THE TRUTH ABOUT J2EETM TECHNOLOGY

O'Reilly Java^TM Conference attendees attended a session with Sun's Bill Roth, who turned up the volume on the real story behind Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE^TM) technology.

Bill Roth

by Jon Byous

April 05, 2000 -- "There are a lot of misconceptions about J2EE technology in the marketplace, and I'm here to clear them up."

With this candid remark, Bill Roth, Sun's group product manager for J2EE technology, kicked off a lively session at the recent O'Reilly conference on Enterprise Java technology. As an enthusiastic supporter and spokesperson for the technology, Roth wants everybody to know what the team at Sun is doing and why they're doing it. First, he popped up a slide with Sun's internal mantras about the platform in general.

"We want J2EE technology everywhere, but contrary to popular opinion, we're not out to make money on this," said Roth. "We do have to pay the people working on it. They draw paychecks, and they deserve to get paid.

"Second, we will bend over backwards to make sure the industry as a whole accepts J2EE technology and we'll do the same to make sure it stays compatible.

"But third, there are powerful market forces at work here," he warned. "The worst thing that could happen is fragmentation. And unfortunately, fragmentation is exactly what some large software vendors want. They want to lock you into their technologies and products. But too often, those specific technologies won't scale to the needs of the platform or industry. In the Java Community Process^SM, the hardest thing we do is tell these companies that there is not broad support for their favorite technology." It is not Sun alone that does this, but the members of the Java Community Process. In this way, the process is a type of a voluntary international standards committee with many participants, each with equivalent voting power.

"Sun does in fact plan to officially broaden the powers of participants in the Java Community Process. One of the prime benefits of these new powers is that the smaller companies in the process, such as Bluestone, Gemstone, and Persistence, for example, gain a bigger say in the direction of the platform. It won't just give more power to the big companies participating, but it will give more power to all participants in equal share. Plus, it will give them power to override Sun on critical decisions about the platform."

"One of the things to know about this process is that at Sun, there is a separation of 'church and state' in regard to the Java platform," said Roth. "There is one group whose job is to sell Java technology products -- application servers and tools, for instance. But over here on the 'church' side of the Java platform, our mission is to evangelize the essential platform and all of its compatible-partner technologies." That's what enables Roth's group to promote the idea of "ubiquity over profit" -- or helping everyone benefit from the power of the Java platform even where it doesn't generate revenues for Sun.

And finally, through the Java Community Process, Sun wants to clarify the truth about what can and cannot be done with J2EE technology, why compatibility and testing standards are critical, and what the J2EE brand logo represents.

Inside J2EE^TM Technology

Roth explained that the J2EE platform is made up of just four major components -- a set of specifications, a reference implementation, compatibility tests, and the J2EE Blueprints, an integrated set of documentation and examples that illustrate best practices for developing and deploying J2EE technology-compatible solutions.

The platform and API specifications are brought to life in Sun's reference implementations that show how each API can be used. These reference implementations all pass the compatibility tests and are a good way to become familiar with the overall platform. In some cases, the reference implementations are faster than commercial products available now.

The compatibility tests themselves are an assurance that everyone is playing by the rules and promoting compatibility. They are designed not to test the speed and performance of applications, but to do the semantic checking to ensure that the APIs are behaving predictably and compatibly.

The J2EE Blueprints book, which is under development, uses tutorials and examples to point out methods within the platform that may not be obvious.

The J2EE brand itself is Sun's commitment to what the platform delivers: Simplicity, choice, quality, and investment protection. These four ingredients represent the brand's promise, a promise that Sun will protect by providing APIs, reference implementations, Blueprints, and an insistence on compatibility testing. That way, the J2EE brand logo comes to stand for a dependable standard of quality and compatibility.

Building a Brand Reputation

Roth explained the strong brand promise behind Sun's J2EE technology this way: "There are product brands, such as Pampers, Coca-Cola, and Sierra Nevada. These are brands that represent a product family and a purchasing experience, but do it without a demonstrable guarantee. There are also 'quality' brands, such as UL -- Underwriters Laboratories, or the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, or Dolby Labs. Quality brands tend to represent claims based on objective testing and evaluation. These brands represent a guarantee based on an approval process that evaluates all products equally and independently. The brand promise doesn't change from year to year or ride with fads and trends. And because of that, a quality brand logo has value when displayed on a manufacturer's product. That's what Sun and the Java Community Process are working to establish with the J2EE brand."

"This is where we need your help," said Roth to his audience of developers. Through the work of Java Community Process members to date, the J2EE platform is built upon a solid foundation of specifications, reference implementations, compatibility tests, blueprint methods, and a strong, independently defensible brand promise. Talk to your software provider and say, 'This is important to me. I want you to play by the rules because they are part of my buying criteria.'"

Addressing criticism that Sun charges a brand fee as part of its compatibility testing process, Roth said that the fee charged to licensees goes to pay the cost of testing and the expenses of delivering the platform specification. He then repeated the "ubiquity over profit" mantra and explained that the collection of the fees does not represent a profit center for Sun.

Then Roth showed a slide outlining the leveraged common denominator that is being delivered to independent software vendors, large and small, in return.

As straight-forward as these benefits seem, they are broadly powerful in their simplicity, and that has taken an enormous amount of time-consuming work. "This is very good," Roth said. "Any time you can get BEA, IBM, Novell, and Oracle in one room and get them to agree, then you've got something."

The Companies Behind J2EE Technology Today

Roth showed a partial list of the 72 companies currently working with Sun as partners in J2EE technology development.

Next, he showed a list of the actual J2EE technology licensees. "These are the bold, true believers. These are the folks who've signed up and have the compatibility tests in hand. These are the first companies who have the ability to deliver compatible J2EE technology-based products."

Roth said, "They are using the value of the J2EE platform to move ahead in this early stage of the technology and pave the way to substantial profits." Why are they in this position of advantage? Again, the answer is simple:

As a result of being able to transform this value into products, companies who can leverage these benefits are doing "really cool stuff on the platform," said Roth. "You see companies like Instinet, who has done an entire fixed-income trading system in the Enterprise JavaBeans^TM architecture. Celera Genomics is doing gene expression and participating in the Human Genome Project with EnterpriseJava Beans technology. Sparks.com is doing e-commerce greeting cards. Trip.com is selling plane tickets. The list goes on and on."

To become an innovator on one of these lists means becoming involved and compliant with the process in some way, whether it's the specifications, compatibility, or simply delivering on the brand promise. Sun has opened the door and invites developers to become part of the J2EE technology community in the hope that everyone can benefit.

To get started, visit http://java.sun.com/j2ee. There, you'll find a mailing list, success stories, a list of compatible implementations, and community source. Or you can call (888) 843-5282.

See Also

J2EE Technology Home Page
(http://java.sun.com/j2ee/)

The Java Community Process^SM
(http://java.sun.com/jcp/)

[ This page was updated: 07-Apr-00 ]