Sun's efforts to maintain control of Java, during the last 8 months or so..
11/29/99 "Sun Hopes to Resolve Java Standards Snag" "Consortium puzzled by copyright concerns"
Carol Sliwa computerworld.com
Sun refused to turn over Java specification documents to ECMA International, a Geneva-based consortium that submits its standards to the International Standards Organization (ISO) citing fear of lack of "copyright and trademark protection" as well as "fear of Java fragmentation."
Earlier this year, Sun abandoned its fast-track standards effort with the ISO to standardize Java and make it open-source.
12/03/99 "Standards group mulls Java protocols without Sun"
computerworld.com
The ECMA asked its Java technical committee to explore ways to go forward and standardize Java without contributions from Sun Microsystems Inc, after Sun failed to respond to a Dec. 1 deadline set by an ECMA coordinating committee.
3/3/2000 "Sun walks tightrope with licensees over Java control
computerworld.com
By James Niccolai and Laura Rohde, IDG News Service
Sun was sharply criticized by a Geneva-based standards group called the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) for causing an "enormous waste of experts' time and companies' money."
Sun recently withdrew from the ECMA.
"They just don't want to give up control" of Java, said Jan van den Beld, secretary-general of ECMA. "It is 100% my opinion that Sun is publicly saying they want to make Java a standard, but privately not making it happen," van den Beld added.
Sun has drafted a proposal for a new development process called JCP (Java Community Process) 2.0 that gives licensees more control over the way new standards will be set for Java. For example, Sun is considering relinquishing its veto option over certain "control points" in the development process, including decisions about which new technical specifications will be considered for the platform, a Sun spokeswoman said.
"Sun has taken the benevolent dictator approach, where you have to believe Sun won't proprietize Java in the future. (IBM) wants to see a formal process that gives them legal recourse to prevent Sun from doing that," Driver said.
Suns most important licensing partners HP and IBM are concerned about how new specifications for Java will be set as the technology evolves, analysts said. A few of Sun's Java licensees, most notably IBM, are demanding a more democratic process to ensure that Sun can't add features to Java in the future that best suit its own products and strategy.
"Sun would only submit Java to a standards body on their own terms," Gartner Group's Driver said. "
March 23, 2000 "Sun criticized for delays on Apache project" by Wylie Wong
CNET News.com
URL: news.cnet.com
Sun Microsystems is feeling the heat after failing to deliver their XML Web technology to Apache.
Now, four months later, angry officials at Apache said the tools have still not been delivered.
Sun has angered some within Apache for trying to take credit for work it hasn't done, said a person at Apache who requested anonymity. Sun ran an ad promoting its donation to Apache at an Apache convention two weeks ago and a Sun executive touted the donation in a speech at the convention.
"They have an overactive marketing department and an under-active legal department," the source said.
Apache is a loosely knit organization best known for developing a widely used Web server, the software that delivers Web pages to browsers. Like Linux, it's an "open source" effort, meaning anyone can modify and redistribute the software. Davidson said Sun's attorneys are still hammering out a licensing agreement to give the technology to Apache. The delay forced the other software makers in the project to tackle it on their own, and they have already built a first version of an XML tool without Sun's help, according to a source close to Apache.
Sun did finally deliver it.
You won't find too many Sun lovers at KeyCorp or among former users of Sun's NetDynamics Application servers.
04/03/2000 "NetDynamics Users Cry Foul"
Sun/Netscape benches application server; some users slam support, balk at migration Carol Sliwa computerworld.com
KeyCorp in Cleveland spent more than $10 million and three years building Web applications that rely on Sun Microsystems Inc.'s NetDynamics application server and development tools. So Senior Vice President Bob Dutile says he isn't happy that the Sun/Netscape Alliance elected to discontinue the NetDynamics product and base its forthcoming iPlanet Application Server on Netscape product code.
KeyCorp's applications won't run on the iPlanet software unless they're substantially revamped.
"NetDynamics users could feel more pain, because the code base for their product isn't being carried forward to the new iPlanet server. "
But what has made Dutile and some other big NetDynamics customers even more frustrated is the dearth of product information and the deterioration in support they say they have witnessed since Sun bought NetDynamics in July 1998. Sun joined forces to co-develop software with Netscape Communications Corp. later that year. (The company has started calling itself iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions.)
"They didn't keep us in the loop at all on where they were going with their products," said Mike Anderson, vice president of information systems at The Home Depot Inc. in Atlanta. "Nobody knows what they're doing. It's almost like a little secret society, and it ticks me off."
"Sun was definitely one of our top vendors last year," Dutile said. "That obviously now is called into question."
And then there was Sun, dreaming of Jini....
In January 1999, while launching JINI, Sun charged that Microsoft's Universal Plug and Play Architecture was just vaporware. "Smoke and mirrors at Jini launch " while their JINI was ready to ship.
zdnet.com
Sun listed over three dozen partners for Jini, including IBM, even though IBM denied it. Well, almost two years later, "very little of Jini's original promise has materialized, the market is fragmenting, and the future of this technology is looking far less certain." "Like many circus sideshows, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Jini has not lived up to its early hype."
Sun blamed the delays and lack of development on too much competition from telephone companies after telco deregulation. However their partners and developers blame it on technical problems, marketing problems and Sun's requirement for expensive licensing agreements that customers were reluctant to sign. Computer Associates said that "few software companies were willing to sign Sun's new Community Source License Agreement for fear of the cost.
>>"We've got the platform down to about 3 megs, not counting the TCP/IP stack and so on, but that's a lot to put on a paper clip," conceded Sun engineer John Wetherill at a Jini seminar this month. "Most legacy devices have yet to be built, so there's a huge class of devices that will never support Jini." <<
"A world in which Sun collects a royalty on every device shipped would be an interesting one to Sun, but that's not going to happen," said Senior Vice President Yogesh Gupta.
"Sun wants to become the de facto standard, but when push comes to shove they'll knife you to get the deal," says one Sun Java partner."
"Espial Marketing Director Mal Raddalgoda, which makes software infrastructure for smart devices, describes the profusion of Java specifications and device profiles as "a marketing fiasco" and says Sun must create a single Java developer community. "Instead of getting the phenomenon of Windows where you have one API, each of the adopters is trying to court a few developers and is fragmenting a shared resource." "
zdnet.com
"Microsoft's BizTalk is a sweet spot for us because it generates an XML component that is neutral and allows us to engage Microsoft in a better way," says ObjectSpace CEO David Norris. |
