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Luminaries Debate Issues, Opportunities
Ease of development and services integration take center stage as community technologists meet in Java Pro's annual Technology Roundtable event.
by Stefan Gruenwedel

JavaOne, June 11, 2003

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Technology leaders in the Java vendor community gathered Monday afternoon at the W Hotel in San Francisco to debate and examine, in "town hall" format, the technical issues and market directions for Java technology as they exist now and in the coming year.

The Technology Roundtable, under the auspices of Java Pro magazine, focused on three main concerns: software development, Java integration, and open source. Java Pro Editorial Director Dan Ruby introduced the event, and Sun Chief Technology Evangelist Simon Phipps served as moderator.

Panel participants represented key segments of the Java-related industry:

• David Chappell, Chief Technology Evangelist, Sonic Software
• Ted Farrell, Architect and Director of Strategy, Application Development Tools Division, Oracle Corp.
• David Litwack, Senior Vice President, Novell
• Graham Hamilton, Fellow and Distinguished Engineer, Sun Microsystems
• Ed Lycklama, Chief Architect, Quest/Sitraka
• Fumi Matsumoto, Chief Technology Officer, ATG
• Neil McGovern, Director of Strategy, E-Business Division, Sybase
• Marc Naddell, Global Director, MotoCoder Program, Motorola
• Benjamin Renaud, Deputy CTO, BEA Systems
• Ted Shelton, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Borland Software

Moderator Simon Phipps began by welcoming some new faces at the table and arching his eyebrows in surprise at the one big no-show this year: IBM's apparent boycott of JavaOne. Despite IBM's absence, they were not ignored in the ensuing conversation.

The State of Java Development
Phipps felt this seventh JavaOne was much like the first one. There was a feeling of innovation in the air. He asked the Roundtable participants what their initial thoughts were about the state of Java development today.

Borland's Ted Shelton said Java's use is declining in the world because of a perception that vendors compete against one another too much. Java grew up without any serious alternatives, but now Microsoft .NET is maturing and will be a "ferocious competitor" to Java. He even heard about companies putting Java projects on hold pending their evaluation of their .NET projects.

Ted Farrell at Oracle saw things differently. The 350-plus companies in the Java Community Process that contribute to the Java specification make the platform stronger, unlike the lone company building the .NET spec. "Java will always have this advantage," he said, adding that the Java community is now strong.