A new article on CNet discusses the continueing effects of application server commoditization on the J2EE Server market including what the different vendors are and should be doing to differentiate themselves and stay competitive. The article also quotes an analyst claiming that "there's no market for a $5,000" appserver.

If true, this claim could spell disaster for vendors who banked their business on having a quality but low-cost server.

Read Application server software giants regroup.

The author cites a three-year old article in which he had predicted upcoming difficulties for Oracle, which obviously turned up to be totally wrong.

Kind of similar to saying "there is no future for OS vendors, see what happened to Microsoft".

I also enjoyed this little gem:

<Because Java defines a standardized way to build software, it also means there's little room to differentiate products, especially at the low end of the market.
>>

<sigh>

--
Cedric

Also wanted to point something out. I received an email from a friend at Macromedia who said that he spoke to Chris Dial (who made the $5000 quote) and:

"
Chris Dial at Forrester ... claims to have been sort of misquoted. He was really saying the opposite - "why buy a 30k app server when you can get a 5k one, and the field is basically level because of the spec.
"

There is definitely room for a 5K app server. Some of the prices we have gotten on app servers have been absurd.

One thing that I agree with in the article is the effect that an open source server like JBoss can have. Free is hard to beat, especially with the Java claims of code portability. Write once, run anywhere, even on free server software!!

Woo Hoo!

<quote>
Free is hard to beat,
</quote>

You need to define "free". Software is governed by very different rules: a free meal is very different from a free software, especially when it's "meta-software", software that helps create more software.

Which is pretty much what a lot of the now dead companies that trirf to make money off the Open Source Movement proved.

You can only ignore what your customers want as long as you don't need them to pay your bills.

--
Cedric

<quote>
You can only ignore what your customers want as long as you don't need them to pay your bills.
</quote>

exactly!

Cedric,

Actually, I agree with you. My comment about "free is hard to beat" is actually slightly sarcastic. As a matter of fact, I am suspicious of the whole "sandle brigade" and the socialist bent of the open source movement. However, I DO like the market pressure that they exert when they produce decent products. Java needs to have a lower total cost of ownership and open source projects seem to help. Like it or not, outside of the open source stuff, Microsoft is has a much lower TOC.

Danny

''He was really saying the opposite - "why buy a 30k app server when you can get a 5k one, and the field is basically level because of the spec''

That jumped out the page at me! There is a huge market for a $5K app server (and less). The problem (for them) is that BEA and Oracle can't make money out of it.

I like the JBOSS originators approach. They have a business model. Borland also seem to have figured out that Java app server = commodity = price sensitive.

Phil

The article must be misquoted. Why pay $10,000 for a J2EE app server when I can get one for less than $10,000 (assuming I want support and utilities)? IF THEY ALL ARE CERTIFIED AS J2EE THEN THERE IS NO NEED TO BUY ORACLE OR BEA OR IBM OR NETSCAPE application servers.

You buy the expensive products for the extra code like portals and other frameworks. You also buy the expensive for extra performance (which 98% of applications don't need) because one vendor might be better at converting Java Byte Code into hardware (including cache) actions more efficiently than another vendor. For example, an often overlooked Java App Server is Sybase EAServer. It has more "proven" extras than BEA and Oracle (it has been supporting C++ and ActiveX for over 5 years). That's why anyone that wants to be under budget and on time will have a preference for this product, especially in a company that has a mix between Java and MS technologies.

<quote>
IF THEY ALL ARE CERTIFIED AS J2EE THEN THERE IS NO NEED TO BUY ORACLE OR BEA OR IBM OR NETSCAPE application servers.
</quote>

This is a bit naive... J2EE is the price of admission, I agree, but there is a lot that J2EE doesn't cover that you absolutely need if you intend to scale (clustering comes to mind).

--
Cedric

I agree!

Documentation, support, training, books, tutorials.., to name just a few more.

<QUOTE SOURCE=CNET>
Sun recently announced plans to integrate and merge its iPlanet application server into its Solaris operating system, essentially making them one product. HP in the future is also expected to do the same with its application server and HP-UX operating system.
</QUOTE>

So finally to the Microsoft way of bund(g)ling !! After the Anti-trust settlement everybody is now emboldened to do this!!