Posts Tagged Oracle
Java in Flux… a Java roadmap (kindof)
Posted by Olivier Gérardin in Java on 2011-03-30
James Gossling: “so long, old friend”
Posted by Olivier Gérardin in Culture on 2010-01-22
This is what James Gossling posted on his blog yesterday…
Like so many commenters, I also spent the majority of my professional career with Sun technologies, mostly Java. Whatever happens next, it’s a new era that begins. Fortunately, the company with a big G has embraced Java, and that is probably where the future lies, because I have strong doubts about what Oracle will do with Java.
“Is Oracle Good for Java?”
Posted by Olivier Gérardin in Java on 2009-11-10
Continuing the series, here’s Bert Ertman’s opinion after Oracle’s OpenWorld :
(…) To sum things up so far, Oracle’s message is about integrating everything into a single (bright red colored) solution. They deserve credit for the way their current stack seems to deliver to that promise. However, Java’s promise has always been about opening everything up for innovation and boldly go where no-one has gone before (lame quote alert, but it holds the truth). I don’t see where the latter fits in within Oracle. (…)
Oracle-Sun acquisition: update
Posted by Olivier Gérardin in Java on 2009-10-30
I have already commented on this subject, and nothing much has changed since then… the acquisition is still pending regulatory issues, and Larry Ellison is trying to put pressure on the EU by saying everywhere that every day until the deal closes, he loses 100.000 dollars, a figure that can’t be confirmed of course.
Anyway, a few days ago Oracle updated its web page dedicated to the acquisition, and we can now find there a document named “Oracle and Sun overview and FAQ“. In summary, this is what we can retain from this document regarding Java-related issues:
- Java: Oracle plans to “accelerate investment on the Java platform”.
- DBs: Oracle claims it will spend more money then Sun does now developing MySQL.
- IDEs: JDeveloper, NetBeans and Oracle’s own flavor of Eclipse will coexist… for now.
- Application servers: Oracle will continue evolving Glassfish as JEE reference implementation, and also work towards “aligning common infrastructure components“ between Glassfish and WebLogic. Does this sound like a step to merging both products?
Other announcements include increased funding for Solaris and SPARC, continued support for virtualization products, and a few other things.
Overall this is obviously meant to be reassuring to everyone: there is no intention to drop any product, most of them will get increased investment, Oracle now has the best hardware and software combination, etc. But until we know what “accelerate investment on the Java platform” exactly means, there’s still a lot of room for speculations.
Larry Ellison talks about the Sun acquisition…
Posted by Olivier Gérardin in Culture on 2009-05-08
…and does not even mention Java.
I know it’s only part I, but it’s a little scary anyway.
Oracle acquires Sun – what’s at stake for Java?
Posted by Olivier Gérardin in Java on 2009-04-21
The announced acquisition of Sun by Oracle leaves us Java developpers wondering about the future of this platform.
Indeed, Oracle has always been supportive of Java, and an Oracle backend is definitely a natural piece in a JEE architecture, but there will be consequences for the Java world.
To start with, there are the databases: Oracle of course, MySQL that was acquired not long ago, and now PostgreSQL. MySQL has a strong installed user base with very specific needs, and those will not switch to Oracle, even if a lite express web edition was made for them. So maybe Oracle will drop PostgreSQL along the way? I know PostgreSQL is a steady database and has fervent supporters, but let’s face it, it’s marginal. But being open source, it will survive in some way of course.
Then, Oracle now has no less than three application servers: its own OAS, WebLogic which came with the acquisition of BEA, and now GlassFish. Eventually not all of them will survive, but Glassfish has a good chance of being a survivor, first because it’s open source, second because it’s a reference implementation. Glassfish could be an efficient weapon against JBoss if it continues to evolve at the current rate, and Oracle might want to use it.
Oracle also inherited NetBeans, a very serious competitor for Eclipse; but Oracle is involved in Eclipse as a member of the Eclipse foundation, not to mention that Oracle also has its own Java IDE: JDeveloper, itself a fork of JBuilder… I believe NetBeans has a lot more potential than JDeveloper, so I think it’s not unlikely that JDeveloper will be gradually abandoned for a “custom” version of NetBeans, while the base NetBeans remains open source.
So is this acquisition good for Java? Better than the aborted IBM deal? Hard to say. One thing is that their respective portfolios complement each other better: Oracle doesn’t build hardware, IBM does, Oracle doesn’t make OSes, IBM does. By obtaining those two components from Sun, Oracle now has a pretty nice stack: Sun server, Solaris OS, Oracle DB, JEE application server. On the other hand, IBM did a lot more for the Java ecosystem than Oracle, being a huge contributor to Eclipse and Java libraries through its AlphaWorks division.
It seems that the Java part of Sun interested Oracle mostly because it powers its Fusion middleware offering, which makes it quite essential to the eyes of Larry Ellison, who called it “the single most important software asset we have ever acquired”. How true is this? Will Oracle really increase the investment in Java? I might be wrong, but I’ve always seen Oracle as a data-oriented company, and I’m afraid there is a so-called impedence mismatch between Sun and Oracle, just like there is between RDBMS and OO programming. But I hope it’s just me.