Toy -
The tone of your post is surprising from someone in the business. 3 years ago when Sun first started pushing Java, they had the opportunity to make a real difference. They blew it by keeping the standard proprietary, by ignoring their own developer community as well as key industry partners, and by failing to make a product which was good enough to live up to its claims either in WORA (Write Once Run Anywhere) - which has yet to be a feature of any of the actual Java releases - or in performance, where Sun's Java implementation caused key pioneering partners like FedEx and CTX to abandon their Java plans.
MSFT played their cards perfectly here. They had Java when they needed it. They have had time to develop Java alternatives which owe nothing to Sun, and which will not be within range of Sun's legal team, for those few Java applications or applets where anybody cares.
And finally, they get to blame Sun for pulling the plug on their Java-derived codebase. Honest, it isn't Bill's fault, read it in the papers! Scotty's beating up on Bill again!! Game, set and match.
In the meantime they are crying crocodile tears and tearing their hair in public, just to make sure no one misses any of the details.
The largest software vendor in the world is - as Mr. Gates himself can be quoted - a "Rabid Java Backer".
I'm sure this will be at least as successful as the SAA architecture or OS/2, both efforts on which IBM spent billions, and both of which had far more user adoption than Java has today. IBM's execution as a marketing machine for anything but their legacy base is a joke. I don't think anyone is staying awake nights worrying about the San Francisco project.
I am actually a big fan of Java and had high hopes for it initially, but Scotty killed it. Maybe Linux will do better, they seem to actually have some smart and idealistic people involved, and no ax to grind. Java will be an unfortunate footnote unless the OSS community gets a version rolling.
MSFT can kick scream and threaten all they want but they have not choice but to continue their efforts to support Java.
say what??? They have absolutely no obligation to support Java, and every reason not to. And the paths that provide everything the customers need while cutting out both Sun and the first church of Java are wide open and well paved.
You are usually much smarter than this - I can only assume you have not looked deeply enough into the underpinnings here. This is a bad day for Java and lots of smart people know it. |
