Thoughts on JavaOne 2008 (mostly good, but lots of confusing messages from Sun)
I have been to nearly every JavaOne event its gone through some ups and downs. In the last two years it seems like JavaOne is meaningful again. Contrary to what many people think Java is thriving more than I would have expected. The biggest distraction is Sun themselves who continue to mix messages and project relevance with marketing and strategic confusion.
On the positive side we met a lot of developers who are still excited about Java and there were many new companies on the show floor that I hadn't seen in the past.
Java is still the language of choice in the enterprise. Even with the rise of LAMP Java remains important and makes up huge swaths of the IT landscape in major enterprises--at least those who are not .NET. Even open source Java applications on Windows are popular. As an example, a full 50% of JBoss deployments are on Windows.
And yet, the last 2-3 years the messages I have taken from Sun can be summed up as "Someday, you will have a mobile device and it will run Java. And it will be cool." FX is kinda cool, but when you have 15,000 enterprise geeks at an event I would think they would lead with something cooler. Cote mentioned they did some neat things with ZFS the 2nd day, but all my friends avoided the keynotes after the first one was lame (minus Neil Young.)
Regarding Sun's open source initiatives. I cruised through the software projects and spoke to a number of the Sun people (side note--there were some truly stellar people doing demos and explaining things) about open source and strategy and most didn't get it. Add in the MySQL confusion and it's clear that they don't have everything sorted.
There are also a number of Sun software products that ARE BUILT ON OPEN SOURCE, but NOT OPEN SOURCE. One example of this is JCAPs, which is the sad remnant of the $387m SeeBeyond acquisition. Sun ported the JCAPs connectors to Open ESB, built the whole thing into NetBeans and closed sourced the product. This is not just weird, its also stupid and disingenuous.
Finally, where is the hardware? I know this is JavaOne but a very large percentage of Sun's revenue comes from hardware and where else can you actually touch and see Sun hardware? They could have easily brought in machines for people to check out and talk about why running Java apps on Sun boxes is better or whatever. A major missed opportunity in my opinion.
Dave Rosenberg dishes up "Software, Interrupted" with nearly 15 years of technology and marketing experience that spans from Bell Labs to multiple start-up IPOs to open-source enterprise software companies. He is co-founder of MuleSource and currently serves as the general manager of Hardy Way. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can contact Dave via e-mail at softwareinterrupted@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @daveofdoom.
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it can't be called astro-turfing if its not anonymous, i guess, but Mule's ongoing fear masked as derision or, even worse, claims of irrelevance of Sun software are getting old...
i know u guys work with them, and are good partners, and would rather die than support JBI natively, so i won't harp on it,
but it should be expected from a comment on a blog called Negative Approach...
I simply asked a question about "getting it" and provided some context for why I think u r running a campaign to deride Sun, and u go politically negative: what a joke this exercise in debating with you is...Ross handles it when I ask ab/ Mule's avoidance of JBI, u don't even understand what JBI is, i think I asked once how u got 2 b CEO, i'm still asking...
Biting the hand that feeds is the obvious choice of words for your anti-Sun rants, but trying to demean me is a cause that u seem uniquely well-positioned to make, and i don't know what CNet's policy is for approving comments is, and whether that is up 2 u, and maybe (as seems obvious) u have had a free ride your whole career, but my contesting your contention on Sun is part of the industry, if u can't handle it, maybe we can look forward to your follow-on campaign in green energy,
until then, grow up, or toughen up, if the former is 2 much to ask...
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by daverosenberg
May 13, 2008 7:33 AM PDT
- @douglas--my comment was probably too strong. I shouldn't have publicly flogged you like that.
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by douglasdooley
May 13, 2008 9:05 AM PDT
- fair enough, i was too strong, writing in the middle of the night, the above posted tirade: i honestly want the best for Mule, and i enjoy your blog from time-to-time....
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(8 Comments)but i think there is some consideration for standards that will have to be strongly presented by your company, in the best case scenario, Mule gets a 40% market share of ESBs, trumping Cape Clear, Apache, and all major vendors' efforts, thats a lot to ask...
but i think something close to it can be done, but Mule is going to have to demonstrate a value proposition that goes beyond functionality of ESB parts and in to developer hands how to extend integration beyond app server parts...
all this is known to u, and again, i apologize if it seems that i am tracking Mule extra close, it is only because i think highly of your company, and wish u guys the best...
as for Sun, well my bias is already omni-present on other forums, so i'll ask u to someday, not necessarily now, to explain what "getting it" means, unless that is a competitive advantage that cannot be fully released to the public...