survive,' the wheels come off,
because deals just melt away. After Friday, that is exactly what is going to happen over the next couple of quarters. It is going to be ugly. And it is because of enormous arrogance, that is probably better understood as stubbornness,
because the constructs of a deal are in place over the JDK between JBoss and Glassfish that would greatly enhance the Enterprise Java portability, and re-use argument, as well as the most obvious point of all: that Sun needs Red Hat
Linux as a lifeline to sell the SPARC "Niagara" T2 hardware. You can reference my posts below to get some further context for this argument, but it bears repeating: Sun will die unless it ditches Solaris-only mindset on their most
valuable hardware.

I hope you can see why the two points are related, and that is why I have begun blogging again, as anyone closely following Sun for 10 years, as I have, knows what is going on. It is time for renewal of the value proposition that said:
'there is no pride in placing the advantages of a community-developed product over the merits of our own internally-developed product.' Solaris and Java are on two completely separate trajectories, and Sun will run out of accounts
to call-on, readily available assets, and ultimately it will lose its installed base, if it continues to be stubborn. I have made some bold characterizations, I don't really care for some of the people feeding the openSolaris mindset, but this
is more than personal, it really comes down to making the right business decision. And that means making it before it is too late. I can't think of anything else to do but this:

- sign Red Hat to Global Partnership across all issues

- make Glassfish the only supportable application server for GSO

I have said it before, but it is worth mentioning one last time, if steps are not taken soon, there will be no niche, no market, no product-line, and no base for Sun to justify corporate goodwill, future growth, and developer sentiment, it is
time to cast aside the stubbornness of the current regime, and save this company...

$1B: why not?

2008-08-01T05:25:00.000-07:00

Hey, if you got no business model, other than some b.s. about open source, especially related to your completely irrelevant operating system, but have left-over proceeds from the dot-com run-up, why not buy some shares and make the complete dis-integration in confidence with the company's management team not become a full-scale sell-off of what is left of the artificially supported stock price?

Summary of the call:

a. Q1 is going be a disaster, but we have no reason to give why that is, even as the rest of the industry stabilizes.

b. BRIC and other developing countries are the future, although its about a 90-10 comparison with the U.S. being the larger number (not good, to be betting the company on BRIC)...

c. Product-line is moving away from the openSolaris positioning, and moving to openStorage.

d. Cash balance is on-track to be gone within 2 fiscal years on the current trend, unless you believe that no additional acquisitions are needed.

e. Gross margins are deteriorating, but just trust management, R&D innovation will somehow bring that back...e.g. Thumper needs to trump StorageTek product-line (but don't mind that its currently $120M v. $2B comparison)...

f. Niagara is based on the success of openSolaris (never mind that no one cares about this OS)...

g. Summary of Jonathan's competitive analysis: 'We really don't compete with IBM; they OEM Solaris, so we're more partners than competitors'...my response: bahahahaha...

h. Jonathan is bitchy this morning, must be the early wake-up call...

i. Finally the billion-dollar question: why is Sun missing expectations? Answer from CFO Lehman: we think other tier-1 vendors (not named) are struggling; large U.S. customers are leading to weak numbers; Jonathan: no answer, didn't even answer the freaking question: weak effort from the CEO...

j. Sales execution or Product issue? Installed base not coming through? Bad acquisitions? Answer from Jonathan: growth in BRIC and related, blah, blah, blah...also, Large Financial customers are to blame; U.S. downturn is the main reason why we can't perform..."we just got to grow": thanks, for the update...

k. Main point from CEO and CFO: IT purchases are being tabled, we need to grow outside of 'mature' economies; my take: apparently only Sun thinks there is a recession...

l. CFO is way bitchy...

m. (I don't sit on many other companies' calls, but this is turning nasty)...

n. Jonathan: "Academic environments for MySQL"; my take: give me an f'in break, your a F500 company...

o. Main base for revenue is U.S., which is expected to be down until 2009, so Jonathan's model for building the base back: partners...my take: all the best, there...

p. Commentary from Doug: no mention of Red Hat partnership = irrelevance for Sun...

q. "4 pronged attack": what the hell is this? i assume this is the 4 S's: Servers, Software, Storage, and Services, but still continual fluff from CEO on "value proposition"...

r. Commentary from Doug: Jonathan is not prepared to lead this company at this stage in its life, it needs someone less 'visionary' and someone with more turn-around experience...

s. Blah, blah, blah about Solaris unstated revenue on CMT and Thumper sales; no one cares anymore about this analysis...

t. my line went dead on the lack of hardware pull-through with MySQL deployments, essentially a $1B acquisition is not bringing in anything on Sun hardware; my answer to this: shocker...

u. end of call...

Analysis: see letter r. above; end of story...

ubuntu

2008-07-23T01:13:00.000-07:00

O.k., i know next to nothing beyond what i can assemble in my brain and reports from el Reg about Ubuntu, but this is quite the article:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/23/ubuntu_springframework_glassfish/

I have one exasperated response to Jonathan: oh, brother...

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool everyone all of the time. There is absolutely zero chance of Ubuntu having a relevant competitive position vis-a-vis Red Hat, and any effort to make it look otherwise is just a reprise of openSolaris, further denting the opportunity to bring Sun back to life. Is anyone sick of me, yet?

Now, the efforts by the Glassfish representatives to get it embedded in the Ubuntu distribution are noteworthy, and welcome, and supportable. The effort to shore up the Sun hardware business with an agreement with Canonical are simply brain-dead, and leave me feeling that the end is in fact near. I honestly can't believe it.

It was a mere 8 years ago this summer, when Sun was making $5B/quarter and leaving the entire enterprise IT marketplace in its wake; now, by focusing on Ubuntu rather than Red Hat, it is nearing an end-game scenario. Canonical should probably go with SpringSource anyway, why not...it would provide a more developer oriented stack, as Glassfish is a deployment platform, first, for converting Sun's WebLogic base...Spring (apologies to everyone in Glassfish-land) is a more convenient move for Ubuntu...

Ubuntu for Sun is the definition of an amateur move, based on amateur analysis, for an amateur CEO. Again, I support getting Glassfish in as many places as possible, but if the writing between the lines can be read, Jonathan thinks that Ubuntu can provide a viable Linux distro. to compete with Red Hat. He is flat wrong. There is no way Canonical, barring an absolute break-down in execution from Raleigh (outside of JBoss), will ever be a mission-critical alternative to Red Hat; sure deploy it on some blades, make it look good for 'cloud' computing, sell MySQL on it, count developer-uptake, and standardize Sun's services business on it - - it still leads to a barely visible 2nd place, in a game of winner-take-all. Has anyone at Sun ever heard of Windows Server?

There are alternatives to Microsoft winning over the corporate IT market, and its name is Red Hat Enterprise Linux, does it take something other than Santa Clara Market Requirement Documents to get this point through to the executive management team at Sun. Scott, if you ever stumble across this blog, my apologies, as i have given my mea culpa for other inflammatory posts in the past, but your "hand-picked" successor is making decisions that fit in to a narrow criteria window which is not supported by market facts. And since a languishing-cum-buried stock price, and ongoing financial and server shipment disappointments do nothing to wake him up, perhaps you are the last thing that stands in the way of a complete collapse of the company.

Ubuntu is not even on the radar of corporate IT, it may be used by a wide swathe of developers, and maybe Jonathan believes his own hyped theories that developers determine IT purchases, but in this case, and for the foreseeable futue, customer investment will be in Red Hat. Not having a comprehensive agreement in place only guarantees further splintering of the market to Microsoft's advantage. Red Hat will continue along nicely (at least, until someone on Wall St. figures something out about JBoss 5), and will sell the hell out of Linux. What will Sun sell? Glassfish/MySQL subscriptions on 1U and 2U servers; well, that out to make them about $250M/quarter - - where is the remaining $2.75B going to come from quarter-to-quarter?

I recognize that i have pounded this issue to death, kicked it while it is down, and whatever. But it is time for someone to step in, and if Jonathan says word 1 about Ubuntu being a viable alternative for Sun in the 8/1/8 call, the machinations of a coup should begin.

Disclaimer: I am a huge proponent of Sun Microsystems, as i have stated in previous posts. And i apologize for being so inflammatory in this string of posts. But I feel that there is only 10% payback, and 90% analysis going in to them. I might be somewhat skewed in this perspective, but i do wish that Jonathan would stop playing political games with a Fortune 500 company, and actually make decisions based on market intelligence, not hunches he feels will be better for his blog arguments. back to the post...

Ubuntu v. Red Hat. It is not a comparison, and maybe after getting hammered for 8 years, as Jonathan has in his time in executive management, you start to actually believe that Sun is truly only a tier-2 vendor, and so can legitimately suspend aspirations for market leadership in the name of shoot-the-moon strategies, like what choosing Ubuntu over Red Hat would be. But to anyone who believes that Sun is still a tier-1 vendor, that has been mis-managed, this potential decision would be cataclysmic.

Again, Glassfish everywhere, i support, but as i stated in my 'Application Server Market' post earlier, you have to choose your strengths. Ubuntu is an irrelevant strength for Sun Microsystems...

x64 v. SPARC

2008-07-20T22:57:00.000-07:00

There is little question remaining about my sentiments concerning Sun's hardware business: it is fundamentally broken...the Solaris mind-set has set-back the company by at least 5 years, and probably longer considering the decision to re-kindle Sun's OS on x64 in late '02, so what are we to think about the possibility of management re-thinking that decision and finally giving up on Solaris as a multi-functional, volume server OS? Well, we'll have to wait for the tedium of 8.1.8 in less than 2 weeks, but it is probably safe to assume that Jonathan, Lehman, Fowler, and whoever else is allowed to talk will dodge the very issue that is sidelining the one-time-champion of choice, leadership, and forward-looking innovation...

Let's be crystal clear, there is really no way Sun can buy Red Hat, and truly only IBM could take a run at it, though because of JBoss, it would be a waste of money, considering the considerable investment that Global Services has made in WebSphere...Red Hat, whether Wall St. can admit it ot not, is making too much money on too high of margins, with too much room to grow, for anyone to swallow them, good job to the original RHAT management, and the ongoing development of the Linux market that created a viable tier-1 vendor...

So, can Sun honestly bet their business on somebody else's software, which is what i have proposed in ditching Solaris in favor of Red Hat's Linux program? The easy answer is that they can no longer afford not to, but it is a little more complex for Sun management to make this historical decision, as they have bet their company on their own OS for so long, even in the face of all available evidence to the contrary, Jonathan and team have made marketing Solaris their raison d'etre...Without calling for their jobs because of this mis-step and calculated mistake, Sun needs to evaluate what their agreement with Red Hat should look like...

There are pride issues at stake, and for this crew of executives, that is not insignificant, but truly, i only see easy decisions that need to be made...the bottom-line is that x64 is not where Sun's business is at, it is all in multi-core or bust, and this is where Linux needs to be deployed to give it a competitive advantage as a hardware company that invests in software (today)...the basic constructs of an agreement is 2-fold: Fedora and openJDK...the rest is just packaging and inter-operability...

Fedora, as u know, is Red Hat's community for developing next-gen Linux, and Sun needs to get on board through a formalized agreement to share revenues and development costs on all Linux deployments on Sun servers...this is straight-forward, and would be welcomed by Red Hat, the only serious impediment to this agreement is the apparent egos of the Sun management team around openSolaris...the 2nd aspect is around openJDK, which is basically already in place, though Red Hat does something similar in IcedTea, or whatever their open-source JDK is...this is a crucial development that benefits both companies but also provides needed cover for Sun in their ongoing disagreement with Apache, and may even be the model for a coming-to-terms with Apache on their own OSS Java...

This will enable full portability of apps and components between JBoss and Glassfish, a not-so-insignificant development as they jointly carry the OSS Enterprise Java banner, and compete with Spring and .Net, beyond anything that WebLogic and WebSphere are doing...there hasn't been much in the way of portability and inter-operability outside of the excellent Application Verification Kit (AVK) that has been promoted with little fan-fare...it probably needs a boost at the executive level, which would re-juvenate the value proposition of Enterprise Java vis-a-vis .Net and Spring...but enough on JEE, it is fine, it is holding steady despite the onslaught from Microsoft and SpringSource, and it is here for the long-haul...

What Sun needs more than a middleware standard to sell servers is Linux, and only Red Hat can provide the necessary scope that will make a difference...all the efforts with Canonical are a distraction at best, and devious at worst, with no real benefit to Sun's business; really there is nothing about Ubuntu other than experience on Linux that helps Sun, it does not make them any money, or position them as an "alternative" to Red Hat, that train has left, its over, Red Hat's Linux won...

So, what would a Linux-based Sun server allow? It would eliminate the prejudices of Sun's sales force, and would open up a market for Sun servers by a factor of at least 10x....i would estimate that Solaris is about 10% of Linux's marketshare for new deployments, and i would be willing to bet that is generous to Solaris...In addition, to giving Sun sales more opportunities, it would re-orient the competitive positioning for both companies, to get Windows off the server market...it would position Sun differently than Dell, HP, and IBM as it would make them the biggest supporter of Linux, their natural place in the marketplace as a disrupter...

What to make of the Sun x64 server business? well, it is essentially non-existent, so if Jonathan comes out with any preliminary agreement on Linux hand-holding for the x64 servers, just ignore, and sell the stock...it only gets interesting and potentially game-changing for Sun's fortunes with a multi-core agreement on the T2 servers, and looking-out, on Rock...If you are watching Sun's business, or just casually referencing Ashlee's posts, or reading my blog over the past couple of weeks, u will notice an undeniable pattern of myopic neglect that requires the removal of all rational logic to believe that Solaris servers will grow Sun's marketshare, revenues, and stockprice: it is not going to happen...

Is there any other datapoint needed to sign the all encompassing agreement with Red Hat? Not really, that is all that matters right now...Glassfish and MySQL have run their course at present for available growth in the current construct, and though i would like to see Jonathan do something more with the sales organization, the only thing he can honestly do to affect Sun's business plan is to issue the mea culpa to organizations and developers that supposedly bet their busines on openSolaris, and advise them to get behind Fedora...

The x64 business is selling servers at $1,200/box v. $18K/box for SPARC T2 multi-core systems, u do the math on where the investment should be...all things being equal, like Red Hat wanting to stick it to PTB, which i think is perfectly unlikely considering their volume business plan, as well as their need to get in the high-end, the only thing holding back a deal is pride, not a good business argument...whoever, if anyone does, has influence over Sun's management, it is time to get this deal done, i mean the lawyers have 10 days, get to it, and make the 8/1/8 call a little more palatable...and the future of Sun more assured...

prepping 4 8/1/8

2008-07-17T23:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, i saw the pre-announcement a few days ago, and yes, i am only slightly concerned that www.sun.com seems to be down right now...i guess, Jonathan and Lehman made back the $500M in market cap. they lost the day before, but the stagnant revenues do nothing for me - - no surprise, eh?...

It is simply shocking that the bravado that has been on display ever since the young CEO took over continues for another quarter of the same stupid logic: 'it's the economy, really...' Blaming the U.S. financial services industry does not seem to be a tactic that any of its competitors are using, even while PTB argues that Sun is less exposed to Wall St. customers due to the "open" campaign being waged across the entire product-line...

Its non-stop, round-the-clock insanity in Santa Clara, and if they dare to come out on August 1, and claim that nothing needs to change except for lay-offs, then the analyst crowd that has not been able to halt a run on the stock should at least ask some hard questions, including:

a. In the face of the entire server industry standardizing on Linux, why do you devote a dis-proportionate share of resources on openSolaris?

b. What exactly is Sun's sales strategy?

c. What partners can you name that would argue for Sun's ongoing independence as a stand-alone IT company?

d. What if the financial "crisis" gets worse - - what are your mitigation plans?

e. What are the alternatives for another fiscal year of disappointing results - - will you consider a merger, acquisition, divestiture, or investment to off-set the rapidly shrinking set of options available to management?

Seriously, not one of those is without merit, and yet, the questions will be utterly complex babble about geographical penetration, with answers that no longer just border on the absurd, such as the download numbers of MySQL. Jonathan, if you have the guts to read this post, which you should as a stop-gap measure to be prepared for a possible onslaught on the 8/1/8 call, understand that i basically wish you well.

As many Sun alums have argued before me, it is important for Java, for the installed base, and for the resumes of the former employees that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. However, your ongoing arguments for patience look increasingling like tunnel vision, with no end in sight for the Solaris-only business plan.

It is time to cut it loose to legacy customers to do the investment they want to customize the OS according to their needs, and for Sun to join forces with Red Hat. This would not only give you a lifeline, but forever align JBoss and Glassfish on the monumental challenge of supplanting .Net as the preferred development environment via Enterprise Java...

I have railed against the Board and the institutional investors who listened to Scott, and gave you a long leash as you presented your own strategy, but you need to end the myopia and take counsel from someone other than Greg P., Gosling, Fowler, and Green...you need middleware experts around u, like when u were one-time friends with Mark H...

I don't know the story, but his demotion was orchestrated for political reasons, and his re-emergence is a welcome sign that you don't play that game for its own sake...make the move and appoint him to a position that actually has corporate-wide influence beyond press release statements...

in the end, you have a long career in front of u, even poly-millioinaires need something to do with their work-week, and u will never run another company, start-up or Fortune 500, if you do not change course a.s.a.p. There is nothing more to say:

- kill Solaris-only hardware

- prioritize Glassfish

- put MySQL on the price books as a solution for Oracle DB replacements

until u do those 3 steps, nothing will change, and they cannot be cursory, surface-level moves, they need to be mandates, thats what only a CEO can do, if that is not done, u should lose your job...

death spiral = needed solutions

2008-07-10T23:02:00.000-07:00

It hurts to read the latest diatribe from Ashlee Vance today in the Register:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/10/sun_under_gun/

After some 8 years of taking the hits after the dot-bomb implosion, the rise of Red Hat/JBoss, the demise of AMD server chips, the scrutiny over strategic investments in proof-of-concept implementations with Fortune 2000 customers and organizations, and the elimination of Reference Architectures in favor of so-called 'solution selling' within GSO, Sun has had a worse decade than both George W. and al Qaeda...

This is not to say that the death knell need be sounded, as Ashlee proposes as an alternative to the madness that is quarterly reports of disappointment...Fujitsu would not do the things that are needed to right-the-ship, and would merely hide the problems ever longer...I have made myself something of a pariah within the company, for reasons that are merely referenceable below in this blog, but i will offer a few suggestions that are needed to avoid a myopic move toward irrelevance:

a. Phase-out Solaris

Nothing says Sun Microsystems like its archetypal OS, but nothing says a fringe offering than any hardware that is available with Solaris-only. The first step in this move is to recognize the problems that Red Hat is having with JBoss, and realize that a licensing agreement on support, maintenance, and R&D is in both companies' best interests: there is nothing that says Red Hat need be a competitor to the death, as Oracle has declared; Sun will come out of the mess with hardware revenues to support the ongoing development of the OSS business in middleware, and a head-head battle with Linux is quite simply killing Sun.

The initial steps in this process are already in place, but more can be done, even if Sun management wants to save face with openSolaris, by keeping it going for maintaining legacy installations, this actually makes a lot of sense; further independent R&D internally on Solaris is a waste of shareholder money, corporate goodwill, and is a strategic opportunity cost that costs the more relevant middleware offerings of Glassfish and MySQL.

b. Productize all OSS projects

openESB, openSSO, and openPortal in the form of 'WebSynergy' are all well on their way, but they are nowhere near where Glassfish, and MySQL are at, mainly because of perception and lack of sales resources dedicated to these solutions. Ultimately, there is no point in continuing to invest in software if there is no corresponding initiative to implement them on the price-list beyond support contracts, even if that is the pre-dominant sales model for Sun OSS...

What needs to be done is to create a Software sales group that isolates the functionality of these products, it would remedy the mis-step when Software was relegated to add-ons to Solaris in the sales process beginning in '02; i think Jonathan was right to think that the iPlanet/Sun ONE stuff needed to be institutionalized in order to gain the acceptance of the hardware sales force, and that its integration in to Sun-proper was a necessary first step. But in the meantime, the Systems Engineers specialists on software have taken a back-seat to account holders, who have very little software domain experience outside of claiming that "Solaris scales"...

It is time for the mindset of the Sun-Netscape Alliance to be returned where specialists in the field did the competitive positioning on middleware, and the hardware account specialists focused on speeds-and-feeds...this means that Sun Software becomes a core component of the sales process, and integrates experts in specific functionality, and not just product managers of certain software projects give presentations in Santa Clara; the bottom-line is that Sun has the smartest software people in the industry, and now have the product-set to accomplish a new type of offering that IBM, HP, and Dell cannot match...this is not a Solaris pitch, this is a Glassfish/MySQL offering...

c. Re-constitute Reference Architectures (RA)

For some reason, this competitive advantage was taken out of rotation gradually and it should be a part of every single product release from here on out. No product or solution gets announced until it has been sized, tested, documented, and implemented in iForce Centers, which will greatly reduce the random noise that comes out of Sun PR...RA's are perfectly fine for price-listing now that they have been used for more than a decade, and this is what solution selling is about, not catch-phrases that encapsulate certain marketing terms, functionality, or made-up GSO silos; its about Sun's unique ability to provide the total solution for all types of customers...

The RA process involves the product team, the testing team, the partner org, and sales. It will enable Sun marketing to talk about the 1 remaining competitive advantage which is integration; anything that talks about scalability, performance, or high-availability is useless without the proof. Re-building the RA team by allowing a Google-like mandate to allow Sun PS, Sun Services, and the entire Solaris development team to spend part of their core working hours putting together RA's would make all the necessary corporate constituencies informed and available to the sales force...

d. Cull Oracle from the price-list in a series of moves

There is no reason to have WebLogic on the price-list. There is limited excuses for having Oracle Database on the solution selling price-list. There is very little to make of Oracle ERP that justifies the relationship. Oracle is going to be fine, there is too much emphasis on the past at Sun, and the defining marker of this is with the Oracle relationship, now is the time to end it. Begin all ERP discussions with SAP in the room, even considering the installed base. Better yet, do not even participate in ERP implementations, this is non-Web-centric, and only furthers the costs of maintenance without the associated revenues that the ERP vendors command. Make all sales contingent on the ability to expand the relationship, ERP is necessary at the operations level, it is uniquely not necessary to the Internet, where Sun makes its money. Start the painful break-up, in order to save itself.

e. Start promoting the software org.

Jonathan theoretically came from Sun Software, but more accurately was part of the Strategy team in the formative stage. His accomplishments, pronouncements, and strategies for the Sun software org. have been wide-of-the-mark. There is no way to fire Jonathan, at this stage, this would not be prudent. But his marching orders need to be prescribed more closely, and his longevity with the company has to be tied to his ability to execute a turn-around plan, not a further expansion of 'corporate clarity' in the form of OSS and his blog (his 2 main offerings in the 5 years as CEO)...

The talent within Sun is built-in to sell software middleware that accesses the unique selling points of multi-core, and the personnel needs to be expanded beyond John Fowler, and reach right over Rich Green. Too many excellent middle managers have no way to move beyond limited exposure. Start by stopping the ascent of anyone with anything to do with Solaris. Force Anil Gadre in to retirement. And make more promotions based on revenue return rather than corporate notoriety.

Conclusion

This will, in the words of my former co-worker, come across as delusional and will make me look obsessed with my former employer. But it is an honest and clear plan for the next 1.5 years, something that is dearly lacking at this point from anything coming out of Silicon Valley. I have set aside my pride numerous times, and have taken hits that i don't need to pay back anymore. But in the absence of a recognition of most of the above steps, Sun Microsystems will cease to exist...

glassfish and mysql

2008-07-04T02:23:00.001-07:00

Its the dead middle of the night, or perhaps even the early morning for u early risers, so i have just a couple of hours until sleep, but first Nadal...so, i'll try and put some thoughts 2gether for the recent announcement of Sun's most promising bundle since the Netscape Web/App/Directory Server combo., and infinitely more important to the ongoing effort to re-kindle some semblance of a business plan:

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2008-06/sunflash.20080627.1.xml

It is with great promise that Glassfish promoters welcome the MySQL offering as an add-on to the application server that could rejuvenate Sun, and here is the details:

http://www.sun.com/software/products/mysql/getit_glassfish.jsp

Outside of being an immense fan of Mark Herring (not Rich Green), i think this bundle is an obvious, but important milestone. For too long, the bias with GSO has been with WebLogic, particularly on Oracle Databases, and since Oracle declared war on Sun's hardware business 5 years ago, one has to wonder where the thanks are for me helping to offer an alternative (actually, John Clingan has thanked me: http://douglasdooley-astrosolutions.blogspot.com/2007/09/glassfish-arrives.html)...

Beyond that, Sun partners everywhere know where to put their efforts, and it ain't on openSolaris or any other insanity that comes out of the Software org., that does not have anything to do with Glassfish. It is time for every last ISV to write to the app server, like Liferay is doing, and take up the struggle for Enterprise Java at the business operations level. The problem with this whole OS centric distortion that is the current predominant theme within Sun marketing is that it is a fundamentally losing battle: Linux won, get over it...

What also needs to be re-iterated is to ignore any Jonathan-banter ab/ "cloud" priorities for MySQL, and god forbid, Glassfish, it is about going in the trenches of every last Sun hardware customer and getting them off of WebLogic/Oracle, that combo. will do just fine without Sun's help, and we all know that Sun is in more dire need of a re-direction than Oracle needs Sun business...

I know, i know, i have talked about this scenario at length in previous posts and around the great Internet message boards, but it needs to be stated from someone within Sun executive management, as well, so that the sales force out there in regions as far afoot as Sri Lanka (http://www.sun.com/worldwide/index.jsp) know what the marching orders are; i mean, c'mon, is anyone on the exec. team doing their homework, all i charge is $10K/quarter, and i'll get u a Glassfish/MySQL sales plan that will have returns in the neighborhood of incremental $100M/quarter, with a growth rate of 100%/quarter, that is my pledge...

Assuming that i will not be taken up on the offer, at least not until Mark takes over the reigns, i can only dictate from this blog. Sun is such a beautiful company, even considering my idea for Astro Microsystems (http://douglasdooley.blogspot.com/2008/06/astro-microsystems.html), i am a lifelong fan of my first employer, and would do anything to help them get back on track, except sell my soul, already avoided that once, and refuse to go back...in the meantime, execution is something that Glassfish has on JBoss right now, and MySQL seems to have some good accomplishments - - perhaps the 2 of them 2gether will prove formidable enough to save this great institution of American business...perhaps...

Nothing will happen until GSO gets on board, though, and nothing will happen until a few calculated risks are undertaken: i mean what else is there left to lose?

application server market

2008-07-02T23:13:00.000-07:00

Maybe i am wrong, perhaps the app server is a dying platform, i heard it straight from the product manager of JBoss recently that the world does not revolve around app servers, a seemingly innocuous comment that resonated with me for being incredibly brash considering the revenue model associated with JBoss - - I mean is there a single other product at the JBoss division that has any chance of making money?

Not rules, not transactions, not development tools, not even SOA, at least not without being a JBoss AS customer; this is why i am so comfortable going to bat for the long-ridiculed product, and forever-predicted demise of the platform that changes the economics of software...there is nothing since the operating system itself that created a market for ISVs, developers, and their customers to collaborate on the emergence of a new sub-industry within software; the database has not accomplished in 20 years what the app server has in 10...

so, it is with relative optimism that i look to a future of distributed platforms that run business transactions that inter-operate based on standards that the app server sets where business is heading; looking forward to something to replace app servers is often associated with the supposed demise of Java as the premier contrary language to a Microsoft world...this is not likely to happen anytime soon, either, so with that, i will turn my attention to how the world of enterprise software looks set to shake-out with some anecdotal remarks on what the vendors can do:

1. Pick a platform and go with it

Oracle did that yesterday with WebLogic, and they should be congratulated for just being realistic to the prospects of ongoing development on OC4J, it just doesn't make any more sense since they have the original Java application server in their arsenal. IBM, on the other hand, has yet to make this vital decision, and instead choose to bi-furcate the WebSphere and Geronimo decision with utter nonsense when it comes to pushing customers to one code-base (Geronimo) when it comes to 'entry-level' development, and to another (legacy WebSphere) when it comes to deployments; they need to re-orient all future development around Geronimo a.s.a.p.

2. Utilize OSS to compete with .Net

Glassfish is an under-heralded success in the open source community, as it is the true standard-bearer for Sun's software biz, more than openSolaris and MySQL; Sun needed to do it, and demonstrated why it is so important to utilize the Java community at large to create a platform. SpringSource is the second example of what OSS development can mean to creating critical mass, as they have moved in to tier 1 middleware status on the implementations of the legions of developers coding to Spring. And JBoss is the undeniable originator of the OSS middleware model, and will continue to have the leadership mantle as long as execution remains in view.

3. Focus on strengths, not ubiquity

There is too much at stake, and too much competition from the most viable software vendors to ever consider going after a majority of the market as JBoss GM, Muzilla, claimed in early 2008: ubiquity is not an option for anything, whether it be Java, .Net, or a vendor's solution. What should be done is get the most revenue, deployments, and mind-share in this interim period before the Internet becomes a truly global marketplace with transactions for e-commerce and supply chains being conducted on app servers. The examples are plentiful: Oracle sells WebLogic to its database customers; Red Hat sells JBoss on Linux deployments; Sun sells deployment capabilities on its Java hardware; IBM does the same....but it seems that only Oracle is willing to make the necessary adjustments to prioritize their product-line and core customer base over the mantra of being all things to all audiences...

4. Promote JEE

.Net is not and never will be dead, it is only a matter of time before 50% of departmental applications are built from Microsoft tools, but that does not mean that 50% of the influence in the market will go to MSFT, the real money is on the back-end with automated transactional processing and business process management - - this is where Enterprise Java has an undeniable advantage for integration and scalability. JEE is the one thing that stands in the way of Visual Studio converting the entire enterprise development community and its associated customer base; calling JEE d.o.a. or 'irrelevant' is narrowly-focused banter, and is purely ignorant of the trend to distributed systems based on Java web services, including EJB end-points, JAX, JBI, and other associated specifications that enable the app server to inter-operate with .Net...

5. Focus on deployments, not development

For years, we have been hearing that developers hold the keys to all decisions, and this is still true to an extent, but developers are notoriously investigative in their downtime, and need to stay within company practices when they are on the clock at Fortune 2000 clients, as well as doing contract work for SMBs...the vendors need to provide better or any tools to help with the deployment and integration of JEE applications and components in order to make the transition from experimental development in to hardened deployment more smooth; the standard-bearer for this type of work can be found in the previous iterations of Sun's Reference Architectures, as well as countless other best practices from tier-1 vendors...

6. SOA is about re-use

Integration needs to develop along standards, and there is plenty of old code that can be incorporated in to modern Java apps through the Java web services specifications; components for business logic are the ideal, but countless opportunities exist to provide re-use at all levels of software integration...the application server is the glue that will incorporate all the functionality to make SOA useful...

7. Go for the kill on the back-end

Do not let Microsoft splinter the Java market through better marketing on a one-stop shop approach, make inter-operability the core value proposition that incorporates portability of Java across platforms. The Spring team and EJB expert group need to come to an agreement on a direction forward, and the onus is on both to utilize best practices to stop the vitriol, and focus on the common enemy; this more than anything would enable Enterprise Java to take the mantle from Microsoft for critical mass development and deployment, nothing less is a success...

Astro Microsystems

2008-06-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

At first glance, evaluations of enterprise systems vendors are a prime example of analysis of a vertically-integrated business operation. Sometimes it comes in the form of a farmer, or farm output, such as potatoes, where the potato farmer owns the land, the mills, the specialized fertilizer, and the transport to carry the product to market. This is a long-discounted practice, as specialization offers comparative advantage and outsourcing benefits. In fact, outside of some financial services providers and Information technology vendors, vertically-integrated businesses are being replaced by overlapping business interests that promote the Wall Street requirement of focusing on 'core competencies'. Even financial services firms are probably on the way to being subjected to new regulations that will greatly reduce their scope in providing a 'one-stop-shop'.

The same can also be said for IT firms, but not necessarily because of regulations. Microsoft, Red Hat, Intel, Dell, HP, and Oracle all rely on some partners to facilitate their highly successful businesses. The lone hold-outs appear to be IBM and Sun, and perhaps some Asian chaebols . However, IBM has relied on more partners than ever to deliver the returns that primarily come from IBM Global Services, their consulting operation, which generates the bulk of their revenue, growth, and even profits. Asia has a historic relationship with vertical integration, and will probably reduce their exposure to inefficiencies in some aspects of their business by partnering with global firms to help facilitate their emergence in the global economy. That leaves Sun. And it is to Sun that I turn my attention (per usual).

Sun, in fact, remains a huge company with $13 billion in revenues and 35,000 employees worldwide. It produces everything that it sells, for the most part, from microprocessors, to hardware servers, to storage systems, to software servers that run the gamut of functionality that enterprise customers need to run their on-line and back-office operations, outside of ERP. SPARC, Solaris, StorageTek , and Java are their core businesses that represent the vertically-integrated business that continues to buck the trend toward specialization, and there is a case to be made for continuing this verticalization . Sun is essentially a 'proprietary' company though they cover their bases with licensing Solaris to distributors that double as competitors. They also do an increasing amount of open source work, which is essentially the subject of this post.

By making their new chip research available through openSPARC, their storage systems available through openStorage, their operating system available through openSolaris, and Java available through Glassfish, among other projects such as openJDK and MySQL, Sun has burnished an image as a community builder and a purveyor of standard components that make up an IT system. Sun is essentially making their core assets open source to generate developer interest, open up OEM opportunities, and create customer confidence that though a purchase of Sun gear may be a proprietary investment, there is a channel to maintain their investment in the off-chance that Sun ceases to exist. It is a reasonable bet, and careful scrutiny of the IT marketplace results in basically a sign-off on the strategy. Sun, were it to grow these various "open" communities that represent their various product development channels, could be considered well-positioned to take advantage of the Internet-fueled, next-generation of customer deployments, environments, and implementations of the IT systems that run the world's businesses.

But if you are reading this still, you are aware that this scenario of Sun's impending success is, in fact, no guarantee, nor, as many would contend, at all likely. Why is this? Well, without getting in to a big debate about the likelihood of Sun's ultimate end-game success or lack thereof, I rather point to serious concerns for investors, for customers invested in Sun, for developers relying on Sun for technologies, and ultimately the entire IT ecosystem. In reality, if there were one tier-1 vendor that could in-a-flash disappear without causing much damage to the global economy, it would not be Red Hat, certainly not Microsoft, Intel, IBM, or Oracle. It would be Sun. The continuing inability for the company to grow anywhere near its closest competitors, and the fact that perception matters in IT decisions, means that the sudden disappearance of SunMicrosystems is a real possibility.

And with that background, I would like to propose a check on the downside ramification in this scenario, by proposing an alternative to a Sun-only world for Sun technologies, by creating a competitor based explicitly on the R&D output of this venerable IT firm. Essentially, as I have alluded to in previous passing comments on tech news pages, I am proposing a new company to be created out of the open source communities that Sun has created. In the relevant parlance, we call this 'forking'. The term forking has a typically negative connotation, but this is just because of the incompatibilities created for the community to keep up with which results in less than 100% focus on the set of problems and challenges that are involved in open source. But the new company based around the open communities Sun has engendered would not seek to create incompatibilities, in fact, considering the relatively impressive customer base using Sun technologies, it would be in the best interests of this new company to maintain widespread and ongoing compatibility with every output from Sun.

The basic construct of this new company would simply be the development of a platform based on Sun's most relevant, most promising, and most attainable technologies, all of which are freely available through their open communities. At this point of the diatribe, I will point out that there is precedent, in one huge, though as yet under-developed, example in Oracle's Unbreakable Linux. In fact, my exit strategy for this new company may be even to receive the support, funding, or acquisition by Oracle, but that is just a glimmer-in-the-eye idea; rather, I take a cue from Oracle's efforts to take Red Hat's Linux operating system and turn it in to one of its own products. For those familiar with that matter, is it really that much of a stretch to do what Oracle has done with Red Hat to do with Sun's open technologies. Granted, much difficult work would have to be undertaken to create hardware systems as well as software platforms, but there is nothing that says that it could not be done. And, frankly, I cannot, in all my travels, and somewhat limited experience in the business world, think of a start-up opportunity with more up-side potential than a Sun Microsystems-clone.

First, take Linux, license it from Red Hat and/or Oracle. Next assemble Azul engineers with expertise in multi-core chips built for Java middleware to take the specs from openSPARC and create a computing platform. Then, utilize the vast Java developer base to further the assembly of Glassfish and MySQL environments. Sun has a run-rate of about $12 billion in R&D, COGS, and SGA, which I think could be cut by 75% with this new company, considering the vast amount of inefficiencies that have grown around Sun like plaque on teeth. Undercut Sun's own product-line by 50%, and you do the math on profits and profit potential if you really believe any of the hype coming out of Sun that they are ushering in the next new utility switch for the Internet age. I will make one prediction around this scenario: it is only a matter of time.

Sun has been an innovator of computing systems and has been a fairly advanced operational company, at times. It has, however, achieved none of the potential afforded it with so many valuable assets. It is now time to challenge the conventional wisdom that what holds it back is lack of understanding by the IT customer base, or the whispered sentiment coming out ofMenlo Park, CA that the world just doesn't 'get it' yet. It is time to call a spade, a spade, and realize that Sun Microsystems ' best years ended in 2000, and there is no discernible path to profitability in its current form. It is time, at least, for competition to inject a sense of urgency in to Sun. But this is no charity cause for the re-emergence of a once-hallmark of American ingenuity: no, this is about taking money away from Sun, and doing it on a truly huge scale. I will refrain from critiquing management, but from my experience, I can attest that there is a virtual "government-in-exile" waiting to take up the leadership and middle management positions of this proposed venture who know Sun very well. All it takes is money and courage.

The technology is there, take a night of surfing, and look for yourself, and realize that potentially the biggest investment opportunity since the great advent of Netscape, of Google, of Sun itself in the 1980's is there for the taking. I am not ready to be CEO of this new company, but I would be a pretty good person to present this business case, especially around the long-forgotten competitive advantage of Sun's in the form of Reference Architectures. Building an appliance with the following is all I propose; give it some thought, and you know how to get in touch with me:

use Linux, deploy Glassfish with MySQL on top of openSPARC with the 5120:

http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/t5120/

throw-in openStorage with the 4500:

http://www.sun.com/servers/x64/x4500/

Let's just call it Astro Microsystems...

Sun software noise

2008-05-27T22:52:00.000-07:00

Is it too premature to ask whether Jonathan has failed? Let me come back to this...Sun has made three big moves in 2008, outside of the non-stop nonsense around openSolaris: MySQL, Glassfish, and JavaFX; let's break them down, since I have some hours to kill...

MySQL at $1B is a laugher, that much can be agreed upon by everyone except Sun's investor relations department...i understand that it is symbolic of the extent to which OSS has penetrated the enterprise market, and that it probably took a significant price to close the deal without a bidding war, but the execution of making that investment bear out will be as difficult as anything that Sun has ever undertaken...truly, the only measurement that should be taken in to consideration of whether the acquisition was a wise one, is the ability to migrate Oracle DB customers on Sun hardware over to MySQL, not whether some Web 2.0 companies expand their services relationship with Sun...

Oracle with the acquisition of BEA, its ongoing efforts around 'Unbreakable Linux', and its pricing schemes around multi-core chips are all the proof needed to finally put to rest the supposedly unmatched relationship from these Highway 101 legends: Chuck Phillips runs Oracle's strategy and Jonathan runs Sun; the historical "friendship" between Larry and Scott is no longer a factor, and Oracle has more to gain from Intel than Sun, regardless of the press releases and whatever the two companies' sales forces tell customers...Sun needs to port SQL environments to MySQL off of Oracle to maintain account control, at the same time that Oracle tries to maintain the WebLogic-bias in Sun GSO; how Sun makes MySQL competitive with the unquestioned leader in the database market remains to be seen...i am not buying anything that Jonathan says ab/ MySQL focusing on cloud initiatives, because if this were true, there is absolutely zero way to justify $1B...

Glassfish is just definitively saving the Sun software business, from the SeeBeyond debacle, to NetBeans' failure, to even Solaris' slow death; its Teleco implementation, its ESB, and the ISV opportunities, such as with Liferay, are giving a life-line to Sun GSO, if they could only just make the transition to selling away from WebLogic and on to Glassfish in the downtime while Oracle figures out Fusion, there is hope for all the die-hards (including myself) to justify the immense investment in enterprise software initiated with the Sun-Netscape Alliance...i will admit my historical and biographical bias, but nothing comes close to Glassfish in providing Sun some hope and a raison d'etre for remaining a viable systems vendor...

JavaFX is plain ridiculous, wrong-sighted, and D.O.A., enough said...

Now back to my former big boss, as Jonathan was Sun's first EVP of Software prior to his anointment as CEO; his accomplishments are well-known by Sun insiders, most notably Java Studio Creator, Orion, and the Liberty Alliance...what is the common theme of those 3 initiatives? they are undeniable failures, which calls in to question his grasp of software, fundamentally...Creator was E.O.L.'ed, Orion is not even relevant to any product at Sun, and Liberty is a joke to anyone who has even heard of it; combine this with openSolaris, which is not viable in the face of Linux (as anyone outside of Sun would tell u), and u have to wonder what he is doing to make Sun an alternative to IBM and HP services, the Oracle stack, and Dell's model...

I'll admit I remain a long-term buy on JAVA, but I am increasingly concerned that the small circle of executives with a say, let alone the apologists on the Board and among major shareholders have either no grasp of the emerging enterprise IT marketplace or are just too timid to keep Jonathan in check...I'll also admit that there are possibilities he will prove me wrong, not least because the guy is relatively young and has enough cash, goodwill, and employee talent to ride out the ongoing disappointment that is quarterly reports...

But if a spade were truly called a spade, I would say that McNealy's hope to turn Jonathan in to a Steve Jobs-like wonderkid with the transition have not been borne out: revenue and the stock are stagnant, the Solaris-mindset is categorically narrowly-focused to the point of being a death knell for the company, and without talking with anyone internally, i sense that employee morale is weakening, as the 10% policy, as well as ongoing additional cuts, take their toll on execution...

I am a very small minority, or at least a minority in the sense of those willing to speak the unspeakable, but i will close with the question for Sun stakeholders to ask: how much longer? He is a first-time CEO (still unclear to me how Lighthouse was considered a business worth buying, let alone existing) of a Fortune 500 company...and i am not suggesting that the Red Hat model of bringing in a seasoned outsider is more viable option, so i am not sure what to do...however, giving a newbie a long leash is one thing, running an American icon in to the ground is quite another...

I'll invariably lose some friends/contacts over this post, but would be more than willing to hear from those that are capable of refuting the contents i mention above, I wish all of Sun the best in its endeavor to recover from wounds that were, for-the-most-part, not of its own doing in 2000-01, but it is 2008, its major competitors are growing and moving on, why can Sun not do the same? I am open to your suggestions...

is JBoss dying?

2008-05-26T01:05:00.001-07:00

I probably only have a brief few comments to make as I don't believe the implication in the title of this blog entry, but JBoss is certainly facing an evolving competitive front, and basically has not responded to it, unless u count the diatribes of Bill Burke, which essentially leave me wanting to defend, and failing to come up with the motivation. The competitive fronts are two-fold, and will be recognizable by even the most passing of observers in the middleware market:

1. Seam is losing month-by-month to Spring.

2. JBoss is losing month-by-month to Glassfish.

Ok, ok, I know for anyone who has had to listen to my own diatribes on TSS, on blogs.sun.com, on Maison Fleury, or any other forum that Dave Rosenberg does not control (and sometimes even there), this two point formula is well established to the point of ad nauseum banter from me. It also fails to mention the competitive front from Oracle's acquisition of BEA, which is a seismic development, but ultimately fails to seriously threaten the long-term viability of JBoss: Spring and Glassfish, however, do...

Take a look at the corresponding proof-points, first the JCP page for Web Beans, the standardization process of Seam:

http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=299

It is stagnant, while Spring rolls out S2AP and a myriad other complimentary technologies to seize the developer's attention. Seam is dying on the vine, and its own complexity does not bode well for a major roll-out of improvements any time soon. This is coupled with data point #2, which is JBoss' embarrassing inability to finalize and release JBoss 5:

http://www.jboss.org/jbossas/

What on Planet Earth is going on at JBoss, is it true, according to Marcf, that the middleware division at Red Hat, as represented by all of the various JBoss products and projects is under-resourced? Or are we to believe that Exadel, the SOA product-line, and that silly Tuxedo-replacement project is as important as the core Java run-time? I have been wrong before, but i am not buying it...

I am starting to question the ability of new management to take over JBoss' model, even if Red Hat is OSS, it is starting to remind me of the slow but undeniable slide under Alfred after Bill Coleman. Not that Alfred was to blame, there was (as apparently with JBoss) mission-creep in the form of Portal, Integration, and the proprietary Java web services technology that locked developers in to Workshop...But just look at jboss.org, it is a mind-numbing array of ongoing and outstanding projects, with SSO, ESB, and Rules among others seemingly having no delivery date in sight, that translates to project stability...

Please, all u JBossers, come on here and tell me how i'm wrong, i am a well established fan of the history, and hopeful proponent of the future, but things look awry...the Java community needs JBoss, even if Spring is answering some of the development model requirements that were once the sole domain of JBoss, and Glassfish is just going from one impressive enhancement/announcement to the next, but JEE5 and 6 need a representative JBoss app server, otherwise customers will have to look to migrate, its that simple...

I am on the record stating a vision of portability for developers that leads to inter-operability of components across the business environment, that does not come from WebLogic, WebSphere, or even Spring, necessarily...it comes from JBoss, the continued market leader, that seems to be weakened, and if momentum were a gauge of leadership, to have lost the mantle that it so perfectly executed to acquire...what is going to come next that translates in to a reversal of the current state of things in Java-land...

I honestly don't know, but a few recommendations come to mind:

- skip JBoss 5 in favor of 6 (scary thought)

- pare down Seam to a JSF model and leave EJBs for a future rev. (probably too far along to do this)

- outsource some functionality that has been supposedly brought in-house, such as the SSO, ESB, and Rules mentioned above (requires a major policy shift on the JBoss management plan)

- go Linux only (this seems to be the most viable); sure u can have a Windows development environment, but honestly is it strategic to have a deployment environment when 90% of Microsoft shops are going to be doing .Net, anyways...

Its time to start answering the hard questions, and new management is no excuse, perhaps going the tried-and-true route of brining in some airline exec. instead of Marcf was a mistake that too heavily favored the OS business over the ever-more lucrative middleware market...i am just thinking out loud here, and have pissed off too many people in the industry to care whether this hits the JBoss crew as inflammatory: i want to see JBoss succeed, right now, it is definitively not...

Spring arrives

2008-05-02T03:21:00.000-07:00

(I have not been on this blog site for some time, but did write about Glassfish on another blog I maintain; this is my response to the latest news from Spring)....

What is Spring?
In its most basic form, it is a development paradigm, disguised as a component model. Its value proposition is 2-fold, one stated, one not: create higher developer productivity and the unstated goal of replacing EJB. Through a transformation from an open source, proprietary development framework for Java to a borrowed-source, standards-based deployment run-time for its own software, SpringSource is attempting to become a ubiquitous presence in the decision making process of enterprise IT development staff, and potentially in to the echelons of IT management. In short, no company has come as close to the heady achievements of JBoss, as has Spring and its corporate sponsors.

This is why VC's have put money to the cause, and believe that they can achieve the sort of returns that have guided previous calculations on JBoss and MySQL. But even beyond exit strategies, Spring challenges the very foundation of Java and its corporate sponsor, Sun Microsystems with this attempt at ubiquity. For beyond the hype of JSE and JME for desktop apps and mobile devices, respectively, is the true raison d'etre in JEE, where all the Java money resides. Embracing and extending JEE is something that not even Microsoft has figured out, so it is with optimism tempered with caution that the JEE developer utilizes Spring.

Of course, for many, the question is: why caution? By decree from supporters, Spring has become a "de-facto standard", and should thus enjoy the same support and confidence as EJB, in its role as component model for the JCP-managed JEE specification. This is debatable, in the absence of true ubiquity, and the debate has carried on web forums, and presumably within customer accounts. Caution is reserved for EJB as well as Spring in the determination of what constitutes a standard. And ultimately the determination is an academic one, for IT staffs have varying degrees of risk vis-a-vis a standard, let alone different qualifications for what makes a so-called standard important. Suffice to say, when all is said and done about "legacy" EJB and "de-facto" Spring, they are roughly on common ground when claiming standards supremacy.

What is important about being a standard of any kind comes down to a single concept: portability. This takes two forms, along the lines of the component models of EJB and Spring. For EJB, it is through the Application Verification Kit (AVK), and for Spring components, it is assured through the presence of the Spring Framework in the environment which the components run. Both have their strengths and limitations, but without exploring in much detail, and similar to the standards claims of both technologies, EJB and Spring, it is suffice to say that user beware of the portability value proposition.

In short, EJB and Spring, controlled by two very different, yet competitive entities, in Sun and SpringSource, face a future of controlled confrontation. Sure, SpringSource will sit in on Sun's JCP efforts to standardize JEE6, but this will be at expense of unanimous support from vendors on its component model, in the form of EJB 3.1. There are a myriad of sub-factors involved in the emergence of a Spring-endorsed JEE6 specification, from profiles to modularity, but the ultimate outcome is almost assuredly going to be ongoing competition between Sun and SpringSource, between Glassfish and S2AF, and between EJB and Spring, itself. Not even JBoss is relevant enough to engage in the discussion, even with Seam.

And so it will be an incredible display of marketing and engineering in genuity to upstage the other, occassionally with the support of a complimentary vendor for EJB (in the case of JBoss), and for Spring (in the case of WebLogic, assuming its longevity within Oracle).

But ultimately this is an execution based market where the spoils are the ever-monetizable quality of enterprise developer support. Sun and SpringSource have a lot at stake, coming from different stages and both attempting to grab the mantle of counter-weight to .Net. Who will win? Will it be the improving, but tainted EJB? Or will it be the upstart, yet relatively new Spring and its cadre of vocal supporters? Ultimately, only time will tell, and any bet is as good as the opposing one, but the one agreed upon statement is that whoever or whatever bests the other, EJB or Spring, a great deal of IT money will follow. A stalemate of equal but separate marketshare is not an option.

post. 100

2006-08-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

Today, I have embarked on the 100th post of my Blogger career. In keeping with on-line journalistic standards, I have decided to make this something of a re-cap of the past year+, which provided the previous 99 posts. As an aside, considering the information I provide in these posts, that is a fairly prolific clip. One that should continue to draw some interest from those trying to keep up with Sun software and the evolving dominance of Glassfish. Here we go:

I started off with a plea to the developers of the Java world to not give up on Sun, and was quickly rewarded with the launch of Glassfish in June '05:

http://douglasdooley.blogspot.com/2005/06/glassfish.html

I was excited to be alive at this moment because I knew the 4 years I put in at Sun, first in iPlanet, and then in Sun's Java Web Services org., was truly impactful. There were so many attempts at killing off Sun's app server strategy that it felt that we were under seige, coup d'etats and all. But there was a select core that stayed strong, with names like Kampmeier, Howland, Trish, Nelson, Barrett, Parekh, Valia, Balakrishna, Lee, Saletta, and Dooley. We believed that the turn around would come, by blocking and tackling manouveurs. I wonder form time to time where these people are now. One thing I know for sure, Glassfish meant that there was not a black hole on the resume where Sun app server stands.

From there, I wrote the Manifesto that I had promised myself to write some two years prior:

http://douglasdooley.blogspot.com/2005/07/manifesto.html

The Manifesto was an argument for inter-operability and ultimately portability. If there is one concept that pervades the Views on the Industry blog, it is portability. Nothing is more convincing about the Enterprise Java architecture than the possibility that all apps deployed will first have AVK endorsement. I continue on a mission to make this core to Sun's software strategy. A cross-platform apps market makes developers the key constituency in the economy, and that is only bound to benefit the development of the Java Economy.

I have done several pieces on pre-built components, and the componentization of the enterprise software market, with this post being a prominent example.

http://douglasdooley.blogspot.com/2005/08/java-implementations-124.html

But it wasn't until December that I felt like hiot stride, after I was able to publish the words that had been stashed away for two years, with only one living copy available. This was the document that will only prove its worth the further on down the road I go, witness the 3 parts of the Declaration of Determination:

D of D, part 1

D of D, part 2

D of D, part 3

2006 has been a banner year for Sun, JBoss, and Glassfish, as the rest of the app server market falls away, and as Sun releases the Java hardware series. Just simply go through the months to read the chronicling of the monumetal shifts happening each month. Sun should be happy with what I have done for them here, if there is some dissatisfaction with style, then I don't understand their blogs.sun.com initiative. Honesty and Openness are hallmarks of Sun Microsystems, and that is the policy I have followed. Now java.net sets the direction for JEE 5, and the rest of the Sun software strategy.

We are in the process of launching Diamelle's openIAM initiative, and fulfilling the goal of portable apps. The next 100 posts will be nothing but as revolutionary as has happened in the previous year. Some things to look for:
- Clustra functionality with Glassfish
- Diamelle diversification
- JBI-enabled ESBs
- M&A's
- Vindication...

the open source web services play

2006-08-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

It's been a long-time coming, but as you'll see in the right navigation, under the links for Glassfish and Diamelle, there is a new link for openIAM, or Identity and Access Management. By clicking on this link, you'll be taken to a project on Google's new open source repository site, that was recently launched from Diamelle's Suneet Shah. This is the first complete solution for IAM in the open source space, and it has been pre-announced ad nuseum on this blog, and I am just really glad to see it come to life. Lots to do, as Mary Mary would say.

But as we're talking about the right nav., I guess you may have noticed the new links to the Glassfish crew, including a button for the Aquarium. Now, I understand why java.net is a valued repository that does not let any project off-the-web become a standard on this venerable Java site. I get it, guys. But I am going to stick my neck out and risk some of my newfound goodwill with the Glassfish team by saying that I think its time to move beyond Reference Implementation stabilization, and pitch to the marketplace a roadmap of sorts for Glassfish-to-be-Wombatfish. I am frankly somewhat stymied by the lack of information on where java.net intends to take the current combination of projects. Here's my suggestion:

Get a roadmap together
Discuss openESB and openSSO integration with openJava EE
Let customers know when Glassfish/Wombatfish get fail-over capabilities
Put together a go-to-market plan

I am not really sure what is going on in Sun software these days, as Jonathan and John have taken all thunder and placed it in the revenue model of Galaxy sales. That's great for Wall St., but it doesn't do much for Sun's customers who are busily investing in SOA and Java. At least Niagara gave a model for Java app sales that was 1:1 compatible for hardware sales. Ok, Im off message a little...

Sun software has never been in such a strong position, and part of me thinks it is somewhat by accident because there is not a follow-through plan that I can detect. If there were, we would be sensing something coming out of Sun that would explain why on earth it is joining the SCA/SDO coalition:

http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=41577

I can only imagine what Mr. Bauhus is thinking about his JBI intiative, when non-standard, non-Java implementations get more airtime from Sun PR than the vital JBI program for openESB. Once you lose momentum on an initiative where people want to bury it initially, it is very difficult to keep the JBoss' of the world on the semi-support front. But that is not my main concern.

I just don't get a cohesive feel from the java.net site, which I now understand to be Sun's software strategy going forward. I am not getting traction which is to be expected of a semi-autonomous representative of a small ISV. But I am the closest thing to family outside of the payroll, and I can't get an answer back on what are the next steps. The bottom-line is this: software marketing and software engineering are not aligned at Sun. The SDN, GSO, and Java Web Services org.'s within Sun should be all over the three initiaitives I laid out in the itemized plan above: openJava EE, openESB, openSSO. But they are not concentrating on any software initiaitive.

It makes me think back to the rise of the reign of JS when some Wall St. analyst was propping him up by saying that from here on out, software would begin to represent most of Sun's profits. That simply is not true today, even though it very well could be a plan. Project Orion is only viable with integration, and that will only happens via java.net. It doesn't take me to say this for it to be obvious. While we wait around for the open sourcing of Java, the real business flounders. Is this by design? I don't think so. But until some of my questions get answered in the press by Mr. Bauhaus, or some initiatives get revealed by Mary Mary, then I will be a bit sceptical.

Remember guys, when you go open source, you have a responsibility to the community which you have grown to make the commitment to be successful. It just baffles me that all the tools are in place, and yet nothing comes out that gives me a jolt like I am part of a market-changing initiative that is about to blow-up on the web. I get that sense from the small steps taken by Diamelle with openIAM. I don't get that same feeling from Sun Software. Eduardo, Rich, Pratik, I challenge you to make it happen...

intranet v. extranet

2006-07-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

"Our 'Live' efforts will have a natural side effect of increasing the use of genuine software," Ozzie said. What on earth is Ray talking about? He is now being processed in to the monster of benign attempts to change the software landscape in his current annointment to software CTO at Microsoft. I typically stay closer to the heart of enterprise software, but this quote struck me this morning as I was waking up. Are we to assume that web services are non-genuine? That, perhaps, businesses should not make serious investments in the cloud, for fear that:

1. It will be in-operable with current software infrastructure.
or
2. It will be merely a conduit toward more sophisticated rich-app implementations.

There are two points that may not be so obvious, but I would like to call attention to:

1. When did the advertising agencies of the Internet co-opt the term web services?
and
2. When are businesses going to actually implement an SOA infrastructure?

To me, it seems that we have been building out the intranet capabilities for 10 years, and dabbling in supply chain effectiveness through small attempts at an extranet infrastructure, but making little progress to an integrated architecture. We have had many launches, and claims of interoperability through XML, primarliy. But not much is going on with JAX and .Net as far as I can tell. My release of SunONE AS7 and JAX-RPC seems to be the only legitimate effort to marry the app server development experience with JAX technologies, not counting the dutiful support of the tools vendors. We need more, and it needs to come from Glassfish and JBoss if we are going to go anywhere with a JAX-based web services infrastructure for SOA.

In conjunction with the JAX support, there needs to be a burgeoning initiative around extranet development of integrated networks. I thought Loudcloud was trying to do this before selling out to BMC (i think). Or were they just trying to do N1 things. Either way, let's make some headway in moving away from LDAP-only architectures, and toward some federation among SSO platforms. Today, I am calling on Sun to open up the java.net homebase for a new release of an open source, identity-enabled Access manager in the form of Diamelle's proposed openIAM project. This will move us away from an intranet viewpoint, and toward the valued extranet services that the cloud calls for, and that vendors will ultimately need to support.

In short, Sun once again holds the cards, as JBoss scrambles to put together its Portal and ESB strategy, not to mention the release of JBoss AS5 with JEE5 support. Glassfish is leading the way to integration and open source excellence. That is a difficult pair to match, and will ultimately be valuable for Sun consultants and partners, which will in turn sell Sun hardware. By making the case for an extended enterprise, Sun will open up the market for Sun-enabled SOA infrastructures, just as I prescribed for Sun's software business to Mr. Bauhaus at the end of July '03. Right before being pushed out the door. Make my bet pay off, and embrace the Diamelle proposition of an expansive worldview of Identity and Access Management (IAM), turn us on java.net, and allow us to kick-start the developer initiatives around JAX, JBI, and IAM. Ultimately, in re-shaping the software landscape, allies are needed, even against out-of-touch mega-vendors, such as Micrososft.

I don't know how else to make my case than to just repeat it: now is a unique time in Sun's history, and truly in the history of software - - you have a Java product that could become the market leader. Grab hold of this opportunity, let me help you, and this could be the beginning of a truly great run...

time to take out WebLogic

2006-07-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened since 1998. That year marks the heyday of the independent software vendors who supported the notion of an operating system for the Internet. First, it was Netscape. NSCP engineered a complete solution of buy and sell side applications built around the now infamous troika of Web Server-Application Server-Directory Server. BuyerXpert and SellerXpert were later joined by ECXpert for EBI-integration. But it took three start-ups to truly transform the middlware space: Kiva, NetDynamics, and WebLogic. Some credit should be thrown to ATG, SilverStream (later acquired by Novell), and Bluestone (later acquired by HP). But it was Kiva's acquisition by Netscape, NetDynamic's acquisition by Sun, and WebLogic's acquisition by BEA that made developers take notice. Then came the acquisition of Netscape by AOL in Nov. 1998, which would soon form the Sun-Netscape Alliance in March 1999, and Sun's Stuart Wells was offered the opportunity to decide whether to build around NAS or ND.

Much to the chagrin of the NetDynamics team, including my friends Christian Cheline and Peter Yared, Stuart chose Netscape middleware to use in the formation of iPlanet, a Sun-Netscpae Alliance. But this would turn out to be the opening that would allow BEA to cash in with WebLogic. For as we were launching J2EE 1.2 in June 2000, WebLogic was quick to follow iPlanet Application Server with a developer-focused product. Something that ND could have done, but wouldn't have the opportunity to as we phased out ND with version 5.2. WebLogic exploded and was the self-proclaimed quickest asoftware company to hit $1 B in sales in software history. Contrary to the belief of Eric Stahl, Sun orchestrated the growth of WebLogic through GSO sales opportunitites, where a proven app server was needed. I mentioned that alot has changed since 1998, but in reality very little has changed since 2000. BEA still relies on WebLogic sales and maintenance on top of Solaris for the great majority of its revenue.

We grinded out iAS 6.0, and then iAS 6.5, and then launched Sun ONE Application Server 7, followed by Sun Java System AS 8 and 8.1. In that time, very little damage has been inflicted on this foreign Java OS we call WebLogic which has through guerrilla tactics penetrated the Sun apparatus. It is time for that to change. In my most recent previous post, I outlined what Sun's Java Web Services marketing organization needs to do to promote Glassfish, and this is exactly aimed at WebLogic, for several reasons. No least among them is that Sun fans have never lost the hope that it would turn out a Java OS that would match WebLogic. That moment has arrived. Glassfish, in the form of SJSAS 9.0, has superceded BEA's efforts around WebLogic. It is now time for Sun's Global Sales Organization to recognize the gigantic migration opportunity available, which will in turn lead to sales of Galaxy and Niagara.

It is time for a reemergence of a Sun that offers a competitive solution to WebSphere, but that is for another post. Right now, right here, Sun needs to institutionalize the concept of a WebLogic replacement campaign, and once and for all eliminate the possibility that anything but Glassfish is the program going forward. There is no excuse for delay from CEO down to software executives and decision makers. Take the one step that will rejuvenate the Sun installed base, and generate immediate revenue from services and new hardware sales. It is time to take out WebLogic from the GSO price book...

how to beat JBoss (via Glassfish)

2006-07-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked about the burgeoning initiative around Glassfish and how it could compete with JBoss. As I have mentioned, the two are completely complimentary in turning back the proprietary oligopoly of WebLogic, WebSphere, and Oracle Fusion:

Glassfish v. JBoss

But given that this is a competitive market and given the corporate tendency toward a Solaris v. Linux struggle, there is going to be some consideration of how to catch-up with the original Enterprise Java OSS platform.

"No sales pitch, no media hype, no hydro, its nice and right." (the Streets)

First things first, what we are talking about is an ecosystem, because as has been proven not once (WL), not twice (WS), but three times (JBoss), the true measure of an enterprise app server platform is how much business is carried on top of your infrastructure. The Glassfish team has been particularly effective in building a technology ecosystem, but has yet to build an effective solutions business. I say this with no disregard for the efforts of the Java app server team at Sun, top notch is my opinion. But there is a new game with the release of SJSAS 9.0, and the upcoming builds of Glassfish stabilization. Sun is officially leading the JEE5 market, including introduction of EJB3, Java Persistence, and an integrated web framework around AJAX, JSF, and JSP.

With very little of the Enteprise Java market on version 5 yet, this does not carry a whole lot of business...yet. What needs to be done is to move Glassfish in to a business model not just a location on java.net. This is a Java OS, as I have said, and an OS requires a channel system that will pull along Glassfish and the magical model of Sun hardware with it. That is why the upcoming suggestions might be read by Jonathan sometime - - if Glassfish is a business and with each new build there is a growing expertise in the ISV and SI markets, there will be a "volume" market for Glassfish. The magical "pixie dust" that Red Herring used to talk about in 1998 in regards to Sun's use of Java will soon become a wedge used by Sun to get into accounts. Hardly just pixie dust. Glassfish, not Solaris, will drive Sun's hardware business, and this is the introductory steps that need to be taken to get there:

1) Beyond discussion forums, Glassfish partners need a section of the glassfish.dev.java.net portal dedicated to porting, performance, and integration of ISV apps on to Glassfish. This should include best practices, documentation, and success stories. Get Mary Mary involved, and make some contests out of it. This is the advantage of a Java Web Services marketing org.

2) Build an ecosystem with a repository of solutions offered on Glassfish, and match these with cusomter needs. This will take a gigantic leap of faith fro Sun's management to turn over Glassfish leads away from Sun GSO and to partners, so maybe integrate the two in the sales process. What I mean by this is to provide a web section, similiar to what Flashline used to do with their components marketplace where customers would theoretically state their development need, and developers would bid on the service to provide as a solution. In this case, on the Glasfish portal, build the capability for customers to state their needs, and let the ISVs and SIs bid on the solution.

3) Allow consultants to suggest intiaitives that will advocate design wins on Glassfish. Like I was saying to Eduardo, I will be working with Diamelle and will have leads for how to build a complete Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution on top of Glassfish. When consultants currently have suggestions for how to generate business on Glassfish, there is no methodology for how to connect with the appropriate Sun sales engineer. I may be available to bring joint marketing of Glassfish in to the IAM market, as well. How should I do that? Mary, you owe me one. :)

In close, Glassfish is on the edge (dare I say at the precipice, as well) from developer relevance to business execution. It is time to consider that the market is holding its breath and seeing whether Sun will blink as they (app server competitors) have been stunned by the hugely successful launch of Glassfish. Don't blink, Sun. Now is the time to put the foot on the accelerator and move the market according to the business needs of Galaxy (v. IBM and HP) and Niagara (v. Azul). Now is the time to build the ecosystem that will carry not downloads, but measures of millions of dollars in partner revenue. Make the Glassfish partners happy, and then give me one reason why they would not recommend Sun hardware for the actual deployment. Everything is in place, fund the ecosystem...

Positivity...

at the precipice

2006-07-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

Through yesterday's Sun announcement of new hardware solutions, I was able to acknowledge to myself that I, like Sun, are at the edges of a comeback. It has been a difficult half-decade for both parties, but both seem better positioned to impact the marketplace after doing the requisite searching that is needed to turn back from the edge. Sun is once again a product company, and I am once again a solo-entrepreneur. It is a challenging venture and one that I cannot say with complete confidence will be an initial success. I am living with the understanding and conviction that it is a mission to be attempted and with all ventures that involve risk, there is potential reward.

I must also acknowledge that Sun is no longer my company, and that the direction it goes in will be a revenue run toward relevance, that most likely will be directed through hardware servers. This is a challengin concept to all of us who know what Glassfish could mean. It is also very
Solaris-driven which has the potential to completely backfire on management given the undeniable push toward standards-based Linux. JBoss has bet on this, which says to me that it is not unreasonable to believe that they can make something big out of it. But it is now Glassfish that intrigues and is the upstart in the Java OS equation. I know my venture will be betting on its success in equal measure to JBoss.

What will JBoss SSO and Open SSO turn out to be - - that is yet to be determined, and yet to be investigated, but it might be a stop-gap between now and the likely formation of federated Identity management. What should I do to make this happen? Well for those paying attention I am throwing my personal initiative behind Diamelle and its attempt to modularize IDM into an app market solution. Where that will take us is anyone's bet right now, but it would seem that we're all making far reaching bets in the nascent SOA market. Sun is betting on capacity which is a good bet. Oracle is betting on maintenance to support a WebLogic acquisition. Red Hat is betting on JEE which is a solid bet. Lots of start-ups are betting on development tools to carry them through the opaqueness of the day. we are betting on pre-built apps, and no we are not going near Oracle for some time.

I am near a personal precipice that will only be revealed the further I go in to it. I believe that this will be a turn of events that will eventually lead me to sustainability, but until then I will be rolling along, watching...

Music I need: the Streets, Lady Sovereign, Kweli: Right about Now, Ziggy Marley, The Little Willies, and DP's 20:20 would be good to listen to.

JBoss SSO

2006-07-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

A new piece of the puzzle is released here:

http://labs.jboss.com/portal/jbosssso/?prjlist=false

In brings to market an app server app solution to single sign-on. Not necessarily an enterprise solution. I will wait to see how serious they are about creating app solutions that run on the app server, not the add-on features that they care clearly going to win with, such as Hibernate, Cache, and development frameworks, such as Seam. JBoss SSO seems to me to be the first attempt at an app by an app server vendor since WebLogic Commerce, I don't count Portals. Alongside Open SSO from java.net at Sun, JBoss is begrudingly admitting that the app server and platform features are becoming harder to sell for profit. It needs to be the platform for the app market that will be bigger than the app server market. I believe that there will be a new set of companies to compete in the nascent apps market. But that does not mean JBoss won't be a factor. It just won't have a natural business model to disrupt. The app market will be different. In a few weeks, we'll be releasing the initial app product to disrupt...

Identity management is an app

2006-06-28T10:54:00.000-07:00

I see Mr. Bauhaus has picked up IDM within Sun:

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/bios/bios-bauhaus.html

That is good for the partners, but demonstrates that Sun is playing a revenue game and not a disrupter advantage plan. The majority of the IDM vendors are still involved in a territory battle over who can generate the largest accounts complete with as many users as possible. The problem is that there is not much room left in the corporate accounts. I remember selling the iPlanet Web Server-Application Server-Directory Server solution, which turned in to the Java Web Services Reference Architecture for Sun ONE Application Server 7. This was the time for IDM solutions to be bundled as enterprise-wide solutions. But now the market has changed. We are truly entering the market for distributed apps. These apps will be running on a distributed platform. How many times do I need to tell PJ Murray that this means an app server? I love ya PJ, if you are the guy from Cape Clear ancestory, you believed in the Sun app server when no one else did, but don't let those early stumbles force you to run from Java.

IDM is an app. IDM is a Java platform requirement with JAAS and JNDI. IDM is no longer just about LDAP. IDM is no longer about flat-file structures, as WebLogic was able to do for years, and may still do. Where are ya Rich, or are you to busy writing for the Aquarium to let me know. Has anyone noticed the issues that Glassfish is on these days, its pretty comprehensive. As JEMS gets built to do what BEA could not do around WL, Glassfish is slowly gobbling up JEE5. Not that JBoss won't be there, but Sun's app platform group is making a strong case for future deployments. They also have Open SSO, but its tough to tell what the relationship is with Glassfish. There architecture released last year is on a web server!?

https://www.dev.java.net/files/documents/3676/19701/architecture.pdf

Read to page 12-21 of the document, or page 16-25 of the .pdf to see their architecture. This is an oversight that we apps are .html docs only, potentially with some XML. Not once is the word Java written. It may be time to put some PMs and PMMs on this, Mark. Or at least introduce the Glassfish team to Open SSO.

"Everytime I touch the paper, its murder I wrote. I got that flow for the street, stay ahead of the times, stay behind the beat." (DP)

Write the infrastructure around your app server, write your apps on an app server. Its that simple, consultants of the world. If you're doing anything else, you are locking in to a Microsoft port after cost-benefit of lock-in preferences are determined. Sun is writing to a web server because of long-standing prejudices that have almost been washed away with Glassfish. But I wish Open SSO well in their pursuit of the web tier, while we take the Enterprise Java tier...

IDM

2006-06-23T09:57:00.000-07:00

Let me ask a question to the Java participants - - what would it mean to add identity management to every single application function, so that we can determine upfront who and why a user is able to access resources? Would this not be the answer to Java web services in a distributed environment, though you may ask where is the central repositiory of data. Well, why not have the data sources be tied together by the identity management software, and then add-in registry software that incorporates sign-in. I believe I have solved a long-running problem in the roll-out of reusable web services, as well as basis for new app development. Not in the form of new professional services fees, necessarily, but the implementation of a development paradigm that recognizes the need for security and usability for identity. These topics typically are so mundane that I don't pay much attention, but the reality is that the Java developer community needs a direction to address the requirements of SOA.

ESB platforms

2006-06-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

The recent news out of Red Hat/JBoss is the acquisition of Rosetta which means that a new developer project on top of JEMS has delivered a core architecture to the burgeoning OSS-based platform. This brings a new chapter to the SOA market, as previously only BEA has had the full program for web services. Of course, Sun is also out there with JBI, and IBM is dancing with Apache. There are plenty of smaller vendors in the form of Cape Clear and Systinet, but the solutions will be built around existing app server implementations, so these will be ancilliary products anot SOA Operating Systems. The OS belongs to the few that can match JBI and JEE fucntionality.

But the question on the minds of many people within the Java community seems to be: what is an ESB? What is event management? Even JBoss' representation of their acquisition is lightweight, I don't understand what ESBs do that JAX does not do. I certainly accept ignorance on my part because JBoss and Bauhaus know what they are doing, but they need some use case scenarios to explain to the developer community and the analysts. Though I am happy to see that JBoss is supporting JBI. I have spoken in length about JBI and what it means for the app server market:

http://douglasdooley.blogspot.com/2005/11/jbi.html

I am not suggesting that the need for ESBs is undermined to the point that we need to discuss its relevance or need. I am just not clear as to what developers are supposed to do with it. Someone talk back somewhere...

9/26/00

2006-06-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

For those in doubt of whether we are committed to the developers, please refer to something that startd over 5 years ago:

http://www.diamelle.com/news/iPlanet.htm

Did I mention something about Phase I being done, it is, and we are moving on to Phase II, only this time we'll complete it in less than 5 years...

day 1

2006-06-14T08:39:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time coming and it will be some time before we can claim victory, as my friend's brother said last night, what differentiates you? But the Diamelle boys are starting to come to life, as witnessed their post on TSS this week:

http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=40862#211229

I see that JEE Tools includes the Sun Access Manager, could it be that we are starting to make people think over there about a Java OS and what it needs. For me, day 1 is about starting a fresh and finding the courage to take the battle to the next level with the support of the developer community. I think this can be done through execution from Diamelle, and the wilingness of Enterprise Java developers to embrace a future where the app server is about positive portability of apps, and not about compatibility of specifications alone. This will require an investment on the forums to move the discussions beyond what the major players are doing, and back to what the developers are doing at the micro-level.

JBoss, Geronimo, Glassfish, and the rest are on a path that cannot be upended. I can no longer take credit for this development, it is up to the engineers and product managers at the respective organizations to take the bold step toward developer empowerment, and no this does not necessarily mean Studio Creator. It means making the dream-turned-objective of portability a reality and a financially rewarding venture for the thousands of Java developers who have sustained the app server market. It is now up to the development community to take the regins back from the vendors and demonstrate how the Java Economy will be built. Its time we blow this spot.

Come back next week and I will have a link to the second phase of the Diamelle roll-out, here is Phase I:

http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2006/6/emw393099.htm

Until then, brace yourself for the evolution of change that comes only when those that code are allowed to make the decisions on how best to code...

deep tech

2006-06-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

"Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and the other inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, there is war." (S.O'C.)

The merger closed this week:

http://www.jboss.com/pdf/press/acquisition.pdf

Now, its on to the big leagues for the guys who resetted the developer debate, if not the economics of the app server market. I would like to take some credit for the free movement in Enterprise Java land, but I am too exhausted today to sing my song. Rather, I would like to talk about identity management, and what it means to have security in the web enterprise. My friends at Diamelle are busy away creating a release that will have some bearing on this debate. In fact, when it comes out it will introduce the identity management excercise in to the service-oriented architecture plans of IT. How so?

Well for one, Diamelle IDM is an app running on an app server. As we all should know by now, the Java app server is the SOA operating system, with the corresponding JBI, BPEL, and related dev. tools supporting Enterprise Java's creation of the 'services' that will run in the SOA enivornment. This is the one thing that has caused me to pause around the web services talk and even the SOA banter - - how do you create services? They don't just appear out of mid-air, even though the Cape Clears of the world would like you to ditch the invstment in Java and go to their dev. tools. Don't get me wrong, I long for the day of working with Cape Clear, they are a dark horse. But Annrai's talk on app servers is purely self-serving, and more than that, is wrong.

Back to IDM with SOA. Why is this important (you can't stay with me, J.S.)? It's an applications world, not an app enivornment world. Developers run the show and always will, or I guess until the BEA Beehive and Business Manager tools do something. I am not holding my breath. Deep tech is about creating business, or should I say enterprise, apps. This is what Diamelle is doing with IDM. App-level identity management to be carried around with your services, not some central repository in a singular datacenter. That is not the cloud:

http://www.economist.com/surveys/displayStory.cfm?story_id=568249

Within days, Diamelle will be introducing a SOA solution for IDM that will re-shape the economics of app distribution and SOA development. Check with me if you need more information on how this renders Sun, IBM, CA, and Novell irrelevant. Either get on an app server and get on the train, or get out of the game...

integrate Glassfish and Solaris

2006-06-01T10:28:00.000-07:00

Solaris 8, Update 6 to Solaris 9, Update 3. To most readers that would be Sun-speak for complexity in the form of maintenance upgrades, but to Douglas Howland who ran the application server program integration in to Sun proper that was the timeframe when the future of operating systems was at hand. Beginning with my friends on the Solaris marketing team in the Winter of 2001-02 when the free license of iPlanet Application Server 6.5 was provided with Solaris distros, and continuing to Update 3 when Solaris was actually shipped with a full license copy of Sun ONE Application Server 7, Platform Edition, that was included in the installation of the OS. Is anyone hearing me?

Solaris was once the distribution platform for Sun's application server. Enterprise Java was once a core feature of the OS. No other vendor could make such a claim, I am not even sure if Microsoft was making that claim on Windows with their .Net technology, though they are surely to do so now. And red Hat will be looking to integrate JBoss in to the distro of Red Hat 5. Why the change for Sun? I really don't know, or rather I don't really feel like speculating, after yesterday's post, i am trying to stay away from politics today. No once cares about DTrace. No one cares about Solaris Containers. Ohh yes, Jonathan, many you have heard of sys admins liking these features and that is why they are sticking with Solaris over Red Hat. I doubt it.

The only competitive blackade you have against Red Hat dominating the enterprise OS market is Glassfish. And it is time to integrate Application Server 9, Platform Edition in to Solaris 10, as should have been done all along. Stop protecting BEA (oops, I couldn't help myself). Otherwise, I am going to have to advise my partner to take his business elsewhere. This is Sun's opportunity for growth, this is Sun's time to get pure Sun solutions on Java hardware, and it is time to establish Sun's app server as the predominant deployment platform. Get to it Tom Gougen, Rich Green, et al. Glassfish is waiting, JBoss is coming, and your days as I have said since last summer are numbered:

http://douglasdooley.blogspot.com/2005/06/oss.html

(notice my claim that Red Hat-JBoss acquisition would not happen; may be wrong here, but not when it comes to a Solaris app server)

lit up, burnt, and rendered irrelevant

2006-05-31T11:39:00.000-07:00

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...

prolific Java

2006-05-30T11:51:00.000-07:00

"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...

compatibility v. portability

2006-05-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

Ahh, platform talk from Jonathan:

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan?entry=busy_week1

It brings me to another blog entry. What exactly is compatibility, well last time I was in the Sun software organization, I remember that compatibility was passing 4-10K tests that would certify the app server of choice was J2EE compatibile with the latest spec. At this time 1.3. I would imagine that with the introduction of the JAX technologies, many new tests have come in to play, in version 1.4. And now with JEE5, there is simplicity for the developer, but considering the growing size of the Sun app server footprint, the complexity of the app server has increased, which all leads me to believe that the number of tests has grown quite some. Maybe 20K tests?

There is some indication that an app server vendor needs to adhere to the SDK on all 20,000 tests in order to be JEE5 compatible. Is it any wonder that there are many less app server licensees, since we launched J2EE 1.2 in June 2000:

http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2000-06/sunflash.20000606.4.xml

It comes down to a simple equation for Sun:

Compatibility = a licensing fee

The fact that Oracle, IBM, and BEA can claim compatibility with J2EE is funny, at best. They are truly proporietary architectures. Ever since the launch of J2EE, the most inventive new tool for application developers has been the AVK or the Application Verification Kit. Now I know this a new set of tests, but it is much more relevant than the 20K tests of app server compatibility.

For what is achieved with the AVK is 'Portability'. Compatibility is nothing, it means nothing but assurance that Sun feels good about the vendor. Portability, however is something altogether different.

I am going to take this moment as an opportunity for the Glassfish team to get more integrated with the AVK for all apps that come along. They should not be just able to run on Glassfish builds, but also run 100% on the AVK in order to get joint marketing. Think about this, please, Eduardo.

Back to portability. JEE app developers: do not let the app server vendors fool you and think that compaibility is sufficient for your purposes. Portability is where Java Economics works (aside form the comments at the end of this link):

http://douglasdooley.blogspot.com/2005/07/java-economics.html

So when Jonathan speaks of compatibility, he is thinking of the $20M that he values (for what reason?) from licensees, but he is not thinking about the portability initiaitive that app vendors need. Think about it Sun, you are still acting like an insular company, that need not build business, when the tools to build for Java's growth is already available in the form of the AVK. Think if all Java houses were using the AVK and there was an open marketplace of Java apps. That seems to me like that would help the goal of selling more Java solutions and more Sun gear to run those Java solutions and apps...

Glassfish, 1 year on

2006-05-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

(I am making up for the conference-going, vacation-deserving Glassfish reps., as an explanation to my proficiency in this Blog the past 10 days)

A JBoss acquisition, a plea for resistance from BEA (http://www.theregister.com/2006/05/24/bea_open_source_sun_jboss/), an acquisition of Geronimo by IBM, another year fo defensive moves from Oracle, and a stumbling .Net priority. It would be hard to associate all of this with the announcement that put Sun back on the map last year at Java One, but it would be even more irresponsible to understate what it has accomplished, as I was saying to PP the other day. For those who know either Sun or the Enterprise Java market, there is one barometer to measure success: the Sun application server is the Reference Implementation for JEE5. there is no way this happens without the move toward Glassfish.

"'Stop dreaming.' The people who are saying that are blaspheming, they're doing 9-5 and moaning, and they don't want you succeeding."

The mantra of open source has been the introduction of an economy that finally values high-end developers. I still love Charlie's Angels scene when the girls are whipping the developers into mental shape, to make them realize that they hold the keys to the castle. For too long, pseudo-business people have taken advantage of the developers of the world and convinced them that they do not know business, so they cannot make decisions. Well, those days are dead. I'm not a coder, but neither would I expect some of my associates to go back to coding now that they are making business decisions. But what we all know is that developers now run the business world. You can't run a business without an app server infrastructure, and you can't run an app server without developers.

Open source has opened up the barriers to entry, and leveled the salary, or rather the hourly consulting fees, structure. Where did that come from. Well, all props to JBoss. But as the VC community sees it, they were just filling a void that was left there by the vendors. Now they are a vendor themself. So we come back to Glassfish. It has been an impressive run for the team. They were discredited, disregarded and came back to demonstrate their relevance by dominating Java One 2006. I would like to thank the Sun app server team for being so bold in their ambitions to compete in the heavily competitive open source app server business. Carla, Eduardo, Pratik, and ahhem, Rich have led a market de-stabilizing initiative that will have lasting consequences on Sun's business and the Enterprise Java market.

Congratulations on turning 1, let's amp it up for year 2...

re-cap of J1

2006-05-23T08:25:00.000-07:00

It's 2006, hard to believe that it has been 10 years since Java and Netscpae teamed up to begin building an infrastructure for middleware, and yet we still are building the platform. Aside from all the supposed complexity that the JEE5 is solving for, there is still too much complexity in the implementation of new revisions of the Enterprise Java platform for the vendors that depend on the standard for their livelihood. I speak of the apps companies and the apps vendors in the form of systems integrators. Nowhere is their more promise of growth in Java revenue than from the mid-sized integrators, even the international integrators that have adopted JBoss for their business offering. I say this in order to point out the opps. that are in front of the Java enablers - - the platform vendors, that we have talked about in great deal on this Blog.

I cannot take another Java One when there are no news worth listening to. I am listening to Glassfish people, I called that before anyone outside of Sun. But beside the implementations of JEE5, there was nothing that came out of SFO that was worth relating to as a non-participant at J1. Jonathan can prop up RG all he wants but the reality is that no one outside of Eclipse that cares about open sourcing Java. I don't see how that will grow the market for revenue. I don't want to come across as the negative blogger on Java issues, I have just realized that the whole Java middleware market is a Masquerade, it is set-up to destroy independent software vendors who are basing their plans on the supposed opportunity in the Java market. It is not real.

I am going to go through a several step process of engaging with the Glassfish team and see if that is a new opportunity that can be leveraged, but I am going to be honest along the way. I am going to point out deficiencies and praise successes. They are doing something very good for developers, lets see if they can do it for the software vendors that they rely on for future growth. I am not convinced that glassfish is integrated in to the existing infrastructure at Sun for partners, based on current experiences with their Partner Program people, but I am optimistic that the Glassfish reps. themselves will be available for advice and help.

I am here Glassfish to promote you guys as the next thing to push Java forward, we just need some help in the field, as well. there is a gigantic opportunity out there, let us help each other. For starters, do not limit yourself to one solution/technology need. Utilize the scale of partners to reach more than what Sun's GSO is able to reach, and find a way to scale internal operations. I remember when i was on the Sun application server product team, we were stretched too thin to do anything but refer people to the forums and the web-site for partner programs. I think it is going to take more than that this time around, you guys can do it, I can see it. Even JBoss will be looking for answers to the Glassfish approach. Let's just keep working it out...

Sun's Partner Program

2006-05-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

this is not sufficient, there is no way that developers are going to know how nor care about the implications of a Sun Partner Adavantage Program. I was somewhat pleasantly surprised to find out that JBI was featured on the partner portal! But this means nothing to me, there is no chance that I will make money off of this. Well, here it is, more at the end of this post:

"Subject: Welcome to the Sun Partner Advantage Program

Dear douglas dooley:

Congratulations! Your application as a Member of the
Sun Partner Advantage Program has been received and approved. Your
Company ID is xxxxxx.

To find information about your company's benefits, please visit the
Sun Partner Advantage Program main page at http://sun.com/partners/development
and log in to the Membership Center at the top right-hand corner of
the page. To log in, enter your email address or Company ID and password.
You may also access the Membership Center to add or change your
company details at any time.

In addition to having access to the Membership Center, which is filled
with valuable customized information and details of the benefits and
offerings available to Sun Partners, you will receive the Sun Partner Advantage News, the monthly newsletter of the Sun Partner Advantage Program.

To fully realize the benefits of the Sun Partner Advantage Program, eligible
members can apply to become a Sun Partner; check the Sun Partner
eligibility requirements at http://www.sun.com/partners/development/.
As a Partner, you will be eligible for the following comprehensive
resources to help you successfully create, market and sell your solutions:

- discounted hardware and software
- co-marketing and sales services
- engineering-level technical support

To take advantage of these benefits, you simply need to complete the
Sun Partner Advantage Program application, which you have already started, by
providing your company and product information. You can access the
application from the Membership Center.

Should you have questions about the Sun Partner Advantage Program or any of our
offerings, feel free to email a Sun Partner Advantage Program Contact Center in your region:

partneradvantage_amer@sun.com - Americas
partneradvantage_emea@sun.com - Europe, Middle East and Africa
partneradvantage_asia@sun.com - Asia Pacific

A complete list of free, worldwide phone and fax numbers is also
available on: http://sun.com/partners/contacts/international.html

Thank you for participating in the Sun Partner Advantage Program.

Best regards,

Sun Partner Advantage Program Contact Center"

Think about it Jonathan, Mark B., Rich G., and anyone else charged with making money off of Java - - how are you going to ever have a viable enterprise platform if you, Sun, are the only touchpoint in to customers. You need me and my partner selling in to customers, carrying along Glassfish, and then pushing T1 in order to have optimized Java performance. This is the model that Microsoft has perfected. They make money off of direct sales to OEM's, but they embed their technology in companies, especially the thousands of mid-tier firms through...partners.

FY07 should be the year of Enterprise Java, should be the year the Java market grew by $1B from $5B to $6B, shoudl be the year that partners carried Sun to relevance again. Instead, I can only imagine what new press releases will distract the press from gthe real task of making Java sell...

what is SAP?

2006-05-19T08:22:00.000-07:00

The lone stalwart against joining the Enterprise Java middleware market, SAP has chosen to build a proprietary infrastructure betting that its installed base is larger than the Java market's coverage. Unfortunately, they may be right. This seems to be a theme among the supposedly non-Microsoft vendors who are doing everything they can to lock-in their customers, there is so much banter about compatibility, and nothing to show for it outside of the open source app server vendors. SAP, Oracle, BEA, IBM are all proprietary, and it is difficult to choose which one is worse than the others, but think I am going to talk about SAP, for today.

It is difficult really to understand what SAP is trying to do. They have their ESA architecture and their NetWeaver platform, kind of like SOA on top of app servers. Here is where everything is up for grabs. Not only can you "extend" NetWeaver to utilize enterprise Java and .Net, but ESA allows you to do composite servcies in the form of...components. I cna almost foresee SAP being the first to actually settle on the components market for software, but alas they are only going to be able to run on NetWeaver, so the real value proposition of portability is negated.

What SAP is also missing is the ability to engage with the developer community, amkes one wonder how many ESA developers they have writing on NetWeaver, I would suppose several thousand, since no one else is going to be writing to it, as it is proprietary. However, there is another angle at this:

SAP may not be too keen on Sun's stewardship of Java, in terms of the large amount of rev's that are needed to keep up with the spec., and its ever evolving architecture. Maybe SAP is saying they will do their own thing until the JEE crowd setlle on a set of features. I personally think after JEE5, it is time to allow the developers and customers to standardize on this new and better platform. Instead the Peter Yared's of the world (peace out, bro) will call for AJAX and PHP, etc. to be utilized on the JEE platform. Who cares? Let them do JEE6, but all businesses should standardize on JEE5, and let SAP show us what they are made of (sorry Sarah Gates, I ended my sentence in a preposition).

On to a few topics, briefly:

- is it legit to say now that Glassfish pointed JBoss toward Red Hat? Remember, Marc's post from last summer "Sun open sources X, Y, Z...who cares?" Oh, how much does a year make.

- does anyone think that SeeBeyond scored relatively more than Cobalt for useless Sun cash spent on acquisitions. This CAPS thing is indecipherable:
http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2006-05/sunflash.20060517.1.xml

- has Apache fallin off the map ever since the Geronmio boys became IBMers?

- is Identity management a product worth investing in at Sun (reference to SAP, also):
http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2006-05/sunflash.20060517.4.xml

- where is JBI? will it be finished this fall?
http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=208

- is JCA dead (I told you JK)?

- who will win in the power struggle between products and technologies at Sun (don't bet against technologies)?

monetizing java

2006-05-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

I am moved by my post from yesterday, and still await Eduardo's response, that making money off of Java has become next to impossible. Between proprietary extensions eliminating portability with WL & WS to the lawsuit Sun has brought against Azul, there is very little that the big vendors are allowing to seep through to the next layer of vendors that are looking to make money off the left-overs of the $5B market for Java middleware. Gavin points out that Sun is basing its future on the concept of monetizing Java:

http://www.theregister.com/2006/05/17/sun_services_strategy/

IBM has already invested in this task by creating a WebSphere consulting force
that probably represents close to 50% of their revenue, BEA is on life-support from their WebLogic maintenance revenue (I disregard press releases that sing license growth), and Oracle is betting their infrastructure around maintenance revenue for Fusion. JBoss does not get lumped in to this because they are enabling a new crowd of developers, but they are nto doing much for their partners, at least those that are innovating around Enterprise Java, such as apps companies. There is no way the Java market will happen without portability, so that the burgeoning apps market actually can take advantage of that 250%+ market share that app servers have gained (>100%, due to adoption of multiple brands within companies).

That is why I am going to do from now on out, refer to the 5 platform vendors (4 after the eventual Oracle-WebLogic buyout) as brands that are doing everything they can to reference their own success but doing close to nothing for their partners. Partner programs are lipservice, plain and simple. For all the incredible success that Mr. Bauhaus has had over the past 12 months, his next 12 months should be on building the infrastructure to grow the Java market. That is the only way that whatever Jonathan is talking about makes any sense. Ironic isn't it that JS needs MB :).

Please do something to make it $6B by next J1, and $8B in 2008, we need to grow the Java market. Stop complaining about Azul, and killing Java innovation (why not sue RS and ORCL for taking app server secrets?), and start building on your claims of responding to developers. There are more developers that are doing their own thing, than work in companies, so respond to the Java apps movement, and build the community to make money for more than just Sun. You know what I'm talking about, just do it....

platform nausea

2006-05-17T11:42:00.000-07:00

I may be overtired from the annual efforts at Java One to make something relevant out of nothing, that is from Sun's perspective. Last year was huge with the release of Glassfish and JBI, but there is nothing like a new JEE 5 platform to ignite enthusiasm in SFO. Open sourcing Java someday is nice, but as Gavin points out, what purpose does it really serve, or what impact is NetBeans having:

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/05/11/sun_developers_java/

I think the Sun people are doing all they can to talk about a relevant tools strategy, but the reality is that the app server in the form of Glassfish is lapping NetBeans with far fewer resources (nice try, DR). But what I am getting at with respect to this Java One is that the news out of the platform market is flat-out boring. All the revenue and growth has been squeezed out of the market. The platform vendors (IBM, JBoss, BEA, Oracle, and Sun) have nothing but compatibility to announce, except for the occassional 'innovation' such as Web Beans:

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news
_view&newsId=20060516005810&newsLang=en

I admit to being taxed by the never ending plans for SOA implementation, without so much as a nod toward partner implementations. I give the Glassfish people credit as they demonstrated a blog app (whats up, JJ), but it is far and few between that the Java players are giving opps. to partners that support the platforms. I have two thoughts on the state of the Java Economy:

1) The Java market stands and has remained at $5B for far too long.
2) The first platform to truly engender a partner market will take the JEE 5 mantle.

On 1), there is a never ending shift in resources between new or different platforms, due to the semi-beauty of semi-portability, but there is NO growth in the Java market. Show me companies that are porting to Java in favor of a new technology and I will show you an IBM customer. JBoss is taking away market share from BEA, and Sun and Oracle are feeding existing base. Developers are pushing up market share well beyond 100%, but the revenue model for Java companies remains at $5B, that's it. What is the fall-out? There is no growth in the market, and therefore, no business plans for apps companies or infrastructure vendors based on Java. I blame all five platform vendors though point 2) is that the true winners of JEE5 will be:

Glassfish and JBoss, and maybe Geronimo if they actually get their partner plans in place. Oracle is D.O.A. and WebLogic is Dead. I know I sound repetitive, but I am concerned about the Java Economy and how vendors other than the big 5 are supposed to make money. Someone tell me how. Mr. Bauhaus, I know you are in charge of the platform, but could you tell me how your Glassfish reps. are going to support business on the Glassfish/Clustra/JBI platform, are we supposed to tie-in to SDN or SDC or what? This is a problem for everyone because it is a monstrous opportunity to grow the Java market, and no one is looking in to it. We're all supposed to sign-up for Eclipse/IBM Partner Program, NetBeans/SDN, JBoss Partner Program, and Oracle and BEA's supposed partner offerings, but there is absolutely no value to doing it. What is an apps company to do?

Eduardo, aybe you could explain to me the value of signing up on the apps board for Glassfish, I know no one else will dare to try and answer this question...

Java One & 2006: the apps market

2006-05-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

In the annals of Java history, there was a running commentary, or joke, that described what the proprietary vendors had implemented: "write once, debug everywhere", went the line, and it was used as competitive fodder in what would eventually launch Microsoft's .Net platform. For though Java was a standard by which vendors could certify, it was not fool-proof and thus customers began to view the application server as just another layer in the architecture.

The apps were truly transformative due to their Internet capabilities of checking stocks, buying books, and enabling supply chains, but they were not exactly all that they were billed to be. They were not portable. In order to begin anew with a fesh start to portability, the application server vendors needed to change, and this came in the form of the open source offerings from JBoss, Orion, JOnAS, and Apache initially, as well as the new Java Enterprise Edition specifications for versions 1.3 and 1.4.

Today, we have a vibrant economy of open source software platforms, as witness from SpikeSource's efforts. What we do not have is the open source equivalent of apps. Today, I would like to introduce the first implementation of a Java EE app written on open source app servers, that will be made available as an initiaitive to the open source community. It is Diamelle's Identity Management:www.diamelle.com

At first, I thought maybe this could be a part of the platform, as identity management is certainly a core function of most thriving web-sites and businesses. But then I realized that OpenLDAP and the open source databases already have created the functionality of storage on the server-side to enable identity management. However, they are not an app to be utilized with other apps to enable single sign-on, password management, and web services federation. This is what Diamelle does, and this is why it is significant to the open source communtiy. JBoss' JEMS will be the Java Enterprise Edition platform, along with Glassfish, JOnAS, and Geronimo, while the apps market is a new frontier.

Why would I be giving this valuable secret to the world? Well, by definition open source is about the transfer of best practices, so that ultimately the best implementation wins. Diamelle will be the best implementation, not because of its first-mover status, but because of its operation, and my assistance.Go ahead, bet against it.Until we have a united front against proprietary vendors, Java will remain under-implemented and under-realized for the portable apps market that is the vanguard of thee IT industry, as described in my post:

Glassfish v. JBoss?

The platform war is over, WebLogic lost, and now it is time for the apps war to begin. Check back with us in a month, we will be releasing the initial trial of the open source Diamelle IDM software, and be publicizing that throughout the community (that is if J.Ottinger allows it). But keep up with us, the implementation of a componentized-web services-based-SOA-modelled apps community is around the corner. Not as a threat to the OSS Platforms, but as a supplement, that will only help to grow their influence through corporate IT.

darfur politics

2006-05-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

Why is the University of California divesting from Africa? One side of the story led by a number of student government participants, is that the Khartoum administration in Sudan is persecuting the residents of Darfur. This seems clear, what does not seem so clear is whether removing money from the strapped Sudanese companies, employees, and citizens will have the intended effect. In fact, the issue has grown beyond its supposed California roots:

http://www.statehornet.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/05/04/4458d552a3654

It has been discussed in D.C. amid rallies to sort out the mess through U.S. and UN involvement. I just don't see why divestiture will accomplish the intended objective of forcing the hand of the Sudanese government to bow to western concerns. As with Africa, there is much at stake, in terms of lives and futures, and there is also many issues to contend with. The political issues are becoming clearer as to what to do. It is less clear why the University of California is making Darfur a reason to draw the line against investment, as so many fires rage, and so many circumstances demand attention.

eras, end

2006-04-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

Mr. Scott McNealy,

It was with great anticipation that we acknowledge your impending retirement from the world of high-powered business, and it should be noted that your accomplishments surpass any CEO's in recent memory. More than any other company, Sun Microsystems vanquished the age-old argument that if you buy IBM, then you need not worry about your job. Sun has successfully turned this mantra on its head, by re-engineering the equation to be, if you buy IBM be sure to expect Global Services to outsource your job away. Oracle, BEA, JBoss, and even Microsoft can thank you for the job you did of reigning in the monopoly of IBM consulting, by bringing the Valley back to its roots of actually producing something worth using. My friends outside of the Java world lament that Sun has not done anything to justify their position of importance in the technology world, but that is because they are not running in to IBM with frequent cause, for those who do, we all thank Scott McNealy that we do not have to rely on HP to fill the counter-balance void.

My experience with Sun started around 1996, at least that is as far back as I can remember when I was planning on starting a company someday based on the concept of a re-usable software pallette for the educational market. About that time, it became clear that Netscape was going nowhere without Java, and this ultimately led me to learn about the burgeoning Enterprise Java platform in 1998 from Mr. Dan Graves of Sun. By then, McNealy was a regularly used name to describe the impending crush of Internet sophistication. First, after accepting, I turned down an offer from Robert Half 24 hours later to join Sun, in the Sun-Netscape Alliance. The name escapes me of your lieutenant who went to AOL, created the iPlanet shop, and orchestrated the AOL-Time Warner merger, but it was at this time that I felt I had reached a point that few others would be offered: the opportunity to affect the future of Sun. You were my role model, as I stated to you in an e-mail on June 1, 2001.

In that memo, I attached the whitepaper "EJB components: The Building Blocks of Web Services" and wrote how components would vanquish the Microsoft hegemony. Your new lieutenant, Mark Tolliver, ran in to me at Java One that year (I actually hunted him down to see if my job was history for sending one up the chain of command), and he set me in the direction that would launch the Sun ONE Application Server 7, which officially killed WebSphere (sorry, Marc, you were still in the minors at the time). I think (though some would argue delusional) we played off each other rather well from that point on, as the Java side of things was being directed by me, and you were saving the company's revenue. Mr. Tolliver is a great boss, I would bet that others at his company today agree, you were a great leader. Not many people command allegiance in the form of storming halls of government in the same manner that you do. I just don't see Oracle people living for Larry the way people respond to you. Jonathan has some serious work to do, more on that in a bit.

It is with a great amount of nostalgia and some anticipation for the future that I pay my respects to your career. Unmatched is one word that comes to mind. As Khosla lived large, as Joy took credit, as Bechtolsheim dallied about, and as the rest of the IT world fed off Sun's success, there was one person with the weight of a global army on his shoulders that lived with the pressure of being the only stop-gap between IT being just another insurance industry. You are historic and worthy of all accolades that come your way. Those that sully the name today simply don't know what it takes to run companies that actually change the world. Sun under Scott McNealy has unquentionably done that. One last thing, if you choose wisely, that army will take up the call someday to your cause, maybe I will be there to help facilitate. Thank you and all the best,

Douglas Dooley

P.S. Jonathan, you are entrusted with the jewels that have been built, and there are many promising things on the horizon, such as competition with Azul, the build-out of the Glassfish platform, and price wars over Opteron. I think you can do this, but it is not written somewhere that it is pre-destined you will succeed. A lot is riding on Sun's shoulders today, should you fall, others, including myself will be there to pick up where greatness is needed.

oss, the platform

2006-04-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

Sun apparently made the first move, by making all of their software free, and "open". As Jonathan has said many times, he applies the concept of free to hold more value than the concept of open. Why is the question the Register asks him on a semi-regular basis. Why is free more important than open? This is a question that vexes all open source purporters who think that maybe there is an economic argument that is outstanding to support the movement toward open source. Jonathan has said that it is potentially solved by the age-old price war argument. The Register asks him how Sun intends to make money, and I ask him how he can overlook the real benefit with open source which is customer capture.

The real money argument is to look at how to make money on open source, as Red Hat and JBoss are attampting to do. I have written a ton on the platform war and feel like it has been sufficiently covered, so I am moviong on to the new battle ground - - the apps. A new development is coming next week...

war among platforms

2006-04-11T12:03:00.000-07:00

It's nice to see the guys in ATL pull off the coup. It has been so heavily covered, almost unlike any actual technology story (hostile takeovers do not count), that it is not even necessary to link to it. My sister sent me a link this afternoon to NYTimes coverage, which should be increased in the days to come. Economist should pick it up. Because if you're not following open source, you are risking your business.

Let's take a look at where we stand:

RedHat-JBoss - - Linux and JEE5
Sun and Glassfish - - Solaris and JEE5
IBM and Geronimo - - ? and ?
Oracle - - ? and ?
BEAS - - ? and ?

What do Oracle and BEA do - - they merge. What does IBM do - - they buy Novell, and then we begin the middleware war with 5 players:

Red Hat/JBoss
Sun/Glassfish
IBM/Novell
Oracle/BEA
Microsoft

It's a beautiful day in developer land, because inter-operability just got a whole lot more likely, and thus the riches of their endeavors are possible. I can only say that my post on the Glassfish and JBoss de facto alliance for inter-operability just got more potent and more relevant:

http://douglasdooley.blogspot.com/2006/03/glassfish-v-jboss.html

Proprietary architectures have been served notice that they can no longer protect revenues through lock-in. It is a great day in the Java Economy...

the new dp

2006-03-09T11:39:00.000-08:00

Went to see Dilated Peoples at Saint Andrews Hall in Detroit, MI last evening. Good show, the Dilated crew is gradually establishing themselves as the best of LAX, and even one of the best within indie/underground hip-hop. Was a little light on the new 20/20 album, as I was expecting more, but you got to please the 'hits' crowd who revel in Platform and Expansion Team. My favorite is still Neighborhood Watch, but 20/20 is solid.

What was not so solid was one of the opening acts, no not Little Brother, but rather this Defari character. Who is this guy? I know the hard core fans will show love for his being around since the beginning of DP, but that is pretty much exactly my thing against him. Plus, he is a moron. His tune about coming home 'buzzed' and confronting a significant other, and recommendation to the audience for their general use was, "Bitch, shut the fuck up, bitch". No doubt, those were his words.

Do they make people like him still? I wish I could give the entire 30 minute skit its due analysis by devolving in to more details, but I can't remeber much beyond his out-sized bravado, and his imperatives that the crowd get with him, even though he had nearly no style. Now, I can understand that I could get myself in to a tight situation with some DP fans, but I call it like I see it, and this guy has no future if he sticks with his current trend towards inflammatory mysoginist tactics. Lets be straight, last night was in good measure a guys kind of crowd, with few females to mingle with.

But the women that were in the front, namely African-American women, began to retreat from the front section of the crowd when Defari was gyrating and yelling "Bitch, shut the..." I have nothing but love for California hip-hop, especially Quannum crew and DP, but I cannot be fooled in to being down with someone who thrives on old CA hip-hop. New school is here, brother, join in.

As for DP, you guys are all on, thanks for the show.

Word...

love from Glassfish team

2006-03-08T09:57:00.000-08:00

thanks Eduardo:

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/theaquarium?entry=positive_buzz_about_glassfish_even

CWebb convo.

2006-03-04T17:03:00.000-08:00

Dooley:
Your "facts" are devoid of context, which is something that I thought reporters specialize in. I am sure there were moments when great players don't have the best statistics, but their contributions are intangibles, maybe you have heard of it. I am also sure you are aware that this is a team sport, and it is not Webber's position to dictate how others play around him, at times. I believe in the sport of basketball to be a contribution from like-minded individuals who are looking to win - - whether Korver hits the three or not while Webber or Iverson is in the game is not the measure of player's contributions to winning. If you want to get in to a conversation about contributions on the court, lets look at all relevant statistics, nuances, and attitudes. This article may be a good starter for you:

http://www.nba.com/sixers/features/webber_060205.html

Also, I could showcase some Bibby-Webber highlights for you against the Mavs, Lakers, Wolves, and Jazz in successive playoff runs, something that Iverson has not been able to do since Eric Snow was the best guard defender in the NBA (should tell you how far the league has come since AI was last relevant). Fine, I don't like Iverson, and you don't like Webber, maybe we are at a stalemate, but don't try and be another in a long-run of analysts who write off Chris because he doesn't dunk as much. Your comment about shooting a "dismal 42%" is a joke, when considering that he is on the same team as Iverson
I don't know where you learned your basketball from, but it takes a bigger man than you to play with Iverson after enjoying true basketball in the past, again your rec. league team changes don't count here, if you even play. I get so sick of hearing from writers who think that by sensationalizing the statistical negatives, you disregard that the guy is a career 20-10 and 3+ assists player, while building winning teams. Maybe your job would be easier if Chris was gone and you could write a semi-annual piece on how it is good to have a younger "nucleus" around Iverson, but it would not make the Sixers better. Ultimately as a new fan of the organization, that is what I am hoping for, and though I am not so naive, as to think that this is what sports reporters would want, that is why I am on your case. You are a phony, hiding behind the guise of a single number that does not mask your contempt for Webber's game. I dare you to write something more about Chris' ineffectual game, you can now count on me to be all over it.

I would send you my post Spartan NCAA tourney win, Pistons Championship, Iverson trade t-shirt to you, but I just assume you still won't get it...

Kevin Roberts from Philly newspaper:
Hey, time out ...I don't "dislike Webber," as you're arguing. I don't have any feelings onWebber one way or the other; I'm just forming an opinion based on the facts --and not those quote-marks-around-them facts, actual facts (within the "context"of, you know, all the games they've played).The debate is about the value of trading Iverson. To support this, you'd haveto argue one of two things -- that you can blow up the Sixers, get cheap andrebuild through the draft, OR that the Sixers get better without him. Theirsalary structure (particularly -- but not limited to -- Webber's contract)makes it darn near impossible to really blow it up and rebuild. Strangely,there is not a great trade market for Webber; the Sixers seem kind of stuckwith him, which is odd given how good you think he is. And you simply can'targue that the Sixers would be better in short term without Iverson. The factsstate very clearly that when Iverson isn't on the floor, the Sixers fall off acliff. The Sixers' fates don't change appreciably whether Webber is on thefloor or not (witness their victory over Chicago without him 2/25).So I just can't argue that the Sixers should trade Iverson. Iverson got a teamto the finals, we saw it. It's possible. Webber, who is such a winning player,has never gotten a team to the finals. In fact, he's never won anything. He gotclose at Michigan, but then Michigan had to cheat to get there, a circumstanceall my good friends in Michigan surely remember with great pride ...There's simply no evidence for your argument. If the intangibles Webber bringsmake the Sixers better, why aren't they better with him on the floor? They'renot. They're just not. You dismiss comments about Webber's shooting percentageas a joke, but you should take a moment and do some actual research. Among NBApower forwards, Webber ranks last in shooting percentage. DEAD-ASS LAST IN THE
than Webber. You can look it up. I did.Meanwhile, your only evidence is a story written by A GUY WHO WORKS FOR THESIXERS. Yeah, good one. I mean, come on. You\'re kidding, right? Don\'t you haveanything better than that? Anything at all?Perhaps you don\'t. The weird, saracastic shots at my playing career are simplyoutrageous, in addition to being wildly irrelevant. For no good reason at all,you\'ve chosen to insult the coaches I played for, the teammates I played with,and the work I put in. You should be better than that. Or maybe you\'re not ...Either way, unless you can come up with some actual arguments, evidence, facts,anything of value besides your man-crush on Chris Webber, I can\'t keep arguingabout what you WANT to be true. It\'s kind of a waste of time, and besides thatit\'s boring, slapping you around like this. Bores me ...So good luck with the life you\'ve carved out for yourself. And, as always, thansk for reading,
kev

glassfish v. jboss?

2006-03-03T11:11:00.000-08:00

In the emerging drama that is enterprise Java middleware platforms, I would like to provide some background as to the probable key development in the market for 2006: the introduction of a legitimate competitor to JBoss, in the form of Glassfish. I have written extensively about both, and have even covered the also-ran app server platforms that vie for JBoss' attention, but really only Glassfish appears positioned to be an alternative. Let's start by giving you punters a link to the command central of the Glassfish community, the Aquarium:

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/theaquarium

Now, lets talk about what would be a true competition, if either party dares to compete with the other. Marc sounded off first last summer around Java One, when Glassfish was introduced:

http://jboss.org/jbossBlog/blog/mfleury/2005/06/06/SUN_open_sources_XYZ_who_cares.txt

And since he has done nothing but admire the software moves of Sun lately, it would seem that he and his advisors are coming to terms with the next OSS JEE platform, and that it would be wise for JBoss to welcome the entrant rather than pick a fight. Why is this? Well that is the topic of this entry, lets get to it...

When JBoss first ran in to app servers, they were running in to a highly fragmented market of proprietary solutions, masked as standards-based under the guise of the J2EE Compatibility Kit. With a mantra, a cause, and a legit solution, it did not take long for JBoss to take advantage of the grand dysfunction of the no-portability Java enterprise market. Only WebSphere and WebLogic also benefitted from the JBoss scenario because they out-marketed everyone else, but in particular, incorrectly convinced customers that the app server market was gradually and definitively turning in to a natural duopolistic market. For every Oracle, there is DB2; for every Windows, there is Java; for every Netscape, there is, er, IE, and on and on. However, what Sun proved (I'll take a bow now for Sun ONE Application Server 7) is that standards matter, and provide choice, but only when implemented purely. By 2002, JBoss had eliminated the existing low-end, and IBM and BEA had developed proprietary high-end functionality for every last feature they could think of (Development, Portal, Persistence, Integration, etc.). What Sun saved with the AS7 release was a viable low-end, and layed the ground work for Glassfish, two generations later.

In conjunction with the release of AS7, Oracle picked up Orion, Red Hat invested in JOnAS, and Apache inched towards Geronimo, leaving IBM and BEA to wonder how exactly they were going to make any money. Meanwhile, JBoss was devouring enterprise customers, as well as, and potentially more importantly, all ISVs and SIs in the Java middleware marketplace. It is circa 2005 that you can mark the moment when the oxygen evaporated in the high-end, proprietary app server market, leaving IBM to buy Gluecode (read: Geronimo), and BEA to introduce AquaLogic. That leaves us in 2006 seemingly without a real fight to be had. JBoss is taking WebLogic customers, IBM is re-tooling WebSphere customers, JOnAS is outfitting Red Hat customers, and Oracle, well, we don't know exactly what Oracle is doing with Fusion, but as this blog/ author has consistently stated for 1/5 years, it is only a matter of time that WebLogic finds a home. If you are paying attention, there is one remaining competitive platform un-accounted for: Glassfish.

Glassfish and JBoss will be battling for the future of Solaris customers, with the ancilliary prize of best OSS program also in contention for Windows server deployments. In other words, outside of Linux, Glassfish and JBoss will be competing for app server dominance. The somewhat ironic reality is that these two likely competitors are natural allies, for some forseeable future, and it is all in the name of JEE5/ejb3 portability. As long as Top Link does not get bastardized to be non-compatible with Hibernate, we are probably on the cusp of seeing a true, cross-platform enterprise Java apps market built around the Glassfish and JBoss shared mission, of standards-based implementations on the platform. JBoss should welcome this with open arms, as an opportunity to drain the swamp of all WebSphere customers not making a move to Geronimo/Linux, all WebLogic customers not porting to Fusion, and all legacy, non-.Net customers running on Windows. Meanwhile, with the continued deft leadership of MB and PP, Glassfish will eliminate WebLogic from the Sun GSO price-list, enabling portability across customers, and opening up the Java Economy to components, exposed as web services, inter-operable across platforms. With all that is at stake, Marc would be crazy not to take this side-agreement, even if it means he cannot be an immediate monopoly of app servers.

With JBI-enabled ESBs bringing SOA to the IT shops of large, as well as mid-sized businesses around the global economy, Java apps become the de facto server-side implementation for discerning customers, leaving Sun happy with their unsigned JBoss collaboration. There will be .Net, I at least plan for it. But I also plan for a Glassfish and JBoss marketplace that finally implements the vision of countless individuals who built Enterprise Java, not as a proprietary solution for the benefit of Oracle and BEA to extend their customer lock-in, but as a tool for Java developers to take back control from the software vendors, and in turn, give that control back to customers, which is what will lead to larger IT budgets, more extensive implementations, and better economic fortune for all of those invested in the Java Economy. As has been said many times in this column, an independent JBoss transforms WebLogic from winner to also-ran, and a truly competitive Glassfish transforms JBoss in to a global brand on multiple paltforms. Marc, give this some thought, and make your competitive moves with this goal in mind.

As for PP, your victory is nearly at hand...

McNealy's last gasp

2006-03-01T11:31:00.000-08:00

This Blog has called for Scott's resignation for the past 6-9 months:

http://douglasdooley.blogspot.com/2005/07/j1.html

But it took something so benign as a CNet article to encourage me to stand up and re-call for his successor to be chosen, named, and appointed by the Board:

http://news.com.com/Old+Sun+management+once+stalled+Project+Orion/2100-1010_3-6044428.html?tag=cd.top

I am tired of the non-software strategy at Sun to be consistently presented as the market leader, as I have made clear in past posts. The only thing resembling a strategy is Glassfish and Clustra/JBI integration to be presumably announced at Java One this year. Wait, no all of the single server, non fail-over editions oif JEE 5 will be announced, but there will be no movement toward app server integration of EJB3 fail-over and ESB capabilities. But as for Sun, let's do our quarterly re-cap of where the software strategy stands:

Web Server - - only for die-hard Netscapees
LDAP - - legacy business
Net Beans - - gasping for air
Creator - - a solution looking for a problem
Portal - - D.O.A.
J2ME - - no business apps
Star - - no momentum
Open Solaris - - ?

Only the application server stands in any repute, and it looks to be taking mind-share from WebLogic, if not JBoss (though the latter is not in direct competition for Solaris deals...yet). But this has been under the guidance of MB and PP and not RS and maybe not even without much oversight by JS. With that said, it is time to give JS the reigns. As AV pointed out:

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/02/28/sun_bech_orbust/

There is really only one stoyr that is going to pull the company through and that ix x86, with T1 SPARC being a good option for the high-end installed base. It is going to be the T1000 and 2000 that make or break Sun's next several years, and this is not McNealy's game to play. By him suggesting that it is everyone else's problem that Orion was late and ineffectual, he is signaling to his remaining supporters that he will do anything to keep his job, including taking down those who stood for him. Like I did.

I made my moves in 2001, '02, and '03 to build a relationship and an app server business, only to be cut loose without support from the top. Now with my efforts on versions 6 and 7, versions 8 and 9 are about to take back the market on Unix from BEA. To suggest that people who I knew and worked for, and some who I supported are/were responsible for the "slow-moving train wreck" that is Sun's software revenue is an outrage to those who gave a good piece of their careers to Sun, and in some places, directly to SM, such as MT, in particular. Where is the similiar outrage? Because Scott has made a parlor game of his efforts to remain Chariman, and this has cost Sun customers. Everytime that BEA gets propped up by Sun, you can read that as a weak CEO, being ineffectual in the management of his core assets. And yes I am referring to the app server program and the burdgeoning Glassfish initiative. I want his head, and I know I am not alone among his former supporters.

It is time to join the VCs, Scott, and make a come bck with thin clients, as this Blog has long advocated. You will not be able to accomplish as much, even as the leader of Sun Microsystems. You need to step down, take a break, come back, and be ready for when the Grid-wave is ready, you are clearly not understanding the Java middleware phase of the build-out and this is handing customers to enemies, such as IBM, Oracle, and BEA. These are no longer your allies, they are all taking billions from Sun every year. For the benefit of all of us who are in the trenches, and who continue to support you even with growing evidence to make us grow sick with despair, Get Out. Just two weeks ago, we nearly lost JBoss, what will it take for you to shed the blinders: a BEA acquisition attempt of SUNW?

While you consider the current realities, reach out to people who have supported you and just try and remove the maverick decision making process that is putting our careers at stake. You do not have until 2007 to make a move, do something for the kids, who will make the payback to you in the longer-term, and if some of us have it right, that may not be so far off...

fallacy of community

2006-02-17T10:42:00.000-08:00

I believe I had the first migraine I have had in my life towards the end of this very trying week. I can blame the lack of (sugar-free) Red Bull or the lingering cough, but I think it was a combined cornucopia of stress. First, I am leaving SCS. In case you do not know what it is, just stay tuned for I will be back on the radar. But more disconcerting was the (still) possibility that the Zion of enterprise software was potentially going to be penetrated and discarded. That is the nightmare scenario, I don't think I am alone, at all, to think that this was on the minds of many a Java person. That sentence is somehow wrong, but lets move on...

We are of course talking about JBoss and Oracle, and what it would mean to the Java "community". Well, I am here to inform the peace and love contingency of Sun's dream to sell hardware on standardized software that it is officially dead. The heavyweights have been challenged and they are beginning their response. Glassfish was first out of the gate, and what a brilliant move it was. Then came Gluecode/IBM, alongside ObjectWeb's JOnAS, and BEA's move to OSS "frameworks." HP is too busy with Itanic to do anything in software, and so that did leave one gaping hole in the market, and no I am not talking about MSFT, but ORCL, of course.

What is my point that has not been covered ad nauseum this week, and why do I claim Sun's dream is dead - - as it applies to app servers? Oracle has done more to kill the Java marketplace in one week, than any product of theirs could have done in two generations of releases. They have been threatened and they are trying to respond with the simple moniker of 'Fusion'. There is no contribution of Oracle to the community, even though their exhibit #1 is Top Link. There is no need for Top Link, but considering that companies may want choice at the level of persistence (unlikely), it still is not a standardized app server. Why not make OC4J a continuous OSS project, rather than bring it house and bastardize it as a mere component of a larger hair-ball. Instead, Chuck and RS have conspired to kill JBoss, and may pull it off, as it all comes down to votes now. Until I hear the execution of an IPO plan, there is the threat that the Java community could splinter in to a million little pieces, for JBoss alone is holding the market together. Turning JBoss over to the biggest propagator of non-standard Java is akin to turning Eclipse over to Microsoft. It is.

I am not shocked by this, more that I am blinded by the surety of the ORCL/BEAS merger to recognize that Oracle does not make moves on wisdom alone, rather they prefer to eliminate entire markets. They are trying to cut off salesforce.com's air supply, they are trying to eliminate choice in the apps market (which is fine, as that business is about to be overturned), and they are now officially trying to kill JEE, as it does not suit their long-term pursuits to have compatibility, portability, and choice. The app server, however, is ground zero (pardon the expression) for the future of enterprise software. Without JBoss, there is no meaningful JEE 5, EJB 3, Hibernate, JBI-spec, or even an OSS movement. Its all gone, just like that. This is disconcerting for a start-up without the resources to fend off unlimitedly. It is time for JBoss to go public, and have the market evaluate what should be the best course of action.

You heard it here first, I would rather have Microsoft own JBoss, than Oracle. Giving the app server market to BEA is a terrible mistake on Marc's part, if he is unsuccessful in staying independent, there is some unholy alliance between Oracle and BEA that has not been spoken. The only one to gain from a JBoss acquisition is BEA, and then we would have to hear people like BR ("get a haircut") and Breya talk like they know a single thing about the business of enterprise software, and since they don't know technology either, despite one of their titles, it is a travesty for the Java community to be left with one choice. Jonathan is right, a JBoss acquisition by Oracle threatens Sun, as well. Glassfish could easily become the Platform Edition for the WebLogic Enterprise Edition all running on shiny T1 and T2000 boxes.

This whole notion that OSS is for entry-level servers, projects, apps, and web-sites is wrong, I could think of a no bigger challenge for an independent JBoss than to quickly move out of the developer ranks and in to the IT management ranks. The best way to do this is through JBI-enabled ESB, so get going on it Little! This is a wake-up call to every developer and marketer that is working in the virtual abyss, outside of the walls of a "systems" vendor. Turn an independent JBoss in to a truly competitive offering to WebLogic, or risk losing Java altogether...

JS

2006-02-14T14:13:00.000-08:00

Great article, all on:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/02/14/75379_HNhpsunososbc_1.html

Its your move Marc, make the most of it...

Fusion = JBoss?

2006-02-13T11:42:00.000-08:00

Unless I am sleeping through a long weekend of potential retirement from the office furniture industry, I seem to be recognizing an argument for Oracle to own JBoss:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/02/13/75301_HNellisonrationale_1.html

Thats like taking away a child from me (which is not self-imposed), and I can thank my long lost colleague, RS, for such a stunt. They of course would be pulling a major coup in the open source ranks, but it would hardly cause a murmor over at BEAS.

Oracle is about as much about standards as IBM, they have the resources to populate conferences and boards, but their products tell a different story. Fusion is Proprietary, always will be. The only option for Oracle is WebLogic. Maybe BEA will sell it for a couple $B, and concentrate on Aqua Logic. Either way, BEA should be counter-proposing right about now to risk obsolescence. Sounds contradictory. It is, but it makes sense from opposing angles.

From Oracle's side, JBoss will not bring app server dominance. Only WebLogic can bring that kind of impact. From BEA's side though, they would be left in the cold without a systems vendor to partner with (except MSFT, perhaps?), and this could be a death knell.

I think Ellison is going after BEA and is offering bait to bring them in. I don't see Marc selling out for anything less than a cool $1 B. Even at that price, he is selling his soul. The next week may just be the beginning of the end for proprietary app servers, and the introduction of the middleware war. However, it will not come as a result of JBoss acquisition.

Rather, it is now BEAS' turn to meet the same fate as PSFT and Siebel...

GWB

2006-02-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

"Get out of Iraqi, by cracky," in the growingly famous words of Peter M. Wege, from GRR, I have found a mantra. It appears at the fringe of reality, and the outskirts of relevance, but it is now what I have come to accept as the only rational response. This is not about a war of belief, but a practical decision of tactics, and there can be made an argument that the best course of action for the future of Iraq, and Middle East stability, is for a removal of steady terms of troops from the desert of Mesopotamia. I believe everything that GWB has stood for and all that has been accomplished will be lost in the shuffle, that will be everything short of impeachment. This is not my MI response due to JC, though that has brought it even more crystal to my mind, as the time ticks away. Policy is the cause of removal, not the exhaustion of death, and I have now ventured in to an area that I previously did not understand fully. None of us do, none of us will for some time, and that is why I have trusted GWB.

But it has become a more strategic alternative to "cut and run" than it is to fight till the last drop can be spilled. I understand I may be incorrect, and I appreciate that I may not be informed enough, but I have typically found that simplicity of logic leads to optimal ends, and in this case, it is time to recognize the opportunity of Iraq, rather than the failure, and withdraw troops, while gaining economic means to fulfill humanistic goals.

The doctrine of the declaration of determination now applies over there, as it applies here...

SaaS

2006-01-31T06:08:00.000-08:00

I have been motivated to post! It will be brief, as my past post is still the most relevant, on all accords, but I thought that Mr. Schwartz of Infoworld should know my P.O.V.:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/01/31/74872_06OPreality_1.html

SaaS will not take over the world as developers need control. Unless I am underestimating AppExchange, and that will be the model. But from what I know of app server talent, the key is in the developer innovation, not in the custom implementations. Early thoughts on this, as my mind is still elsewhere...