When I read Sun Microsystems was changing its ticker symbol from SUNW to JAVA, I was dumbfounded. At first glance it seemed like a monumentally silly gesture. However, I now see it as an important market signal. And this is big. I don’t often run across burning bushes in the desert, but this ticker symbol sure was one. The utterance that the ticker symbol was changing to JAVA was an I AM WHO AM (Exodus 3:14) moment for me. The old gods of technology are being swept away. A new radical shift is coming. JAVA foretells this.
The exciting software development of today is being done on the internet. Desktop, packaged software has many years of utility left, but one doesn’t see millions of people adopting (=excitement) some installable desktop, client-side software the way people are adopting internet-based software. Further, it should be obvious that most people don’t base adoption of internet-based software on the underlying operating system, or server architecture, or chip architecture. Not even the framework (Ruby, PHP, Python, Java) is a consideration for adoption. The sole criterion is some loose idea of utility whether that be based on social draws, getting-things-done, kicking tires. We see this all at Joyent with respect to our own internet-based software offerings. Frankly, it comes down to ease-of-use and, while user-interface is a component of this, Google has schooled us all that basic response time is the critical user-experience feature required by repeat users.
We’re finding the same behavior holds true for network-based software development. Developers really don’t care about the machine, the operating system. Developers care about the framework (Java, PHP, Ruby, Python, etc.) and that it is optimized to give them more page views per unit of money spent or development efficiency on the road to page views per unit of money spent. For internal applications, development efficiency is key. But the machine, the operating system doesn’t really matter.
At least this is how I understand the message of JAVA. Java is where Sun touches developers (the most, they have JRuby…but that’s Java, too). Mr Ballmer of Microsoft was right: …developers, developers, developers…. The important APIs used to be Win32, Office, Solaris. But no more. Things have moved up the stack.
[It’s intriguing to wonder what the long-term effects this change will have on desktops and laptops where packaged software (and hence operating systems) seem to matter more and more. In some ways, technologies such as Silverlight, AIR, Slingshot are attempts to answer the question. But these technologies don’t answer questions of interoperability (between applications built on different frameworks), device drivers (e.g. how to print) and much more.]
7 Comments
I was little shocked by the change. But then ticker symbols are really for stock analysts, not programmers.
Your story, along with the Balmer reference, is very similar to a Joel Spolsky post from about 3 years ago called, How Microsoft lost the API war
He ends by saying, “None of this bodes well for Microsoft and the profits it enjoyed thanks to its API power. The new API is HTML, and the new winners in the application development marketplace will be the people who can make HTML sing.”
@Nicholas: Joel was prescient, to be sure. But I wonder if the future is a web page. That’s why I don’t mention web-based applications. I prefer internet-based applications.
>>“Google has schooled us all that basic response time is the critical user-experience feature required by repeat users.”
It would be awesome to see a speed comparison of BingoDisk to some other offerings.
Re: “Developers really don’t care about the machine, the operating system. “
Well, to a certain extent… as long as the OS is some flavor of *nix
Personally, I DO care a lot about the operating system. I wouldn’t develop on anything other than OSX (for developers, desktop applications DO matter A LOT), and I wouldn’t deploy on anything other than FreeBSD/Linux (but it depends on the distribution)/Solaris.
I was out with our Sun sales rep on Tuesday and I made sure to give him a good hard time for that. He had some jokes already lined up so I guess he had already heard it.
When I think of Apple, I think of well designed hardware running great software on top of a great OS. The only thing they are missing is a satisfying online/web services presence.
I was sure that Sun was going in the same direction. When I think of Sun I think of Java, Servers (Thumpers,Niagra,Sparc) and Solaris (ZFS, zones, N1, etc). Changing to JAVA sounds like Microsoft’s .NET namespace pollution disaster. The ticker symbol change was the first time I thought that maybe Sun still doesn’t really get it.
Maybe Jonathan has something up his sleeve and I don’t really get it.
@ste: OK, you say you care about the OS, but why? Why only deploy on a *nix if you get the same performance on something else?
Well, I care about the OS because I’m not just a developer. I don’t work in a cubicle for a big company, safely removed from the intricacies of deployment: I manage the servers where my applications live, and so do (presumably) many thousands of independent developers out there. So, knowing that on the other side of the wire there’s a POSIX-compliant OS, knowing that I can count on FreeBSD’s stability, or OpenBSD’s outstading security record, or Solaris’ excellent tools (I mean, come on, how could one be indifferent to ZFS??
, knowing all this does matter to me.
If you are talking about “pure” developers, maybe you’re right, the OS is irrelevant compared to the importance of the framework (and the language, let’s not forget), given the same performance level. But being half-developer, half-sysadmin, I value peace of mind and a sane environment at least the same as performance