Sun has announced that it will be offering the basic 'platform edition' of the new J2EE 1.3 certified SunOne AppServer 7 for free dev and deployment use, supporting Linux, Windows, HP-UX and AIX. Sun has said that the new AppServer will be based on the J2EE reference implementation, which could give them an unfair time to market advantage over the competitors.

The Sun ONE Application Server 7, Platform Edition is offered free of license fee for development and deployment, with support available for an additional charge.

SunOne will be available in three editions: platform, standard and enterprise. It is unclear from Sun's site whether the free standard edition is clusterable.

Check out SunOne AppServer 7.

Read the press release.

This reminds me of HP's move to make its basic version of its HP-AS 8 appserver for free. Sun and HP seem to be in a similar predicament: both large hardware companies with very little J2EE appserver marketshare, trying to make their product free to help penetrate the market.

Looks like HP realized that J2EE servers are not their core competency, and is refocusing on selling hardware with its partners (BEA, IBM, etc).

Sun however (in control of the specs), probably has more potential than HP did, as it could 'unfairly' use a time to market advantage by co-releasing SunOne at the same time as the specs themselves. In the past there was an earnest effort against this - IPlanet was even a completely separate company. Now that Sun owns IPlanet and is in tough financial times, you never know... Tough times call for tough measures...

Floyd wrote:

<quote>
Sun however (in control of the specs), probably has more potential than HP did, as it could 'unfairly' use a time to market advantage by co-releasing SunOne at the same time as the specs themselves.
</quote>

How could Sun do this 'unfairly'? Surely any vendor contributing the specs would have access to them and could do the same? And anyone can look at the specs when they reach public draft stage. JCP is a community process, after all. Sun only has the right to veto.

And now HP have jumped behind BEA, yet at a recent BEA conference, BEA users were talking to me about their experiences with JBoss, as they were tired of high costs.

I don't think that the consolidation in this arena is over.

But I find it interesting that we have arrived at the same juncture of userland opinions in two application-type instances: Microsoft desktop products and the growing tendency towards Linux, and J2EE-based server-side infrastructure.

That conclusion being that the software in question is so essential that there is a push to commoditise it with open-source alternatives, with long-standing commercial providers of such software struggling to come up with a business-model which works in the face of the universal realisation that most any model they choose will have a lifetime of a year or so before requiring major revision?

What would be a good way to stabilise things?

Greetings,

That is good news! As long as it is going to be J2EE compliant and free it would be very good. Unfortunately, I could not find any information that it is free on the Sun's web site.

Best regards,

Taras

We all know how good the reference implementation is.

i can only hope that there has been significant improvement in the application server since iAS 6 which was a piece of crap IMO.

ST

<quote>
i can only hope that there has been significant improvement in the application server since iAS 6 which was a piece of crap IMO.
</quote>

I don't think so. As far as I'm aware it's the same piece of rubbish it's always been.

As far as I'm aware Sun one Application server7.0 is a total rewrite based on J2EE reference implementation and there won’t be any support for KIVA and NetDynamics applications. I think Sun is planning to provide some migration tools to migrate old applications code to J2EE.

hmmm can't find the download link... and it said "(Planned for release in Fall 2002)."... anyone know the URL for download?

It is just a buzz, they try to see the reaction of the market, no link to download the product yet!! Until I will be able to install the Linux/Windows version is only talk and I don’t like that they first speak and then do ! Why not have the server ready for all the platforms and then speak?

That's Fall in the northern hemisphere. For the rest of the world, read September.

You can sign up for early access at http://see.sun.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/mcp?q=STNW13TEvc9s90

looks like they are using the web server to create this product. Their web server is wicked fast and the JMS implementation - iMQ has gotten some good reviews. They've also got a long list of partners and apps supporting the platform ... and the price is right.

Also interesting that they acquired a company 4 their clustering edition. They also announced a developer platform that integrates the app server, forte, with their ldap, portal, and EAI proudcts. Sun has a great directory, portal, integration and web server products. Looks like they could be putting a good platform together.

At the time of the HP push in the market of the free app server, I asked the same question regarding the economics of the move. To have a good quality application server you need a very good team, an active user community and there are only two proper models I know of so far that provide this: pay for license so that the company can invest in development and R&D or go the open-source way.

These "in-between" solutions look strange and have questionable results (see the HP story). So you get a potentially "mid-quality" server for nothing, not even having the assurance that it will be supported or be around for a while...

I like Sun as a good company who gave us Java and lived up to the expectations so far. In the long run their investment in Java has to pay off somehow. I am just not sure this way is the best way to achieve it.

right on tiberiu.

it is a completely new architecture

Wow! I think this is huge!
And from my point of view it's a very smart move.

I currently use JBoss in several, somewhat small, production applications within my, rather large, company. Now, I love using JBoss (and JoNas, and Tomcat, and Jetty, and...), and in the long run I believe it would be a mistake for the development community to give up on those open-source products in favor of some free-as-in-beer-but-not-free-as-in-speech software from a large company that could easily change it's mind somewhere down the road.

However...I am currently vulnerable to criticism from any pinhead within the company that's wants to brown-nose thier local executroid by questioning the quality of our group's applications because we use open-source. After all, everyone knows that real software professionals use tools that cost real bucks.

For this reason I would consider using an entry-level application server from Sun to spare my group the cost of big royalties to BEA while giving my company the option to scale up to something else later, if and when it's needed. And to shut the pinheads up.

And if Sun should change thier mind in a couple of years and start charging mega-bucks for the entry-level version of thier server then too bad. That's what the company gets for creating an environment where people take the pinheads seriously.



ted stockwell

 

i wonder why they did not pair up sunone free with a sun workstation or something and throw in something else like a personal database with it. Plenty of integrators/consultancies with plenty more of pinheads are reaching the point of upgrading their pcs etc etc and remember these are the guys who apparently need "real j2ee certed" stuff - u know all the outsourceing providers and blah di blahh

uh-ho someone is 'highjacking' J2EE. wake-up BEA, if you are still alive! even better, sell yourself to Sun. IBM was smart in not giving a damn about J2EE compliancy etc..etc..

I thought some one was accusing MS of unfair bundling of software with their OS. It appears that cheap as a dirt share price of Sun has motivated Scott to take a private lesson from Bill on how to improve investor confidence.

Dude, mind sharing with the rest of us whatever it is that you are smoking?

I don't get it. What do you mean by hijacking? Last I saw IBM cares a lot about J2EE compliancy. Their beta 5 product is J2EE compliant just like Sun and BEA.

I think Sun's integration is very different from MSFTs because they do not lock out other platforms or limit choice. MSFT has a different buz model.

Get your facts straight before exposing yourself in public.