I love the announcement that we made yesterday - to make our software available to developers for free (yea, there was more to the announcement, but hang with me). Finally, developers can use the right tools for the right job without having to worry about the cost. I expect that as soon as we make our integration software available the number of developers will explode.

Let me back up a bit. In the past (that was the day before yesterday ... and before that), the software that developers had access to was impressive, but limited. Free software is out there, including tools, but in most cases this was a limited functionality version, or it was something that you had to build yourself. In short, it was neither complete nor integrated.

There was of course the traditional model for acquiring the software that you need - get a project approved, evaluate the products necessary to build it, make the selection, get approval and purchase the software and finally start the project. This approach has worked for years.

But in both of these cases, tradeoffs have to be made. What developers can now do is get everything they need. A complete platform with all of the capabilities to build solutions right, without the initial burden of cost!

And what makes this even more interesting than the acquisition cost is the breadth of capabilities that are available. We have the most complete, integrated and secure platform ( Sun Java Entperprise System ). And all of it is being made available! As the guy who is responsible for the business integration software ( Sun Java Integration Suite ), as soon as we make it available (next quarter), I expect to see a HUGE number of downloads. I think that this is truly a turning point for the use of integration capabilities in the development of applications.

So as the title says, "Developers - Bring Them On!!"