Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9

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News: Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9

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  1. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9 (67 messages)

    • Posted by: Toby Hede
    • Posted on: May 22 2002 05:19 EDT
    Sun Microsystems today announed the Solaris 9 Operating system. With this release, Sun has taken a Microsoft-style approach and will bundle the new J2EE 1.3 compliant Sun ONE Application Server 7 with the OS, with a single server development and deployment license for use on Sun systems. The move could have an effect on BEA, which sells most of its software on Solaris.

    This will have some important ramifications on the industry and really signifies a new level of 'commodification', which people have been talking about for some time.

    Read Sun's Solaris 9 Press Release.

    As another CNet.News article observes, it it close to Microsoft's strategy:
    http://news.com.com/2100-1001-919964.html?tag=fd_top.

    Read Sun eyes application server market, which discusses the implications for BEA.
    Reply to this

    Threaded Messages (67)

  2. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    sun started to follow M$ in bundling.. this is going to be a big blow for BEA. and Novell is trying to get into Application server market http://www.crn.com/sections/News/Top_News.asp?ArticleID=35373
    Reply to this Reply to original

  3. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    OK, somebody tell McNealy to stop complaining about Microsoft now ;)

    Seriously, the iPlanet / Netscape / Sun app server is really low-quality. Their Servlet engine is broken, etc. I doubt many customers are going to switch because of this announcement.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  4. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    This is a really interesting move by Sun. I think it is very interesting that Sun is competing with in the Java application server marketplace (I know, I know - they always have - but let's talk real competition). If I was BEA or IBM, I would be very nervous from the standpoint of what Sun will do in the future if they want to promote their application server over others.

    Could this affect the support of J2EE in the marketplace? Why would IBM and BEA continue to support J2EE if Sun is going to compete against them? That's a little like trying to market an Office suite against Microsoft on the same platform.

    Now, I realize that this is probably not the way it's going to play out - Sun is unlike, as a previous poster said, to win a major amount of the application server market at this point - they are just not a real software company. This move, which seems to me to have been put in place to move more Sun boxes (aka hardware sales), just reinforces that they see, for now and the future, most of their sales coming from hardware.

    But is this a shot across the bow to IBM and BEA? This is why I believe J2EE should be open-sourced.

    I'm curious what you guys think....

    Damian
    Reply to this Reply to original

  5. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    This is a graceful way to exit the application server business. Look at what happened to Bluestone at HP. They spewed the same stuff about changing the world, etc. etc.

    What happened at HP? The process is simple: You give away something for free, you get no revenue. You get no revenue, then you get no engineering dollars. You get no dollars, your product suffers featurewise. Then, you are out of the market.

    And then there were three: IBM, BEA, MSFT.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  6. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    You're smokin' crack if you think Sun is exiting the app server market. They finally got a clue! J2EE is the new standard people are writing apps to...(hmmmm Sun created Java, you think they would have figured that out before anyone else, but that's a different discussion)...not Solaris. Sun can no longer cede the app server market to BEA and IBM. They can no longer be "out Java'd" by licensee's. Provide a robust, cheap, and easy to use app server and you'll take market share from the leaders. Sun is NOT HP. HP doesn't have a clue in the web services space. Sun does! Ok...Sun's new app server is built off of the Java RI, Tomcat 4.0, the HTTP/Servlet engine of their web server, and Java Message Queue. Add to that the Clustra database/clustering s/w Sun acquired that guarantees
    99.999% uptime and you've got a compelling reason to look at Sun's product.

    Hey, its like StarOffice...will it overtake MSFT? No, but will the loss of 10-15% marketshare hurt MSFT's cash flow from the office cash cow....YES! Is that a win for Sun? Absolutely! Will Sun overtake BEA or IBM? Maybe not! Will it take market share...absolutely. 10-15% is not out of line. Either way, app servers are developement environments. They are commodity tools. No one wants to pay $10K per CPU for a dev tool....if there is a compelling low cost alternative. BEA loses either way. The WebLogic cash cow is dying...they better concentrate on value added apps on top of the app server.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  7. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    "You're smokin' crack if you think Sun is exiting the app server market. They finally got a clue! J2EE is the new standard people are writing apps to...(hmmmm Sun created Java, you think they would have figured that out before anyone else, but that's a different discussion)...not Solaris. Sun can no longer cede the app server market to BEA and IBM."

    Are you on drugs? There is a great, proven free alternative with real support: JBoss, baby. BTW, Sun is a hardware company if you haven't noticed.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  8. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    Oh...you're right, Solaris....NetBeans....Web Server....LDAP Directory....etc are not software products. Is Sun a MSFT? No. But, Sun sells more software in any given year than BEA? I guess you'd call them a hardware vendor?
    Reply to this Reply to original

  9. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    Yeah, that's interesting - it's basically what Microsoft did to Netscape - Netscape made it's money from the browser, so they gave it away and killed Netscape. Looks like Sun is trying to do the same to BEA.

    I'm just amazed that no one has simply bought BEA....$4.4b market cap - Oracle or Sun could eat them and then be #1 in the app server space. Granted, it's a big pill to swallow for a company like Sun (Market Cap $24b) or even Oracle (Market Cap $48b).

    Damian
    Reply to this Reply to original

  10. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    Dude, are you comparing mission critical infrastructure like the app server with the Web browser? Those two are completely different and the cost is not the issue here. Performance, stability, scalability, reliablity are more important than the initial investment of a few grand. That's why companies like mine are still paying BEA millions of dollars for its App server.

    On the other hand, I agree with your point that BEA will be bought soon.
    -- Lei
    Reply to this Reply to original

  11. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    No - you missed the point. I'm not comparing a web browser and an application server - I'm comparing business strategies. I completely agree that they are different types of products, but as Microsoft killed Netscape, Sun may be attempting to kill BEA.

    That's it!

    Damian
    Reply to this Reply to original

  12. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    I think BEA is safe as long as it competes on quality of service. This is still a nice value add for Sun to sell hardware and offer a single support vendor for app/os/hardware. Whether they throw more money at the app server to compete at the BEA/IBM level remains to be seen.

    The new battlefield for me is tools. Eclipse native GUI smokes. Check out Rational XDE to see an Eclipse nee Workbench extension on steriods.

    As .NET picks up steam and M$ sells its hack-in-a-box to managers, Sun will have a nice glossy to say me too.



    Reply to this Reply to original

  13. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    If you have millons dollar for just application server thats ok. What do you mean Performance, stability, scalability, reliablity ?
    Performance,scalability application servers scaliblity is simply linear in cluster (the problem is DB scalability). Performance I would like to pay $500 for new processor in than $15000 for "robust" app server.
    relability BEA is not perfrect. eg there was bug in WL 6.1 jdbc driver which threw exception in very RARE AND UNPREDICTABLE way (if more than 500 rows has beean returned and column value was null) It has been repaired in sp2.
    stability ? there was many bug in EJB implementation which caused memory heap to "grow"
    I think that WL is good but do not worth $15000 per processor if are not really 7 X 24 X 99,999%
    Reply to this Reply to original

  14. Sun appservers[ Go to top ]

    Can anyone list the various appservers that Sun has already bought to-date? I believe the number is 3.

    I don't think they plan on buying another.

    -Gary
    Reply to this Reply to original

  15. Sun appservers[ Go to top ]

    I know of at least 3 application servers that Sun has bought:

    Netscape/iPlanet application server
    NetDynamic
    SynerJ (for Forte)
    Reply to this Reply to original

  16. Sun appservers[ Go to top ]


    > I know of at least 3 application servers that Sun has >bought:

    >Netscape/iPlanet application server
    >NetDynamic
    >SynerJ (for Forte)

    Having worked for Forte (the company) prior to and
    during the acquistion, I can say that Sun was third
    time lucky (with SynerJ and Forte in general).

    They bought the minds that built Forte.

    For those that know it, you can see the Forte technology
    coming out in each new release of the JDK and J2EE.

    Paul B. and the other wizards at Forte, you are LEGENDS.

    Cheers,

    Noel.
      
    Reply to this Reply to original

  17. Sun appservers[ Go to top ]

    Sun should buy Metrowerks. It's the best IDE around.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  18. Sun appservers[ Go to top ]

    Yes, Metrowerks is great. But Motorola already bought them.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  19. Sun appservers[ Go to top ]

    Noel,

    I worked for Forte also. I worked on of Washington DC in the sales area. Do you know what company Paul is starting now? I heard that he put the "old gang" back together and is working on something, but I don't know what. If you have a link to a their web site, I'd like it.

    Mike
    Reply to this Reply to original

  20. Sun appservers[ Go to top ]

    Regarding Paul and his new company: it's www.amberside.com

    Regards,
    David (Hi Noel!)
    Reply to this Reply to original

  21. Sun appservers[ Go to top ]

    D'oh! amberside->amberpoint
    Reply to this Reply to original

  22. Sun appservers[ Go to top ]

    Hmm. I have often pondered the J2EE strategy from Sun.
    They had Java and started to rule the world. Then they had tons of other stuff... way too much to decide what to use. So they branded it as J2EE, which actually worked. They have a very strong architectural and platform brand called J2EE which can be thrown about and can mean anything from a jsp page to an enterprise solution.

    This lets them try to defend against .Net
    Not sure of the historical timings, but you could twist things to say .Net brand name pulls together loads of technologies, everything from a simple .asp page to an enterpise solution.

    Hmmm. Now they bundle an app server. Which is kinda lowering the boom on developers just having a go at J2EE. From my point of view it becomes useful providing they also ship that same app server for wintel for free. That means I can develop on my PC and then ship it to the server. For almost every project I will now use the free installed app server. ie internal company users, no clustering etc, simply a live and a failover box. It scales to my user base no problem. Hmmm.

    Actually, this is dang fine. No cost for app server, no cost for admin - its pre-installed. So reliability is now the only issue. Scaleability and robustness is not an issue - as I said these are internal users, ie max of 1000 say, any old server can handle that.

    I recon this is a great move by sun, it means my intranet based projects can now use J2EE which is CV enhancing and I have no additional cost. Wow. WOW!!!! No pissing about with getting sign off for weblogic, or an unsupported free app server like JBoss. My managers love it, and the tech heads get to use proper J2EE for free.

    I recon this is a great win for mid size projects. And if they really work, then the massive enterprise wide projects will also use it. COOL.

    Why sun does this? Anyones guess. Will it last, probably, since Java has to continue to be a great strategic drive, and making it default shipped with the OS is only sensible. When J2EE soap support really gets integrated in we now have a complete, pre-built soln for integrating .net and j2ee projects (ie soap). Yep this solves loads of issues.

    Jonathan
    Reply to this Reply to original

  23. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    BlueStone got into the game late and never had much of a following.

    Sun's not completely giving it away. Enterprise customers with more advanced needs still must pay.

    SunONE is based on very sound core products in the Netscape web server and directory, which are/were industry best. This gives them an installed base of customers that may be inclined to upgrade to their J2EE level products. Sun's reputation on the hardware side is a lot better too, and they can now provide complete end to end solutions, and they'll even ship preconfigured.

    Also, your list of 3 seems a little incomplete what about Oracle, Macromedia, Borland, Iona, ... The really nice thing about any of these vendors is that your j2ee based system will run on any of these servers, and any hardware. That m$ft entry mentioned can't make that claim. Why were they even mentioned?




    Reply to this Reply to original

  24. Very little Effect on Weblogic, Websphere...[ Go to top ]

    bear in mind that license cost is a very small part of the equation -- the real differentiators are total cost of ownership (how does it fit into current infrastructure like with virt hosting, large clusters, shared services, etc.) and the other parts of the stack that people have come to rely on (portal, workflow, management and admin, etc.).
    Reply to this Reply to original

  25. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    I think this is good news for Linux, which will also share in the limelight. In the end BEA will promote what is best for their customers and for some that means Solaris, but many customers are also finding value in purchasing less expensive Intel hardware running Linux for J2EE deployments. The recent benchmarks and purchase of the JRocket product show that they are still very actively invloved in the Intel/Linux market. I also think that Oracle will continue to be challenged in the price/performance arena with Solaris, and that database price/performance ratios will ultimately battle it out in the software arena running on fast GHZ Intel processors.

    Rob
    Reply to this Reply to original

  26. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    Well its like trashing the solaris OS, their app server and web server both are peice of ****. People will be forced to use it becos its free for a while and then when they are fed up with their lives move to JBOSS on LINUX.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  27. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    Hi,

    I really see no problem for the third party vendors. This just makes it all the more the reason to support JBoss. Sun is not forcing you to user their application server. If it's iPlanet, then stick with JBoss, BEA or what ever. As for LINUX, nothing will change. For what it's work Xserve + Mac OS X and JBoss work with no problem. It runs today on Mac OS X with no problem.

    Tony
    Reply to this Reply to original

  28. ... a difference[ Go to top ]

    The is certainly some degree of difference between a client side OS & a SERVER SIDE OS & how that relates to the issue of bundling - The typical consumer in the case of the client OS (such as M$ Windoqs ) is the end user including my grandma who might not ever learn how to download & install any PC software on her own.

    On the other hand the typical consumer for a SERVER side OS such as Solaris is the corporate IT department- UNIX system administrators, who has the knowledge and ability to CHOOSE & install what they see fit...


    Reply to this Reply to original

  29. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]


    Same approach... but the same result?
    Sun should take more responsibilities to make their
    product the best in the market. Otherwise, MS then
    can claim it was the quality that customers chose.
    Aren't you thrilled to see the result??





    Reply to this Reply to original

  30. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    How much difference does it going to make.

    Is anyone going run their mission critical, real time, volume intensive applications on something available for free.

    Everybdoy knows where they stand in the App Server Market. No threat to BEA ... they are and they will be the leader.

    -V
    Reply to this Reply to original

  31. Well..[ Go to top ]

    Well, lots of people run mission critical applications on free stuff - whether we look at MS's bundled app server (where "free" is not really true), or any company that runs mission critical applications on Linux.

    I agree with you that it won't change the app server marketplace, but I think there a quite a number of mission critical apps running on free (or at least bundled) software. (Right about now the JBoss people will show up and really argue that point! ;-) )

    Also a good point about getting out of the app server marketplace - that's an interesting interpretation. My only issue with that is that Sun hardware has not been moving - so they need a new strategy for either extracting significant revenue from Java, or a way to make their hardware preferrable to other hardware platforms to move their numbers. I don't believe this move will do the latter...

    Good discussion....

    Damian
    Reply to this Reply to original

  32. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    I can safely say that the iPlanet app server is a piece of crap (from my past experience) ... giving it away doesn't make it any better. It is now crap that is available for free! :-)
    Reply to this Reply to original

  33. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    My understanding is that they've thrown out the Kiva code base and focused ease of use and adherence to the RI so that Sun could easily beat competitors to adopt the latest J2EE/Web Services standards. If its easy to use...functionaly equal or superior to competition, performant, and cheap...people developing and deploying web services will give it a serious look.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  34. One other point about Sun and their moves on the App Server[ Go to top ]

    You fail to look at Sun's past experience with NetBeans. NetBeans (open source)/SunONE Developer Studio (Sun's productized version of NetBeans) is awesome! Its won a boat load of analyst and developer accolades. Sun's moves with the App Server should follow the same path. If they come close to what they've done with NetBeans, BEA is in serious trouble!!!
    Reply to this Reply to original

  35. One other point about Sun and their moves on the App Server[ Go to top ]

    NetBeans? Please. I guess you haven't look at eclipse.
    Once I tried out eclipse, which is from IBM BTW, I dumped Forte/NetBeans in a heartbeat.

    SUN has proven again and again it is not a software company. IBM is where the competition is.
    -- Lei
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  36. One other point about Sun and their moves on the App Server[ Go to top ]

    <quote>NetBeans?</quote>

    Definitely, without a question, NetBeans is a great product.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  37. One other point about Sun and their moves on the App Server[ Go to top ]

    One way,
    I am not trashing NetBeans. I am just pointing out that eclipse (www.eclipse.org and it is free too) is a much better, slimmer, and faster IDE than Forte, which is built on top of NetBeans. Another example of SUN took a great tool like NetBean and turned it into an almost useless IDE like Forte (too fat, slow, and memory hog).
    -- Lei
    Reply to this Reply to original

  38. One other point about Sun and their moves on the App Server[ Go to top ]

    <quote>
    I am not trashing NetBeans. I am just pointing out that eclipse (www.eclipse.org and it is free too) is a much better, slimmer, and faster IDE than Forte, which is built on top of NetBeans. Another example of SUN took a great tool like NetBean and turned it into an almost useless IDE like Forte (too fat, slow, and memory hog).
    </quote>

    It appears to me that, for whatever reason, you do no like Sun and that affects your judgment. You stated that you are not "trashing NetBeans" and, at the same time, that NetBeans is "an almost useless IDE".

    I work with NetBeans every day and I would question your sincerity and/or knowledge of the subject. In both cases, your opinion does not present any value (to me).
    Reply to this Reply to original

  39. One other point about Sun and their moves on the App Server[ Go to top ]

    I said Forte is almost useless, not NetBeans itself. Have you checked out eclipse? It rocks. Maybe you are an expert on NetBeans but at least I have tried all THREE products (NetBeans, Forte, and eclipse) and there is no comparison. Just my 2 cents. Dude, just chill it, okay? Do you work for Sun?
    -- Lei
    Reply to this Reply to original

  40. One other point about Sun and their moves on the App Server[ Go to top ]

    <quote>
    I said Forte is almost useless, not NetBeans itself.
    </quote>

    Forte and NetBeans is practically the same thing, both share the same codebase. I prefer NetBeans (it's open source and free) but I used Forte and it was fine too. Not sure how you can find Forte useless but not NetBeans. Again, I would question your sincerity/knowledge.

    When it comes to Eclipse, I'm not crazy at all about SWT and it's portability (have you tried it on Linux?).

    Whatever.

    P.S. I do not work for Sun (you asked).
    Reply to this Reply to original

  41. AppServer Strategy vs. IDE Strategy[ Go to top ]

    It seems to me that Sun is trying to make a point in terms of future escalation of Solaris towards a more specific market niche. Obviously, Solaris is empowered by the Java Platform, just as Windows is being empowered by .NET.

    On the other hand, Sun understands itself not as a mere competitor for BEA or IBM, but rather as the provider of a "Market RI" (as oppossed to the "Development RI", which is focused on providing a baseline for developers) so ISVs can build better J2EE software. Moreover, Sun wants to catch up with J2EE, for the latter has gained momentum on itself via JSRs and ISVs. This strategy will eventually give Sun greater control over J2EE, rather indirectly, in contrast with the direct control of Microsoft over .NET.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  42. One other point about Sun and their moves on the App Server[ Go to top ]

    I know is a bit off-topic (religious war on IDE), but I really like Forte/Netbeans, and I really couldn´t get value of Eclipse, despite a lot of people telling me "use it".
    Reply to this Reply to original

  43. One other point about Sun and their moves on the App Server[ Go to top ]

    " I know is a bit off-topic (religious war on IDE), but I really like Forte/Netbeans, and I really couldn´t get value of Eclipse, despite a lot of people telling me "use it"."

    There is an IDE religious war going on a few threads over. Feel free to join in! ;-)

    The value of Eclipse for me is that it meets most of my IDE criteria: Super-fast (compared to others), free (as in beer), runs great on Linux (motif version, gtk is coming along), incredibly intuitive (love the multiple perspectives and views), and terrific integration with other tools (Ant, CVS, Junit, etc etc).

    Did I mention that it was free? ;-)

    -- jason
     
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  44. One other point about Sun and their moves on the App Server[ Go to top ]

    Regarding the discussion on IDEs, I tried out Eclipse because I felt Forte was slow (I had been using Forte for 2 years before that), but Eclispe is so confusing. It was assuming and doing too many things without me asking for it (like compiling files when loading them etc.)

    Two days later, I still couldn't figure out how to do a task as simple as "Open File." If I recall correctly, there is no File->Open menu item.

    Anyway, I switched to GNU-Emacs three months ago and I am very happy ever since. Everything you listed as being applicable to Eclipse can also be said for emacs. IMHO, It is the best!
    Reply to this Reply to original

  45. One other point about Sun and their moves on the App Server[ Go to top ]

    As long as we're off-topic here, and talking about IDEs rather than Sun's app server strategy, check out IntelliJ IDEA. Small, fast, powerful and extensible. No, it's not free but sometimes you get what you pay for. And with IDEA, you get a lot! Try it! You'll like it!
    Reply to this Reply to original

  46. One other point about Sun and their moves on the App Server[ Go to top ]

    Me too. Tried it twice and just couldn't get along with it. Still using NetBeans.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  47. One other point about Sun and their moves on the App Server[ Go to top ]

    For people who are discussing Netbeans v/s Eclipse. I would like to point out that Netbeans has been around for years and Eclipse is just about emerging.

    About native widgets (SWT), a lot has been written and debated. Its getting to become a Windows v/s Linux kind of argument. So no point in getting into that.

    Lets wait for the final product release of Eclipse (2.0), expected in June. And the next release of Netbeans (3.4).

    Netbeans has a lot of features that are not present in Eclipse and vice-versa.

    Individuals should evaluate both and choose the paradigm which suits them best.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  48. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    As a type of software becomes more popular, it will eventually be included free on the machine. It was only a matter of time before the major server vendors provide a free application server. I predict that IBM will follow soon.

    I have often heard people on this message board bash iPlanet Application Server. Sun has a large list of happy customers with many mission critical applications running it. Most polls show that it is 3rd or 4th in the marketplace. But more importantly you don't understand Sun plan. They not interested in a product, but in a complete infrastructure. I'll grantee you this. There is no other single-vendor infrastructure of iPlanet's size that is better and there isn't a "best of breed" infrastructure solution that better and cheaper. That is a compelling argument.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  49. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    Hi Mike,
    I guess I really don't understand why Sun is doing this. Since they are giving away their software products, thus no revenue coming in, so how do they plan on making money? By selling more boxes? Are they going to only support Spac hardware? By locking user in their hardware? Then it is no different than what M$FT is doing and people will reject it.
    -- Lei
    Reply to this Reply to original

  50. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    People will not be locked into their hardware or application server. J2EE is portable. You can pack up and go to IBM tomorrow if you want.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  51. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    Hi Mike,
    Theoretically that is the case but we all know that is not true. I am not talking about the J2EE application itself, rather the installation/configuration/administration of the app servers. Weblogic or WebSphere are not exactly like M$ word, otherwise we don't have to send people to be training in how to manage those servers. They are more like database servers and takes weeks or months to get up to speed.

    The other point of my post was how SUN could benefit from packaging SUN ONE app server with the OS. They don't get any revenue out of it and they have to spend millions supporting and improving it. Then why in the hell are they doing this? Sorry I am just too cynical at this point.
    -- Lei
    Reply to this Reply to original

  52. SunONE AppServer[ Go to top ]

    Since Sun started pushing the java standards to the JCP process and the Java language is very close to being open source, they don't have to play the impartial keeper of java anymore. Before they used to develope J2EE hand in hand with BEA while doing little to help iPlanet. Now they have more lattitude to develope their own J2EE platform to compete with IBM and M$. It seems complete end to end solutions are what is selling and Sun has to align their offerings to match IBM. The SunONE platform is reported to support many standards and run on many OS's so as long as java and j2ee stays a standard I don't see anything wrong with it. Keep in mind it is only a dev license, nothing that could not be downloaded from the net for free anyway.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  53. SunONE AppServer[ Go to top ]

    No, it's a deployment license also.
    Reply to this Reply to original

  54. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    "As a type of software becomes more popular, it will eventually be included free on the machine."

    I have heard this type of statement before in regards to app servers. This is sort of the point the JBoss folks have made as well (if I remember correctly)...

    As a product type matures, more and more vendors begin offering the same features. After the product type's need stabalize, there becomes no real differnce between one vendor and the next. The product becomes a commodity.

    This is what happened to web servers several years ago. I am not trying to compare the compexity of an app server to a web server. I am just saying that as app servers mature, there will be little to distiguish them. Perhaps Sun sees that future revenues in enterprise application development space will not come from software plumbing, but from development/administation services and infrastructure. If this is indeed what the future holds, perhaps this isn't such a bad idea?!?
    Reply to this Reply to original

  55. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    I wouldn't exactly say "happy" customers - and I think I can judge 6.0 a bit since we had some insight into it (more that normal customer).
    6.5 is slightly better than 6.0 - after they ripped out and almost entirely replaced the whole transaction/db management.
    I can't talk about 7.0, but based on what a friend, who works quite closely with RI, told me, they log tens of bugs a week agains RI (things like doing "instanceof"-like comparison by comparing the names of the class... - yuck), so I wouldn't bet a farm on that one either.
    I will admit though that iPlanet infrastructure (portal, web server, ldap, security etc.) can be quite powerful. The only reason why it can be called "best of breed" is because no-one else provides all of it in a one package. The question is though whether putting together your own isn't cheaper and better. I don't know - I haven't seen any reasonable (i.e. non marketing) comparisons.
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  56. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    By bundling the app servers with Solaris, which of course is required to run a Sun box (whatever happened to Sparc-Linux?), they are undercutting the competition. Some business-types will say 'well, we can spend 100k on a rack of x86 boxes, plus 200k on app server licenses; or we can just spend 300k on Sun hardware and we get the app server for free. Hmm... we can get a whole lot more hardware if we just buy Sun since we don't have to pay for those pesky software licenses.'

    Don't be surprised if in a couple of years your favorite app server is actually an appliance; i.e. it is like buying a Cisco switch that you just plug into the network, do some remote config (in this case upload an EAR), and off you go.

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  57. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    Application server market needs some quality products. Although, IBM and BEA split the top spot for marketshare today, neither both WebSphere and WebLogic, especially WebLogic because it has more bugs than forest, need improvements before they reduce huge number of complaints about themselves. I do not think Sun has enough of a base at this point to release a good server, because iPlanet is good for the toilet and Sun would need some significant time to develop next much more improved version of it. Meanwhile, IBM and BEA and also Oracle are not asleep and continue producing mind boggling ideas about how to improve their products.

    Since Sun is friendly with IBM, they two would be better off cooperating and working on how to improve WebSphere on Solaris platform. That would totally screw up BEA. Sun will not make a lot of money off of selling their AppServer on the market where other already established customers. They would make more money by chipping in with IBM.
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  58. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    i think it is rather tactical step, as Sun just does not know what to do with their application server and how to get more money out of it. it seems that there is just one company with articulated vision for money making in application server market and unfortunatelly it is M$. the latest purchases of great plains and navision prove it. their software is awfull, but their business is thrilling.
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  59. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    The key points here are

    1)New name may be SunOne, but it's the same iPlanet piece of crap.

    2)Free is not enough to make a second-tier product first-string. HP gives away Bluestone. Haven't noticed that they've shaken up the market.

    3)The first-tier app servers are JBoss, BEA and IBM. The market is locked and the traditional licensing revenue stream is dying. Only JBoss and IBM aggressively pursue a services model.

    4)Rumor on the street is that JBoss Group will be acquired by a big name soon. In Novell's case, 700 mill is not going to buy them BEA and their other proprietary acquisition targets are second-string and based on software licensing.
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  60. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    Speculating on who might buy BEA, among the box makers I feel that Dell is in the best position, if they indeed want to enter the enterprise in a complete, serious way. Thinking outside the box, ahem, any of the application cos (SAP, PeopleSoft, Seibel, CA, etc.) would probably love to have WLS.

    Do you think Apple might jump into this game.... maybe pick up jboss? I've heard good things about their dev tools but they don't seem to have brain share.

    This is fun.
     
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  61. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    Yeah, Apple picking up jboss? Why would they wanna do something like that? Ever heard about WebObjects, their java app server? That is a fine product (And back in 1997, they already had implemented what is still discussed in the J2EE community). They just do not have _any_ marketing for WebObjects. That is why you haven't heard of it. That is why J2EE won. And that is why J2EE should be aware of .Net

    I am so pitiful today. I guess I'm gonna post some exceptions on some developer lists now.
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  62. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    4)Rumor on the street is that JBoss Group will be acquired


    Strange, how to buy Open Source project?
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  63. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    True, JBoss, the Open Source project, cannot be acquired.

    As for JBoss Group, I imagine it's a play for the "JBoss" brand, website and services organization they've built. Unlike most commercial exploitations of Open Source, JBoss Group includes the core project developers.
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  64. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    Even more interesting are the rumors that have been coming out about Sun, with it's depressed stock price, being a target for a take-over themselves. Now, I know these rumors are always coming out when a stock is in the tank, but I do find it interesting - imagine if IBM or HP/Compaq were to buy Sun out?

    Personally, I like the IBM idea - I think they would be smart to do so - gives them control of the server market, and it would also give them the ability to do what Sun will not do: open source Java (I guess we'd see what they really think of Open Source then!)

    As for Apple - I don't think we'll be seeing major moves from them in the short term in this area. To paraphrase Jobs: we're approaching the server market carefully. Their new server, however, is pretty cool.

    Anyway, it's a lot of fun to speculate on this stuff!

    Damian
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  65. Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 not truly free[ Go to top ]

    The "Sun One J2EE AppServer 7" that comes bundled with Solaris 9 is the platform edition and can only be used for development. If you wish to use the app server in a production environment then you will have to buy the Sun One AppServer 7 Enterprise Edition or the Sun One AppServer 7 Enterprise Pro Edition which starts around 20K per CPU. Here is the link.
    http://store.sun.com/catalog/doc/BrowsePage.jhtml?cid=64429

    Here is the link if you want to see the differences between the three products
    http://wwws.sun.com/software/products/appsrvr/home_appsrvr.html

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  66. Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 not truly free[ Go to top ]

    Read the press release!!! The Sol. 9 comes with a free "development and deployment license for use on Sun systems". You are thinking of the app. server Enterprise Edition which has always been free for development on Solaris.
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  67. Sun and app server market[ Go to top ]

    This move has been rumored for about a year now. I figured it would eventually happen as part of an overall "commoditization" of the J2EE app server market. IBM has bundled earlier versions of WebSphere on certain platforms, as have other vendors.

    I don't think this implies a lack of competition between vendors. However, price just won't be as big of a factor. There will be many vendors that will bundle their app server with some other hardware or software purchase. Vendors will need to compete on performance and ease of use, as well as offering add-on components/features(portal, commerce, development tools, etc.)

    (Note: I think exception to this will be high-availability configurations involving clustered servers; this will still cost $$$)

    What this means to those of us who are developers (and architects) is that we will need to make a pretty strong case to go with an app server that cost $$$ rather than the bundled app server.

    I would guess that this will cost BEA (and potentially other app vendors) some of the lower-end deals. I'm sure some companies will use the Sun server because it's already there. But the bigger deals are still up for grabs, as they typically are sold on more than just price.

    -ed
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  68. Sun bundles the new Sun One J2EE AppServer 7 with Solaris 9[ Go to top ]

    Don't forget Sun takes a cut of every J2EE licensed app server sale... that makes this announcement all the more strange. Also - if they aren't giving anything away if Solaris 9 has a price tag on it... it depends on how you look at it.
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