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Open Source Winning Java Server Market

Posted by chrisd on from the for-the-kaffe-drinkers dept.

Seldo writes "C|net is reporting that free open-source J2EE servers are gaining market share. From the article: "Analysts say it's difficult to measure the extent to which open-source Java application servers, such as Tomcat and JBoss, have eaten into the revenue of commercial providers of Java application servers. But the growing popularity of the open-source application servers is undeniable." The article also points out that the emergence of J2EE as a standard led to a commoditization of Java-based application servers, giving the low-cost OSS alternatives an advantage."

3 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Linux/Java story continues by rhyd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comparing the market for OS Java application servers to the rise on Linux - that has got to be a positive thing for Java in general. Right?

    The J2EE market has until recently been a bit like the Unix market 20-30 years ago. Relatively portable and aimed at businesses.. with big money to be made.....and then there was Jboss

    There are a few more open-source J2EE app servers than just Jboss and Tomcat - and its good that these are targeting different markets (just like the various Linux Distributions target different types of user/server markets )

    Yeah! Companies are really starting to understand the value of open-source (free speech) software. This GetThere guy is really saying you can take you proprietary code and shove it where the SUNW don't shine.

    Will the companies that sell J2EE app servers today be in some sort of trouble if J2EE becomes a commodity? No, they're not in trouble at all because they make money from their unique products and services around J2EE. Oracle make money from their databases, for IBM and Sun its hardware + services. Macromedia sell J2EE as a backend to a Flash/swt gui builder kit(yuck! but hey different strokes to move the world i guess) . BEA well... er.. yeah they are in a world of shit probably! (but BEA can adapt and focus on their performance centric niche market).

    J2EE was always intended to be a commodity thats why the big guns adopted it because they understood the importance of customer demand for inter-operation and portability. The fact that there are various OS implementations simply proves commodity status has been achieved. I reckon Jboss & tomcat will do for Java adoption in business what Linux did for the Unix market. The big vendors will adapt, costs will fall, and one-hell-of-a-lot more people will finally know what 'Container Managed Persistence' is.

    --
    'Be the change you want to see in the world' - Al Gore
    1. Re:Linux/Java story continues by one9nine · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Comparing the market for OS Java application servers to the rise on Linux - that has got to be a positive thing for Java in general. Right?

      Absoultely. You're certianly not going to run .NET on Linux (well at least not yet, until Mono is released). J2EE gives you the option of picking an OS. It also works the other way around. If you already have Windows boxes as servers, you don't have to switch to Linux just to take advantage of J2EE.

      There are a few more open-source J2EE app servers than just Jboss and Tomcat - and its good that these are targeting different markets (just like the various Linux Distributions target different types of user/server markets )

      Yes, different application have different needs. One is allowed to chose which application server the feel will benefit their application to most. Resin is a good example of this, providing a very nice way to do XSLT.

      Will the companies that sell J2EE app servers today be in some sort of trouble if J2EE becomes a commodity? No, they're not in trouble at all because they make money from their unique products and services around J2EE.

      Exactly. No longer can these companies "shit in a box and mark it garunteed." (Tommy Boy was on cable yesterday). They actually have to work hard to make their product give a signifigant advantage over the OSS versions and be worth the money, unlike some other giant software company we know ...

  2. Re:Why are commercial software vendors threatened? by The+Mayor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What companent is JBoss? I thought it covered pretty much every part of the J2EE spec now that the Resin web/JSP server has been integrated.

    Actually, I think IBM is being threatened. WebSphere is horribly overpriced, buggy, and very late to support new J2EE specifications. While IBM will still get hardware and integration revenue from their customers, I think they will miss the WebSphere revenue. IBM probably worries about this the least, though, as more and more of their business comes from the integration side.

    Sun has been relegated to 4th place among commercial J2EE servers these days. I would bet they're far worse than 4th place when considering open source implementations. Even if they aren't upset about losing the revenues from iPlanet, I'm sure they can't be happy about losing control over what is becoming the de facto reference implementation for J2EE.

    BEA can't be happy--much of their revenue comes from their overpriced J2EE server.

    Microsoft is worried because the open-source J2EE servers are, much like Linux, making robust Unix-based server applications cheaper to deploy than equivalent Microsoft-based solutions.

    I'm not sure how the strategy behind Java is really that different than .Net. Both are efforts to get their respective owners' products embedded in back office situations. The APIs of .Net seem to compare directly with those of Java. If Java solutions become cheaper to deploy, and if they run faster and more reliably than .Net solutions, .Net will undoubtably suffer. In fact, I would bet that Microsoft is among the most worried with the open-source J2EE servers.

    --
    --Be human.