The beginning of the end of Java as we know it?

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The beginning of the end of Java as we know it?By David Berlind, Tech UpdateDecember 17, 2003Though the two companies appear to be cooperating more, especially in the area of Web services, the desires of IBM and Microsoft to vanquish one another should not be underestimated. IBM and Microsoft routinely argue that their cooperation, which is producing de facto standards at a record-breaking pace, is happening for the benefit of their customers. But standards, especially Web services standards, also facilitate the substitution of one platform for another. In this case, Java for .Net and vice versa. Nothing would please either company more than to win one of the other's customers by booting out the incumbent run-time environment. Behind the scenes of this industry's most important struggle for supremacy, Microsoft must be grinning. Only one company is in control of Windows and .Net and all that goes with them, including the various approachable entry points (Microsoft Office, Visual Studio, etc.) and their respective development environments, which share some commonalities. When Microsoft has to make a change to any of its technologies to advance its agenda, it's largely unencumbered by external forces. But in the Java world, where IBM is heavily bound, the consensus within the Java Community Process (JCP) controls the software ecosystem. If any single vendor has more influence than others, it's Sun. Change and advancement in the interest of one company's agenda are subject to politics, which have historically driven wedges into the Java community. In fact, Microsoft couldn't have executed a better divide-and-conquer war plan than the one that's being handed to it on a silver platter. The two fronts on which Java unity most matters when facing the stiff wind from Redmond are the application server front and integrated development environment (IDE). Respectively, these platforms are where Microsoft's Windows .Net Server is battling with several Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)-based application servers, and where Visual Studio is competing against two primarily Java-driven IDEs. These two arenas, with the mobile run-time environment running a distant third, are where the war between Java and .Net will be fought most vociferously. Fortunately for Microsoft, it is precisely on these two fronts where the fractures in the Java community run the deepest. Full article