Sunday January 15, 2006

Sun is at it again, this time at the SYS-CON Readers Awards. I'll be the first to say that I'm not a fan of "readers awards" for a couple of reasons. First, many choose a product simply because it is the only product they know - a popularity contest. Back in my younger days, that's what I did for these kind of awards. I chose things I knew, and I knew very little back then (only slightly more than I know now) :) These days I mostly stay away from voting for these awards (including this instance). Second, I am not sure what the background of the readers are. What industries? Country? SYS-CON knows, I'm sure. Not a complaint. I think what SYS-CON is doing is good for the industry. Popularity (awareness) is important for a product's success. Sometimes popular products are the best, sometimes not. Just take the results with a grain of salt. The best way to find out is to try it yourself. Easy to do when it is free.

Of course, I will do some horn-tootin' here. Think of it this way, what if Sun didn't show up on the list at all? That wouldn't look good now, would it? And I would be considered a sore loser for questioning the value of the awards :) The fact that Sun shows up quite a bit on the list is a positive for our customers and for Sun. It's a reminder to many that Sun is not a hardware company. We are a systems company.

Congrats to those who came out on top this year. I'll say this, though: Look over your shoulders. With an extremely low barrier to entry (free), awareness of Sun's software portfolio is growing fast. The Java Integration Suite is an extremely strong product set, and will be freely available soon (sans Support).I expect to see it mentioned next year.

One of our non-blogging heathens @ Sun summed it up quite nicely, so I'll just copy it here:

Best Web Services Platform
Winner: Java EE (Sun Microsystems)

Best Framework for SOA and Web Services
Winner: Java Web Services Developer Pack (Sun Microsystems)

Best SOA IDE
Winner: NetBeans/Java Studio Enterprise (Sun Microsystems)

Best XML Parser
Winner: Java API for XML Processing (Sun Microsystems)

Best XML Utility
Winner: Java API for XML Processing (Sun Microsystems)

Best SOA or XML Training
Winner: Sun Java Web Services Developer Pack Tutorial (Sun Microsystems)

Best SOA or XML Site
Winner: http://java.sun.com/webservices (Sun Microsystems)

Best SOA Security Solution
Winner: JWSDP XML and Web Services Security (Sun Microsystems)

Best SOA Portal Platform
Winner: Sun Java System Portal Server (Sun Microsystems)

Best SOA IDE
Winner: Sun Java Studio Enterprise (Sun Microsystems)

Best Java Training
Winner: Java BluePrints (Sun Microsystems)

Best Java Virtual Machine
Winner: Java SE 6 (Sun Microsystems)

Below are SunProducts that came in 1st, 2nd, & 3rd Runners Up:

Best Application Server for SOA / Web Services
Sun Java System Application Server (Sun Microsystems)

Best Java Messaging Tool
1) Sun Java System Message Queue (Sun Microsystems)

Most Innovative Java Product
1) Java Studio Creator (Sun Microsystems)

Best Java SOA Kit
1) Java Web Services Developer Pack (Sun Microsystems)

Best Java Debugging Tool
1) NetBeans (Sun Microsystems)

Best Java Book
1) J2EE BluePrints (Sun Microsystems)

Best Java Application Server
2) Sun Java Application Server (Sun Microsystems)

Best Java IDE
2) NetBeans Java Studio Enterprise (Sun Microsystems)

Best Java Book
2) Core Java 2 (Sun Microsystems)

Best Web Services Platform
3) Sun Java Studio Enterprise (Sun Microsystems) - Behind the #1 Java EE
(2006-01-15 23:06:20.0) Permalink Comments [2]