JavaOne dispatch #2

I'm attending the Services section of Business day with Thorsten Laux, Brenda Herlihy, and Bill Curchi.

Thorsten Laux is up first and talks about the Java platform, and how we can leverage the Java platform into a services distribution vehicle. He talks about the Google Toolbar. It's a search toolbar that gets put into Explorer and is installed as part of the Java Runtime Environment. 

We've had success with it. Then he shows the work that we've done with the improvements in the Java Download experience. They look good. However, he's using the old startup animation. Oh well. Then he talks about the Application marketplace. He gives an address to talk about this with distribution-services@sun.com. There's a unique distribution channel, and we want to take advantage of these channels, and share that with our customers.

Brenda Herlihy is next. She's in Developer Services. She loves talking to customers about how to build the best application in the shortest amount of time. Here's her basic model.

Train

Assist

Maintain

Build

Peace of Mind

This offering is really about step by step help to develop and deploy Java applications. It's pretty short, but I get it. Sun really wants to work with folks on this. 

Bill Curchi--who I just met--is up next, in this three part scenario, and he's pretty calm about all this.

He's promoting a kind of partnership with these business customers. He starts off with a recap about the state of Java today. Java is available and widely used. It's available everywhere, and is managed by Sun. Sun is ensuring a quality user experience vis-a-vis a regular, but widely spaced cadence of updates. Sun actually does a pretty good job of this. Most everyone is pretty happy about this. On the business side, though, there are some different requirements. Specifically, they want more control. (Doesn't everybody?) They want to guage and control change. In the past, and in fact, right now, lots of fixes go into every Java release. Businesses want to use to reduce cost.

They want the fixes faster, and they only want the ones that they need. They also want a more predictable schedule. They want more time to roll out updates. They want synchronized fixes across release families.

 From now, we'll go to a model that addresses the need for faster updates. The refractory period for cooking a release will be reduced. That way they happen faster, every few weeks, for example. This allows general updates to be less frequent. Support periods for updates, more complex migration strategies, extending past the usual GM date, to allow businesses to get more of what they want.

It's all about having more choice, better planning, and better schedules. Sounds like a good idea, Bill. I'm sold.

In the future, Sun will communicate better about this stuff. They'll also configure the software better for production environments. Bill extends the hand of partnership around this, and he really means it people. ISVs are an important part of this. If you want to know more about this, send email to Production-Java@sun.com.