Chris Horn once again is running Iona, the former integration giant he helped found more than a decade ago. Horn cited many mistakes in Iona's history, including overestimating B2B integration market growth, overspending on Java One parties, and product focus mistakes including the XML Bus and the J2EE Application Server.

Read Horn Trumpets Plan to Refocus, Repair Iona.


Horn said the company would move away from offering a full-featured J2EE application server, instead creating a J2EE deployment environment that allows users to run Java applications alongside CORBA applications in a common environment.

Hey Chris,

    I bought IONA at $30/share, when do you think I'll see a profit?

Thanks,

Colon

It is not next to impossible ?
With Web services kicking in CORBA is kind of a real geeks property ...I dont see myself going back to days of 1996-1998 when corba was a great new zing thing. And that was the most horrific stressful coding i have ever done. ( Its so complex for no reason )

> With Web services kicking in CORBA is kind of a real geeks property ...I dont see myself going back to days of 1996-1998 when corba was a great new zing thing. And that was the most horrific stressful coding i have ever done. ( Its so complex for no reason )

Yeah, when Web Services defines transaction and security propagation and WS-I actually comes to an agreement on a standard then maybe CORBA is obsolete. Then again, if performance is every an issue....

BTW, if anybody can turn Iona around it is Chris Horn.

IMHO in terms of new cross platform integrations Web Services is gaining market share.

However you must remember CORBA is still everywhere in certain industry verticals such as Telecoms. This means from an integration perspective CORBA is around and definately not obsolete.

David

In my industry, Webservices is often mentioned but seldom seen.

    -Mike

I agree that CORBA is still preferred technology in Telecom.
  webservices has long way to go in the area of transactions,security.

No money for Telcom to move onto new technologies for (-2, +2) years. Even if they do, I don't think Webservice is ready yet to replace CORBA.

Web Service to replace CORBA ? I don't think it's realistic.
Web Services are only good enough for integration.
For example, .NET client + web services plateform + CORBA backend is better than tricky COM/CORBA bridge.

My opinion is "IIOP never dies", CORBA... perhaps.

Mouloud.

Could be changed too. E.g. Parlay X vs. Parlay

> However you must remember CORBA is still everywhere in certain industry verticals such as Telecoms.

CORBA has many _very valid reasons_ to be complex. In the same time simple things like RPC always were much simpler with CORBA and complex things possible.

IONA’s implementation of CORBA is the different story:I am agree, it is horrible from my experience in 99-2000.

Web services (IMO):
1% - healthy idea of cooperation with using common standards;
99% - reinventing the wheel;

PS:XML landscape

Turning it around now is pretty different than starting a CORBA/ORB company at that time. They built a good product, but having a good ORB isn't enough these days. I agree that web services, to a certain extent, are putting pressure on the CORBA market, but if you need performance, security, etc.. you can't really use web services quite yet to cover the scope of things available in CORBA.

However, it will be interesting to see what happens here.. do they keep the app server? The EAI tools? The ORB? It does seem like their product line is too varied, and is in market segments with a great deal of competition. Perhaps the merging of their EAI suite, the ORB, and a sprinkling of web services will get people excited?