The Burton group issued a report that talked about a new class of superplatforms. Anne Thomas Manes describes superplatforms as "The basic theme is that they are all-encompassing; they not only provide application servers but also provide portal business intelligence." Are they overkill, natural evolution, or a way for large corporations to move up the stack.

Rise of the Java superplatform: Overkill or overdue?

Once the vendors really sink their teeth into this idea and come up with a snazzy marketing name for it, the sales drones will no doubt be out in full force. Many executives will be bought many lunches, and sold many licenses to these super-platforms, but few organizations will tap even a shred of their potential.

If you look at the reasons that most companies will actually buy these things, it won't be because they need all or even most of the functionality, it will be because a few of the features match their needs, so they cut the check. On the ground in the IT department, staff will puzzle over making their existing infrastructure fit into the constraints of integrating with the monolithic uberserver, and spend more in time and licensing costs than it would have cost them to build the 2 features they needed on existing platforms.

I'll just hope the marketing departments draw a blank on naming this "enterprise solution", so we can be spared the hype.

Once the vendors really sink their teeth into this idea and come up with a snazzy marketing name for it, the sales drones will no doubt be out in full force. Many executives will be bought many lunches, and sold many licenses to these super-platforms, but few organizations will tap even a shred of their potential.If you look at the reasons that most companies will actually buy these things, it won't be because they need all or even most of the functionality, it will be because a few of the features match their needs, so they cut the check. On the ground in the IT department, staff will puzzle over making their existing infrastructure fit into the constraints of integrating with the monolithic uberserver, and spend more in time and licensing costs than it would have cost them to build the 2 features they needed on existing platforms.I'll just hope the marketing departments draw a blank on naming this "enterprise solution", so we can be spared the hype.

Couldnt be explained in a better way than you just did. Its a norm everywhere in software industry that stupid, non technical idiots - some of them are corrupt also - make technical decisions and we have try to fit into the new expensive overkill software.
I guess software industry wont mature faster if such marketing folks are spoiling the atmosphere. all they care is their bonus and that chaep trip to hawaii.

BEA , ORACLE, and most of other big companies play this dirty trick all the time. A great example is BEA workshop - its a P O Crap - it writes so much bad code behind the scene, but all the non techy managers love it. Design patterns, good coding practices everything is out the door. I hate BEA marketing managers :|.
Its all about the commision and the bonus.

This is just a new marketing word. All the big vendors are already selling these products as one package or seperately. To me it just looks a marketing gimmick to sell more licenses to the executives of big companies who don't go in much detail as to waht it is.

We don't need anything new at this stage like this.

"We don't need anything new at this stage like this."

Well, who are we to speak for the gigantic companies peddling these things? When you make billions off of these then you'll speak differently....

As the author points out - some companies will be willing to take the middle road and form hybrids of two sides of technology.

An interesting point of view of this - is coincidentally - MINE! I have a little over a year at a large company - that uses offshore outsourcing in a "practical" manner, with a reputable company. Because we are a large company, in general the IS division is expected to be most valuable in technical documentation, business knowledge, and many of the things that the article would suggest we are a pure "superplatform" company.

However, we are a technical company. Our products come from the best engineering talent on the planet. For this reason, our division also has a mission to be based in technology, and for this reason the group provides solutions to our internal customers that offer the best quality and best cost ratio.

Just being knew however, i would agree with Dion in that i would love to hear less hype about a big company deciding to put a source application and reporting solution under one framework and think of it as "revolutionary".

Thanks,
~tim

The article is disappointingly(?) bare of any new content at all, barring the coining of the buzzword. Says absolutely nothing. Hardly deserved to be posted here.

Well, it is a good buzzword ;-)

Of course it is. That is how marketing works. Also if you want to enhance your sales: You can either grow the cake or grow your market share. So from this point of view "superplatforms" are logical, but it could also be argued that there exist trends against such "superplatforms". WebServices, EAI, open systems, Java/NET integration...

webservices? are people still doing that? ;-)

I know this is not a popular feeling here, but I agree with creating such a designation, even if only for marketing reasons.

Although many people here spit and snort in derision when terms like "marketing" come up in a topic, marketing is just as important, if not more so, than IT.

The best marketing and sales departments will sell a product no matter how bad it is, whereas the best product will likely go nowhere unless it has good sales and marketing.

Finally, I'm all for choice (in fact, i'll say one of the best arguments for using Java is because of choice), and having the option to buy a J2EE "superplatform" with all the bells and whistles should be just as valid an option for companies as lighter weight solutions if they can afford it. As mentioned earlier, the J2EE superplatform should be just as much a part of the "Java ecology" as barebones lightweight Tomcat-running webapps.

"Superplatforms is a term widely recognized in the user space as a platform that contains sophisticated integration brokers, advanced Web services, powerful portals and tightly coupled development environments -- among many other things.... but also provide portal business intelligence"

Ugh, ok.

So this term means that ONE vendor will provide the appserver, intergration broker, adapters, portal server, portlets, BI tools, and web services brokers... and sell it as one platform with a nice and high price point? Sounds like it's a repackaging of the tools that IBM, Oracle, SAP, BEA, and MS already sell.

/nothing new here, move along

"Superplatforms is a term widely recognized in the user space as a platform that ...

You are wrong. This is a new a thing! The newest invention on this planet! It is The Next Big Thing!

Because we got a NEW NAME for it!

Remember what Laotze said two thousand years ago? "The Name is the Origin of Everything."

;-)

This is nothing new. This is good old fashioned bundling. I see these most often in IBM and Oracle shops. The scenario when the client has been given OC4J or Websphere with their database purchases. So the client doesn't want to spend additional money for a container or IDE when they are given it for free.

This superplatform is not limited to J2EE containters. It also applies with IDEs.

How many of your clients or IT departments are resisting Firefox because they feel comfortable with the bundled IE. It's the same thing.

Superplatforms?
What's next?
Java: The Final Solution?

Speaking of FFox: I had to uninstall it at work because my PC started getting very funky. Outlook was immobilized. Opera runs fine though. Bundled shumdled. They're all the same product with a different shrink-wrap. Way too Orwellian. Technocrats can't campaign the way bureaucrats can. Just wait for the cycle to repeat itself. It will. I think one of the issues is technocrats who likewise think their vision is superior to all the rest, like a Linux cult.

A superplatform is overkill.
A superplatform is overdue.

We've modularized JBoss to fit both needs.

Since JBoss 3.0, we've modularized our App server via service archives (.sar) and deployers (.deployer). .sar and .deployer are packaged sub-systems. You don't want AOP or EJB3? Remove the .deployer package. You don't want JMS? Remove the JMS sars. You don't want Tomcat? Remove tomcat.sar. You want Hibernate? Download the Hibernate .sar and you have auto-deployment of Hibernate archives (.har).

I"ll admit, this isn't perfect and you have to do a little tweaking now and then which is why we're writing an installer that will allow you graphically to pick which components you want installed for the JBoss JEMS "Superplatform".

Bill

"... provide portal business intelligence ..."

Yes, not only that but also:

integrate enterprise portals
transition impactful action-items
integrate B2B web-readiness
strategize 24/7 methodologies
e-enable revolutionary e-services
matrix cross-platform deliverables
expedite interactive paradigms
...

Did I miss anything? Here!

Yes, not only that but also:

integrate enterprise portalstransition impactful action-itemsintegrate B2B web-readinessstrategize 24/7 methodologiese-enable revolutionary e-servicesmatrix cross-platform deliverablesexpedite interactive paradigms...

Did I miss anything?

Would you like fries with that? ;-)

Peace,

Cameron Purdy
Tangosol, Inc.
Coherence: Shared Memories for J2EE Clusters

Would you like fries with that?

Best to get that as a combo then! Or just eat off the value menu.

I'll take 2 milk shakes, curly fries, kids meal, some chili and a sald with that please :)

I'll take 2 milk shakes, curly fries, kids meal, some chili and a sald with that please :)

Sorry, milk shake machine is broken.

surely you must have the dunkin donut edition ala carte! ok, that was a horrible joke. I'll shut up now.

A better term would be superstack.

I think writer of the article got confused a few times. It seems they were saying you had to use either the superplatform or open source. Also that things like portals were not part of J2EE.

My BS detector clicked on "middleware market has seen the rise of a new market segment of highly available...". So if I didn't read this thread I'd have stopped reading it there. But. I have a hobby identifying who orders "nnnn's group market research" and it helps to know that that many normally use the payer's name in quotes and all over the place.

Here is the challenge for you guys: guess who has ordered this report on that yet unexsisting "new superplatform market segement" :)

Regards,

Slava Imeshev

A large company such as a bank or insurance company can still determine the optimal mix and implement software methodologies, processes and practices such as RUP while utilizing OMG's MDA (Model Driven Architecture) with IBM's XDE for code generation and still leverage open source solutions with an agile approach from a RUP-Lite or RUPxp perspective.

How many buzzwords can you fit into one sentence?
Sentences like this are great if you're a marketing droid wanting to learn some new buzzwords, complete BS otherwise.

How many buzzwords can you fit into one sentence ...

... and still be wrong? From what I have seen, large companies are the worst at this, sadly.

i'm tired.. going to bed now.. good nite, buddies.. zzz...