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Java Oracle The Almighty Buck

Oracle To Monetize Java VM 641

jtotheh writes "According to the Register, Oracle is going to make two tiers of Java Virtual Machine — a free one and a premium paid one. 'Adam Messinger, Oracle vice president of development, told QCon that Oracle plans to offer a "premium" edition of the JDK in addition to the open-source JDK. Both, it seems, will be based on a converged JRockit VM and the Hotspot JVM from Sun Microsystems. The converged JVM will be released under the OpenJDK project. ... Messinger didn't explain how the premium JVM would differ [from] the free version, but the premium edition will likely see performance tuning and tie-ins to Oracle's middleware.'"
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Oracle To Monetize Java VM

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  • mm (Score:4, Insightful)

    by chibiace ( 898665 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @04:18AM (#34152818) Journal

    the death of java?

    • Re:mm (Score:5, Funny)

      by HelloKitty2 ( 1585373 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @04:30AM (#34152862)

      No, this is the birth of new opportunities in the java landscape, this is a clear sign of Oracle's dedication to the java community. The high-end Mercedes offering will finally allow you to look down on those Fiat drivers and know that your money is well spent.

      • Re:mm (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Slackware95 ( 1862096 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:01AM (#34152958)
        I agree with this statement, this is indeed the birth of new opportunity - A new technology to replace Java...
        • I agree with this statement, this is indeed the birth of new opportunity - A new technology to replace Java...

          If you want to replace Java you can just use Scala. It can do all that Java can do and is a lot better. Or did you mean to replace the Java-VM, or Java-SE or Java-EE. Then please be more precise in future.

          • by gtall ( 79522 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @08:23AM (#34153746)

            Does Scala allow me to build user interfaces? If not, it really isn't a replacement. What I need is something that allows me to build cross platform guis.

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by mfnickster ( 182520 )

              Can't you use Qt to build your GUIs? It's available on Windows, Linux, Mac OS and mobile platforms.

              Scala runs on top of Java anyway.

            • by mario_grgic ( 515333 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @10:42AM (#34154522)
              Yes, Scala has full access to Java APIs including Swing.
            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by krischik ( 781389 )

              Scala runs on top of the JVM and support both Java-SE and Java-EE and even Android development. I don't suggest the later but for the former two it is pretty good.

              So yes: You can write apps for the AWT, Swing and SWT GUI with Scala.

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                by gtall ( 79522 )

                Yes, but then I still must have a JVM around. The point was that if Snoracle is going to fuck up Java, then I cannot rely on it and must look elsewhere.

        • Re:mm (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:58AM (#34153148)

          I'm personally hoping someone will come up with an open-source implementation of C# not based on the .NET libraries or the Mono toolkit, but a pure native-code compiler, with selectable manual or automatic memory management. I believe C# is 'better than the orignal' Java. It's only drawback is that it's tied to Micrsoft and Windows.

          It's pretty obvious that Oracle is hell bent on either making bumper profits off Java or killing it. They won't have it any other way.

          • Re:mm (Score:5, Informative)

            by c0d3g33k ( 102699 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @09:43AM (#34154142)

            You already have that in Mono. Mono is fully open-source/free/libre, there is no obligation to use the .NET libraries - you can ignore them entirely, and Mono can do full AOT (ahead of time) compilation to native code already. I'm not sure what else you want exactly that doesn't already exist.

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by jon3k ( 691256 )
              Wow, someone mod this guy up. Excuse me while I take my first serious look into Mono.

              (not sure if that sounded sarcastic - but I'm being serious I had no idea)
            • And now explain that to the pointy haired boss.

    • Re:mm (Score:5, Interesting)

      by levell ( 538346 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:19AM (#34153024) Homepage
      Given that Google is on the sharp end of Oracle monetizing Java, anyone else think they might start to push Google Go [golang.org] really hard? It's immature at the moment but it looks really nice and I think as it matures it could really catch on.
      • Re:mm (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gru3hunt3r ( 782984 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @08:02AM (#34153644) Journal

        I agree - the fact Google uses/relies on Java is really an Achilles heel for them. I'm 100% certain that when Larry bought Sun he scratched a 10 year itch he's had for how "Sun ought to run their business" - by making two versions of java one "free" crippled, and another enterprise one. Get 'em hooked, then bend 'em over and make 'em take it up the ass and pay for the service - that is the Oracle business strategy isn't it? Ellison could care less if anybody new ever uses/deploys Java -- because the installed application base alone in fortune 500 companies (existing oracle customers) is easily enough to pay 10x for what Sun cost. It's a freaking mint, and I think he's doing the right thing (for his shareholders) - he's not interested in the long term business plan, only short term revenue.
        Killing mysql (a competitor they were losing business to), killing open office was just icing on the cake, and monetizing Solaris were just a few of the ways he's planning to make money.

        I imagine this conversation happening in the Oracle board room:
        Ellison: "we gotta nip this free software thing in the bud boys, next thing you know our stupid customers will be expecting our stuff for free too." (look of disgust)
        Henchmen #1: "yeah boss, but how we gonna pay for it? the shareholders will never buy it"
        Ellison: "those morons at Sun have been doing it wrong for years boys, what have I always told you"
        Henchmen #1: "the customer will always pay more?"
        Henchmen #2: "who cares if it's crap, ship it anyway?"
        Henchmen #1: "who cares if my jet wakes people up? i'm rich?"
        Henchmen #2: "nothing is sweeter than making the customer pay up the ass for crap?"
        Ellison: "no, well - yes, I've said all those things, but I'm talking about how I'd run Sun, how I'd make everybody pay for Java, nobody should expect to use it for free"
        Henchmen #2: "oh yeah boss, that was a good one"
        Ellison: "look at this boys, it's like it's a god damn christmas - we stop mysql for a few years while the community 'forks' or whatever, you realize how much revenue that is going to protect for us?"
        Henchmen #2: "oh yeah boss, that's alotta money"
        Ellison: "then we kill open office, teach anybody who bought it a lesson, nothing is free - you want to use it - you should pay for it"
        Henchmen #2: "yeah boss, keep going"
        Ellison: "you realize how many of our customers depend on Solaris - they can't replace it for at least a few years, in the meantime we can tear them a new asshole and let the money flow out"
        Henchmen #2: "that makes sense"
        Ellison: "and then there's Java, wow.. what a stupid bunch of dumbfucks Sun was, I'll replace their free love society with Larrys pleasure palace where you have to pay me for some action"
        Henchmen #2: "you mean metaphorically right boss?"
        Ellison: "hard to say, all i know is that in the next few years boys, we're definitely going to be busy screwing all Suns customers up the ass, and charging them for the pleasure of it"
        Henchmen #1: "so you mean basically we're going to do business as usual here at Oracle Co.?"
        Ellison: "exactly"

        The key word in business is "momentum" - the Sun acquisition took momentum from so many projects, and anybody that was using those projects (for commercial purposes) now is in the unenviable position that they need to either starting pay Oracle, or try and find a viable competitor (at least 5 years). In the short term everybody will pay, do you realize how many billions of dollars we're talking about - in 5 years they'll wash rinse repeat. This is the cycle we should expect to see in the future - I think it will be very good for Oracle (bad for the community, but nobody really gives a damn what those free-loving hippies think anyway)

        Remember Fortune 500 CIO's can't risk their enterprise to free "crippled" versions of software, they can't use unproven forks, if something goes wrong - it's their ass (and bye bye stock options), they'll choose free only when they absolutely have to. Nobody cares how much money "they save", it's a corporation, it's not about saving, it's about CYA.

        Oh my god I hope the folks at Oracle never get ahold of ASF.

        I have to admit - the folks at Oracle are brilliant (from a shareholder perspective) because they get how big businesses work.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by makomk ( 752139 )

          This seems like a good incentive to stick with open source projects that aren't tied to a single corporate owner, like PostgresQL. Companies still can and do offer commercial support for Postgres - in fact, some of them have the advantage of employing a number of the key developers - but there's no single company that can be targeted for a buy-up like this. (While Oracle could tray and buy all of the companies offering support for a particular option, one would hope that this would attract the attention of

  • by WolphFang ( 1077109 ) <m@conrad@202.gmail@com> on Sunday November 07, 2010 @04:21AM (#34152830)
    Suicide? Sounds they are working on ending Java in a hurry. :(
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Pretty much, yes. At least, the end of themselves as an open-source company. It remains to be seen if their special sauce will be worth buying. It probably will be, for people who are already trapped into Oracle/Sun (just as it is with Intel's compilers, that just happen to smoke everyone else's on Intel hardware) but for everyone else the world will just go on as it has.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MrCoke ( 445461 )

      Why is this any different as Qt (also has 2 tiers)?

  • I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rumith ( 983060 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @04:28AM (#34152850)
    Either Larry Ellison is smart beyond my imagination, or he's too stupid to understand that he's basically killing MySQL, OpenOffice and Java - arguably the three most valuable software assets he bought with Sun.
    • Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Angostura ( 703910 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @04:32AM (#34152876)

      I suspect that Ellison evaluates 'valuable' in straightforward monetary terms. "Is Java making me money? No? It's not valuable"

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Maybe killing those technologies is something he wants... . It is not uncommon for companies to acquire another just to silently kill of the technology.

      Personally I started looking into postgresql because to be honest I don't trust oracle and I'm certain mysql is the next thing onto the chopping block. It is a shame that a lot of providers (vps is to expensive here) don't see this coming and the number of hosts with postgresql support is very small.

    • Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by drerwk ( 695572 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @06:18AM (#34153214) Homepage

      ...MySQL, OpenOffice and Java - arguably the three most valuable software assets he bought with Sun.

      But not valuable enough to keep Sun in business for themselves.

  • Pay for performance? (Score:3, Informative)

    by whiteboy86 ( 1930018 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @04:29AM (#34152856)
    If you want performance then you have better options, some of the IEEE standard languages for example and that is what pros like Ebay or Google are using anyway, not Java. Plus you buy yourself some freedom from the corporate control like this.
  • by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @04:35AM (#34152882)

    I'm going to laugh as their Sun acquisition goes down in flames and they end up losing money on the whole deal. They seem to be working to identify any market they can that things are working in and eliminating it. They've done a great job at getting us to work at getting rid of all our Solaris systems as fast as we can.

    While in theory this could be fine for Java, I can't imagine it will be being how poorly Oracle has handled things so far. Most likely it'll be a case where the free JVM will be a piece of crap on purpose, and the pay for JVM will be required for anything to work well. Ya, well, that'll fly like not at all. People are not going to go and buy something to make Java apps work better. Perhaps companies who rely heavily on Java on the back end will, but more likely they'll just stop upgrading and switch to something else.

    I guess we'll see, maybe I'm wrong and the premium version of the JVM really will provide worthwhile premium features that high end users want, while the normal JVM remains for normal people. However I doubt it. I think they'll try and charge every person for the JVM on their computer, which just won't fly.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by polemon ( 743631 )

      As I understand it, when the open source version gets adopted by a voluntarily group of individuals that keep developing the open source version, it might be forked pretty soon, so nothing of value would be lost.

      As for the commercial version, that is probably gonna end like many other Oracle products, that got forgotten. I'll linger around in Oracle's inventory, but nobody will care much about it. Also, the fork might overshadow the commercial version in a couple of months, since performance tunes, are not

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Lennie ( 16154 )

        "it might be forked pretty soon, so nothing of value would be lost."

        compatibility ?

    • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:19AM (#34153028)

      If Oracle starts locking things up in the premium version, OpenJDK will be forked (there are already some shallow forks like IceTea that take OpenJDK and replace the remaining closed-source bits with stuff from GNU Classpath etc) and the community will shift.

      Its happened to OpenSolaris with the Illumos project and OpenOffice with the LibreOffice project.
      No reason it cant happen with OpenJDK.

      Although what might happen is that Oracle will find a way to write various APIs and licenses such that if you copy certain features from "Java Premium" you loose the patent grant given under the OpenJDK APIs.

      • by ultranova ( 717540 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @06:03AM (#34153166)

        If Oracle starts locking things up in the premium version, OpenJDK will be forked (there are already some shallow forks like IceTea that take OpenJDK and replace the remaining closed-source bits with stuff from GNU Classpath etc) and the community will shift.

        I'm sure that Oracle will find some obscure patent- or other issue to crush the free version. That is what patent law exists for, after all: to help build monopolies.

        Oh well, I guess it's time to start looking for another language to start new projects in.

      • by PastaLover ( 704500 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @08:09AM (#34153684) Journal

        No reason it cant happen with OpenJDK.

        AIUI there is a major problem, one that apache Harmony is now faced with. Basically, to get a patent grant for your open source project you need to show that you have delivered a full implementation of the platform. To show that your implementation needs to pass the TCK tests. To get those tests (that are proprietary software, owned by Oracle), you need to agree to certain Field of Use restrictions. Which are incompatible with pretty much any open source license you can name.

        So while OpenJDK has Oracle's blessing and thus gets to get out from under this problem, any other open source project that forks off OpenJDK would lose access to the TCK and probably find itself in Oracle's crosshairs a couple months/years down the line.

    • by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:21AM (#34153036)

      Oh, the dot net crowd are going to eat Oracles lunch over this. Microsofts dot net is free as the wind (well not free as in speech, but whatever) and has a lot of "enterprise-y" features.

      Am I the only one seeing echos of the sad demise of Borland into irrelevance here?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      People are not going to go and buy something to make Java apps work better. Perhaps companies who rely heavily on Java on the back end will, but more likely they'll just stop upgrading and switch to something else.

      I'm surprised Oracle even have such a grip on Java as they have. Why doesn't someone produce a comprehensive open source test suite analogous to the real certficiation tests? Then who cares if a JVM is officially blessed Java or just some offshoot.

    • by shristov ( 815759 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:57AM (#34153144)
      According to Oracle (TFA), "There will always be a high-performance gratis JVM." Well, perhaps Oracle are just going to add enterprise-class features to Java - for example, the JRockit hot swapability mentioned in the article. Once you need such features, chances are you are able and willing to pay for these. The rest of the community could continue using Java for non-mission critical purposes. In time we'll see if this strategy is successful, or not. If demand for features like the ones Oracle is planning to develop is great enough surely open alternatives for some of these will pop up in foreseeable future. When/if this happens we'll hit the major issue worth discussing: how the Oracle-led and OpenJDK evolution paths will stay at least close to each other. If they diverge substantially, at least one would be doomed... if not both.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Once you're convinced you need such features, chances are you are able and willing to pay for these. The rest of the community could continue steering clear of using vendor lock-in bait for their mission critical applications in Java. It is the classical trick of offering a small incentive so that your codebase is no longer vendor neutral.

        Most Application Servers support reloading classloaders, so you can already restart apps without restarting the AS (or the OS of course).

        If we're talking about hot swappi

    • by Teckla ( 630646 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @07:43AM (#34153536)

      While in theory this could be fine for Java, I can't imagine it will be being how poorly Oracle has handled things so far.

      From my perspective, it's perfectly fine if Oracle has decided to try to aggressively monetize Java. The real problem, in my opinion, is their lack of clear and detailed communication.

      To announce there will be two JVMs without giving us details is insanely stupid of them. It leaves developers, like me, uncomfortable with moving ahead on Java-based projects. It's the not knowing that's the killer. Will the free version continue to meet our needs? We don't know, because Oracle hasn't given us any damned details. Just some vague announcement that's leaving everyone uncomfortable.

      The same applies to Java on OS X, too. Oracle, once again, leaves us wondering what they'll do. They should have already announced their intention to either pick up where Apple is leaving off, and ship future versions of Java for OS X directly, or not. That way, the open source community could make a decision whether or not they want to do that work. And then developers that want to also target OS X could start making some decisions.

      But no, Oracle is being tight lipped, leaving OS X folks wondering and uncomfortable about the future of Java on OS X.

      Oracle just sucks at communication, and I've already halted my personal Java projects, and have started seriously considering alternative technologies to replace Java.

  • by kaaona ( 252061 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @04:41AM (#34152896)

    Wouldn't that be like racing whales?

    • by Stevecrox ( 962208 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:03AM (#34152968) Journal
      Java isn't that much slower than C++ these days, if you do it right Java/C++ performance is so close as to not matter.

      It's also more maintainable, has better frameworks and you don't have lots of beginner/intermediate level programmers introducing memory holes left, right and center.

      Saying all that I work for a company which has invested millions into Java applications. Considering how Oracle has been acting the tech leads are pushing to moving us back to C++.
      • by zlogic ( 892404 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:26AM (#34153058)

        Hear, hear. I've developed an image processing algorithm in Java and C++ (pretty simple: for every pixel in floating point array, compute some basic stuff, create a few classes to simplify the storage of temporary values and save the result into another array). The code was as close as possible in both languages, with no obvious screwups like memory leaks or unnecessary copying of stuff. To my surprise Java ended up being 15-20% faster than C++. And C++ is THE language for image processing, every new image processing algorithm is written in C++ (with the occasional exception of C) because of performance reasons.

        • by hvdh ( 1447205 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:37AM (#34153090)

          Now try using SSE intrinsics. With Java, you can't do that. In C(++) you should get a nice speedup ending up several times faster than Java, unless you're bound by memory bandwidth.

          • by bertok ( 226922 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:44AM (#34153108)

            Now try using SSE intrinsics. With Java, you can't do that. In C(++) you should get a nice speedup ending up several times faster than Java, unless you're bound by memory bandwidth.

            Or use a better C++ compiler, like the Intel one, which gives a substantial speed boost with no developer effort.

            There's also ready-made C++ maths libraries for pretty much everything, many with SSE optimizations.

            These micro benchmarks also ignore cache thrashing, which kills Java performance for large apps.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by TheRaven64 ( 641858 )
            Or use a compiler that supports autovectorisation. Actually, this is where it gets more interesting. In theory, the Java version can be faster, because Java lacks pointer arithmetic so the compiler / JVM is free to rearrange the memory layout to better suit the vector unit. In practice, I'm not aware of any implementations that actually do this.
        • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @07:12AM (#34153418)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Yuioup ( 452151 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @04:49AM (#34152926)

    Java has become the Digg of languages.

    Goodbye Java, we hardly knew thee...

  • They bundled the spyware Google Toolbar with it (optional, but opted-in by default in the installation options).

  • It's out of question, that this will kill Java as preferred language in academia and science.

    But who cares, really? There are other languages, that would be a more than adequate "replacement" - if I may call it that - for Java.
    So professors will have to teach Python in university, how is that something bad?

    Java was chosen a few years back, because it was modern and cross platform, but that is Python as well. I also suggested using Lua in academia. For teaching programming and data structures, this is arguab

    • by Ruke ( 857276 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:13AM (#34153004)
      That's a nice list of scripting languages you've got there. And don't get me wrong, scripting languages are nice. However, if speed is an issue, Lua's never going to cut it in the same way that Java does.
  • by jernejk ( 984031 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:06AM (#34152980)
    Oracle already has free and pay-for JVM: HotSpot is free, JRockit is not. I expect the free JVM will be just fine for desktops and small servers. I'd expect pay-for JVM to target enterprise solutions. And again, I expect them to ship this JVM for free with their middleware products (Weblogic etc.). But yes, this sucks for JBoss.
  • Wow.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <{moc.talfdren} {ta} {tkram}> on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:21AM (#34153040) Journal

    How can the people at Oracle not see that this sort of maneuver will only _decrease_ Java's popularity?

    Why did Oracle buy Sun in the first place, exactly?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by headLITE ( 171240 )

      I don't get it. JRockit was always proprietary. Why should they make it free just because they have the good sense to consolidate their JVM projects into one?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Agreed, provided the core JDK remains contributed to the openjdk project under the GPL, this discussion seems tainted by FUD.

        JRockit historically sped up BEA's Weblogic and it sounds like nothing more than Oracle's existing offerings benefiting from a pluggable interpreter that uses JRockit. The difference being it'll re-use more of the existing VM codebase.

        Hotspot itself exists in several flavours inc 'client', 'server' and the community contributed 'Shark' based on LLVM. To this Oracle will soon add JRock

  • by Eelco ( 8198 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:29AM (#34153064) Homepage

    Over the years I've seen lots of companies trying to combine the open source development model with a for profit (and publicly funded) business plan. While this seemed okayish at the time, this whole Oracle debacle is clear proof that the opensource development model combined with some corporate entity controlling it is risky from an opensource perspective. Big opensource projects hopefully have learned from this and go the Debian route : turn yourself in a NGO or something and never worry about shareprice or corporate takeovers again.

    It is a real shame that big projects like MySQL and OpenOffice are in this position. Maybe it was more or less opensource, it sure as hell was not independant. Sure forking works, but recreating the entire organisation (and funding) will keep you from developing quite some time.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by yuhong ( 1378501 )

      Another IMO worse example is MySQL AB themselves, before they got bought by Sun. They were going to do a support model, but the big problem is that the distributions already is taking all the support money. So they tried to make money by providing support on Windows. Obviously this was flawed, so eventually they tried to make some new features proprietary (in a different way than what Oracle is doing with Java), resulting in a backlash. MySQL was almost going to IPO with such a bad business model when they

  • by rennerik ( 1256370 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @05:54AM (#34153136)
    ... Ballmer et al are wringing their hands nefariously as they see the future of C#'s marketshare increase by leaps and bounds. And that's good for Microsoft in every way, since every application written in C# instead of Java means a license for Windows is being purchased to run each copy of the software. In web apps, it's a server license; in workstation applications, it's a desktop OS license. Either way, it's a win-win for Microsoft, and a massive loss for Oracle.

    Not that I mind, per se. I prefer C# in every way to Java... but from Oracle's perspective, I don't see how they see this would do anything but hurt Java and their reputation that's rather ubiquitous.

    Now if only Mono would get their asses in gear and not lag so far behind .Net versions, there would actually be an open source OS alternative to running modern C# applications.
  • Consistent (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mseeger ( 40923 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @06:30AM (#34153250)

    At least they are consistent: first they killed OpenSolaris, then they managed to split the OpenOffice community and now they will marginalize Java. I am sure they have something in store for MySQL too...

    CU, Martin

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 07, 2010 @06:31AM (#34153252)

    Working in a senior role within a global investment bank, we buy a lot of vendor product, especially from what is now Oracle (Oracle Databases products, Weblogic products, etc.) - and if they want to charge us for the 'better' JVM going forward, no doubt we will pay for it. As will the other banks.

    And Oracle knows this. It does not give a shit about small-scale Java customers, but the big corporates, like us, well, they know that even if we decided tomorrow that all new projects were to move to C#, or C++, or Objective-C, or whatever, that it would take a long time to change course, and Oracle can still bill for a long time.

    One thing to remember - our bank gets and stays profitable because it pushes a lot of IT outside to third-parties (offshore developers are *much* cheaper than in London and NewYork), and they do not see any problems with getting a global price agreement with companies like Oracle and Microsoft.

    Personally, I am brushing up my C++, learning Objective-C and C#, as I think the medium and smaller companies in the market will start to migrate away from Java, as the cost savings of cheaper Java developers is lost once you have pay large amounts for the Java install and licensing.

    Stallman wrote the Java trap, and we all laughed. Sun is nice we thought, it'll be ok. We were all wrong. Stallman saw further, he saw that even if Sun was ok, if someone bought Sun, then things could get messy. Welcome to messy.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by obarel ( 670863 )

      In other words, Java will become the new COBOL - large corporations will still invest in it, because it's cheaper than replacing everything. But no startup would touch it because they can see it has no future.

      I don't really mind - I still program in C ;-)

  • Legacy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sgt101 ( 120604 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @06:59AM (#34153368)

    1000's of big companies (telcos, utilities, retailers, gov, defence) use java in their back office, and... well everywhere.

    This may cause them to change their policy for new software development, and it may also squeeze the java developer market badly, but for sure there will be strong arguements for splashing £50k here, £90k there, £20k somewhere else, on getting the new JVM to pick up the performance of application x, y, z which are long in the tooth and a pain in the arse.

    The alternative is to rebuild, which carries risk - although would be a good move in the long run. In the meetings someone will say "yeah, but we are all dead in the long run" and that's that basically. As a CIO you just pay over £50k, get your users back on side, keep your job for another year, collect your bonus, put another years pension contrib into the pot.

    So, Oracle will make money, lots of money, off this. You guys can squeak, MS will cheer, the Python community will see a boost (perhaps), but Larry and co will be richer.

    Mysql (in the future) = Oracle feather light (down load it and run it and you are up and going in less than 1hr - oracle normal = 6hrs to setup?) But, if you are an enterprise DBA then you want the management and recovery features that Oracle gives you (as well as the scaling - even though it gets so mind bendingly expensive).

    Open office - who cares?

    Oracle bought Sun to be IBM mark 2. Expect them to buy Accenture next.

  • Monetize? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Sunday November 07, 2010 @08:29AM (#34153778) Homepage Journal

    Didn't you really mean marginalize? Not that this wasn't expected.

If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it.

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