Macromedia is de-emphasizing and may be planning to drop or sell off JRun Application Server. It has been reported that most of the JRun team in Newton, MA, have been laid off.

"It is no longer a strategically important product, but there is a strong OEM customer base which generates a low cost revenue stream, so I'd be surprised to see the business get sold anytime soon," the source said.

Editors Update: Aug 7th, 8am PST
However, Macromedia later called TSS and told us that the rumour is false and was started by two guys who are disgruntled with Macromedia and put the news on OSDN.

Read Signs point to Macromedia dropping JRun from product line

What should happen to JRun? Has anyone heard more about this?

What's most surprising is that most of the team has been laid off. I can understand getting out of the app server market. But, isn't Cold Fusion now a Java-based product? I'd assumed that it uses some/most parts of JRun for its runtime. Maybe not...

I smell political poopy.

Best,

John C. Dale

This is not much of a shock. When most people think Macromedia, they still think Flash and Director. They dont think app servers, J2EE compliance, and the like. Not that it's a sole indicator of product seriousness and corporate direction, but I wonder how many JSR's Macromedia participates in?

No problem - Resin works nicely.

Resin is just a JSP/servlet container (with som EJB stuff in the EE version).

But they ar enot and do not claim to be afull J2EE app-server.

Most (all actually) JRun deployments I've seen are using it as a servlet engine mainly. Those interested in EJB typically go high-end (BEA/IBM) or open source.

Not that I don't like JRun - its really nice and hopefully MM sells it to someone who will maintain it.

http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/proom/pr/2003/j2ee_license.html

Just renewing the license has no correlation with whether Macromedia is going to continue to invest R&D in JRun.

The new COld Fusion MX 6.1 released earlier this week comes with a full version of JRun built into it. It lets you run CF Pro in a J2EE container without having to purchase a separate J2EE app server. I think this is a sign that they're still committed to the product.

Dion, this smells like BS.
.V

> .V

Yep, check news article on Macromedia.com: http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/proom/pr/2003/j2ee_license.html

... but I never write stories that aren't substantiated.

In the "article",
"it could go in one of three directions ..."
Sure, or they can release it open source. A la Netscape or SAP DB

Yes, and why not under an Apache license, so this will put some foundations to the new Geronimo project ;-) They already have a full certified J2EE stack, no?
Stéphane

I'm expecting great things from the Apache J2EE project, lets not add Jrun stack components. Speaking from experiance running clustered Jrun it's been one hassle after the other.

Is this version 4.0 (or later) that uses Jini for clustering?

Yup, we've given up to be honest, we're replacing it with WLS 8.1 very shortly. It's CMP engine isn't so bad but JMS, management and clustering is, it's just all very tempremental. Not to mention the magic numbers in their apache modules. Both for 1.3 and 2.0.x required specific builds to execute correctly without core dumping. The other thing about Jini is that it can interfere with other Jini services. I also like to have more options with regards to clustering than an insecure broadcast discussion of all my core server data. WLS 8.1 is really flying at the moment, and I've been most pleased with it's clustering stability.

Anyone Know - Is it true that you have to use to cookies to cluster WLS 7? I just joined a team where we can't use cookies, and word has it that we therefore can't cluster our WLS instances for session replication/failover. I will also post this on discussions board, but since we are on this topic...

Thanks,
Mike

Mike: Anyone Know - Is it true that you have to use to cookies to cluster WLS 7? I just joined a team where we can't use cookies, and word has it that we therefore can't cluster our WLS instances for session replication/failover. I will also post this on discussions board, but since we are on this topic...

You can use URL encoding. It's part of the Servlet spec and it's supported by WebLogic (and jRun too AFAIK).

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Easily share live data across a cluster!

You still have JOB? :)).

The usual Macromedia behavior in cases like this is that no comment is made until an official announcement is released, citing as a reason that to do otherwise would open them up to shareholder lawsuits. Poppycock.

They'll never admit that JRun is doomed until the end is near. In the meantime, they'll exercise benign neglect by firing/reassigning associated staff, limiting or eliminating future development and basically put the product on life support. Only through vociferous activism can any reprieve be possible, as in the case of the HomeSite HTML authoring tool.

With the recogition that Cold Fusion MX is truly an elaborate JSP custom tag library that could be deployed on any J2EE app server, and the apparent move toward a servlet container-only solution in project Red Sky, Macromedia could get out of the app server business altogether by dropping JRun and developing CFMX as a product deployable on Tomcat, Resin, Jetty, WebLogic, Websphere, SunONE, JBoss, Geronimo, etc.

But, they'll never admit it, leaving their customers twisting in the wind.

J

I actually heard this rumor at a "No Fluff Just Stuff" symposium last fall. IIRC, James Duncan Davidson eluded to this. Maybe there is some truth to this. Hmmmmmm.

Ryan

Hi, gentlemen:
 
I was amused and a bit surprised by The ServerSide's immediate branding of a story I wrote with my colleague, Matt Liotta, as a "False Rumour." I would like to state for the record a few things.
 
The story "Signs Point to Macromedia Dropping JRun from Product Line" is absolutely airtight, and we have all the documentation to prove it. A reputable publisher such as OSDN would not run it otherwise. As a journalist with more than 25 years' experience in the field, I would never run a story without authentication.
 
We spent more than six weeks on this story and gave Macromedia every opportunity to tell us whether or not it plans to upgrade JRun when J2EE 1.4 is released. They refused; all they had to say was "yes." We published straight comments from several key Macromedia employees in the story. We believe it is a fair and balanced news story that allows the reader to decide for him/herself what Macromedia is really planning to do with this product, which is so widely used in the industry.
 
Finally, I am not at all disgruntled with Macromedia. It is a fine company--I use its products myself. We were tipped off about this story; we in no way went looking for it. I would have written this kind of story about any company in the world. We believed that it does a service to all those JRun developers who will not hear about this until it is too late.
 
My real concern, as one journalist to another, is this: Are you going to believe what Macromedia tells you, every time they tell you something, just because they're Macromedia? Do you believe everything Microsoft tells you?
 
 
 
Chris J. Preimesberger
Senior Contributing Editor, DevX.com
Contributing Writer, C/net Networks, Inc.
Analyst, Evans Data Corp.
Columnist, Mobility Magazine
 
"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
                                               --Mark Twain

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
                                               --Mark Twain

Yes, but he also said:

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
                                               --Mark Twain

;-)

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Easily share live data across a cluster!

Posted a reproducible product issue to Macromedia support last week (incident #4204407). Their development team was extremely helpful and already released a fix (64667). If that's pulling out support, I'd have to say they've been just as responsive as the Allaire brothers were with us 5 years ago.

I admit there was no way to tell the story was probably a hoax. But, reading back over some of the comments on this discussion seems to show everyone's just looking for an opportunity to toot the horn for their "pet" product when some guy claims another has fallen (or is falling) down. That goes a long way to explain why an otherwise very bright group of people in the development community have the potential to make some really fickle product choices. Kind of sad really.

Hi

We use JRun4 for a couple of applications and they recently created a patch for us to correct classloading issues in ear files on unix and linux. Generally my experience with JRun 4 has been very good and the support very prompt and helpful.

Nick Sanderson

LOL

-Pete

>                                                --Mark Twain
>
> Yes, but he also said:
>
> Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
>                                                --Mark Twain
>
> ;-)
>
> Peace,
>
> Cameron Purdy
> Tangosol, Inc.
> Coherence: Easily share live data across a cluster!

Chris,


   I think our actions in this case are neither proving nor disproving the truth or falseness of this issue. We simply reported the facts that Macromedia told us and attributed it to them.

   You'll note that in the title of the thread has a question mark in it. So we leave it up to the reader to decide what to believe.

Floyd

It's simple enough to determine who's telling the truth here. We just need to confirm whether or not the JRun development team members were laid off. If any of them are reading this thread, please speak up!

Maybe a condition of their redundancy package is that they can not do any damage to their former employer such as disclose their redundancy to the public or company's customer.

Seems to me we will be seeing more of this as time goes by. There's really only 3 players. BEA, IBM, and JBoss.

Hans

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/04/10/java_servlet_engines.html

3 players now have 75% of J2EE market share.
IBM, Tomcat (must use DAO/JNDI) and Resin.


Other studies are of marketing and what people tried to develop.

.V