Sun has reversed itself- remember in March of this year there was a rumor that this would happen and Sun denied it. Now it seems it was true after all. What will this mean for BEA, who runs mostly on Solaris? Will the BEA/Intel partnership lead to more usage of WebLogic on Linux? Will developers adopt iPlanet more widely if it is bundled with Solaris?

Check out Sun to bundle iPlanet application server with Solaris.

Also, iPlanet and Sun are providing a free, unlimited development license of the iPlanet Application Server for the Solaris Operating Environment

Check out http://developer.iplanet.com/appserver/solaris/index.jsp

   It is true that this seems like a slap in the face for BEA. I have heard from people from major companies in the app. server selection process (were talking hundred thousand dollar deals) that the BEA sales guys were pushing Solaris/Sun hardware almost as hard as Weblogic itself.

   I would be interested in seeing if that changes as a result the IPlanet bundling.

Floyd

It would be more interesting if they were giving away dev. licenses on Windows where most of actual development takes place.

I dont think ,it will a make a big change in Application server Market.BEA have dependable customers.They never want to move their applications to iPlanet or some other App server(Even If it is free).
In fact, BEA WebLogic is more easier and robust than iPlanet.
Lawrence

I don't see why "dependable customers" never want to move
their applications from BEA appserver to other appservers;
unless, BEA appserver provides private hooks and markers
which locked those "dependable customers" into BEA's product. I wonder who are those "dependable customers"

Tieu Chu

WLS is a better Server. I do not know who will use iPlanet?

What's the big deal about, anyway? Sun is offering *development* licenses, not runtime! What prevents users from developing with iPlanet products and deploying with competitor products? They are all based on standards, right?


Besides, Weblogic has been actively promoting Itanium for their future growth. So if Sun furthers the cause of Sparc/Solaris and iPlanet, they are just protecting their platform... right?

I have to agree that this is quite a slap in the face of BEA given the fact that BEA/WebLogic is responsible for more Sun hardware sales after Oracle.

This move will probably piss off IBM as well. BEA and IBM have done more to make J2EE a standard and than Sun ever did. Sun needs to figure out if it wants to shepard Java and make it a industry standard or bundle a crappy product like iPlanet to cut in marketshare of BEA and IBM.

Bundling their own software for free in their operating system. Wait a minute -- Didn't they want to sue Microsoft for that very same reason?? :)

--Vinny

So where do they make their revenue from now? Services or some other support contract? If the product no longer has a good sized revenue stream how much effort will they put into insuring it's a viable production application server platform as new releases of the J2EE emerge?

Or will iPlanet somehow slowly become the Sun J2EE reference server for new specification releases vs. having iPlanet in addition to their reference implementation? Just a thought.

Plus, what about Windows dev licenses? We deploy to big Sun boxes but develop on Win2K laptops with our QA and release code going on our Sun boxes.

As for direct comparisons I've never compared BEA and WebSphere to iPlanet so I really don't know how well they stack up to each other in the application server space.

    This could be a slap in the face to Microsoft as much as BEA. Bundling IPlanet with Solaris (if it is free or very low cost) changes the economics by making the Solaris IPlanet combination very affordable compared to paying BEA for developer licenses on each Windows desktop, and then paying Microsoft again for a server license to deploy BEA on NT. Besides, one of the things that Windows has always done best is to serve as an x-term with Hummingbird :-).

    I think the big change that will come from this is that BEA will probably have to quit charging for developer licenses, which is an outrageous thing to do anyway.

Calm down, calm down,

ALL sun are doing is giving away free DEVELOPMENT licenses for SOLARIS. They are not giving away production licenses.

The key word is DEVELOPMENT. I can also download BEA WebLogic evaluation license for free from BEA and although the license expires in 30 days you are free to download another. Besides if your company is serious about evaluating they will strike a deal with BEA to have unlimited evaluation copies.

Second point repeats an earier poster. This is for Solaris, not NT/W2K which most of us develop on.

Also, this package has been available for some time now in a downloadable version that expired after 60 days. This offer is just making things more convenient.

Support is only available through the newsgroups.

Suns move is understandable.
IBM carries tight integration between its AIX OS and Websphere, Micr$oft does the same with its .Net.
Why shouldnt Sun offer the same level of integration to its users?, its only natural that this move will result in better performance and offer better costs.
BEA always claim that they are Platform independent, and that when buying Weblogic you are not tying yourself to an OS vendor, so let them handle Suns new packaging now.

I think Sun's move as well as IBM's and Microsoft's similar moves are totally unacceptable. Tying the AppServer with the OS? Doesn't that vividly remind us of Internet Explorer's Integration with Windows? What's the FTC doing these days? Shouldn't it be after these guys?

And one final question: What happens with the vendors that are not in the hardware/OS Market? What are these people suppose to do? If I was in their shoes I would sue Sun for anticompetitive practices and using their monopoly power in Java against their competitors in the AppServer market. Not to mention that they are competing with their customers.

Angry Young Man