Larry Ellison - We Will Continue to Invest In Java
Towards the end of the Day 1 morning keynote at JavaOne 2009, Scott McNealy called Oracle CEO Larry Ellison up on stage to address the $7.4 billion dollar question -- what will be the future of Java? Java's forthcoming 'leader' assured an uncertain audience that Oracle would continue its investment in the Java platform. With a resounding applause, the next chapter of Java unfolded.
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Comments
Thierry Milard replied on Wed, 2009/06/03 - 2:30am
What did you expect : "You we invested billions in Oracle but we think java is a looser platform" ?
Fabrizio Giudici replied on Wed, 2009/06/03 - 4:15am
Jacek Furmankiewicz replied on Wed, 2009/06/03 - 8:16am
Well, the comments he made upon rewriting parts of OpenOffice in JavaFX seem a bit bizarre...the exact opposite of what most OO users have been asking for (more platform-specific integration, not some fancy shmancy animations).
But overall, it's great to hear the news. Oracle has more resources available than Sun ever could muster.
Java 7 is pretty much baked, but we'll see what Oracle can do for Java 8 to see if it can really keep up with the expectations. Things such as closures, list comprehensions and some sort of functional programming support are long overdue.
Osvaldo Doederlein replied on Wed, 2009/06/03 - 8:23am
in response to:
Fabrizio Giudici
Agreed. At the very least, this kind of committment gives Sun another 1-2 years to push their current plans forward (JavaFX, Java Store, Glassfish, NetBeans, OOo, etc.); if they succeed to be reasonably successful and profitable, there's no reason why Oracle would kill said products even if they don't make a lot of sense in Oracle's grand scheme of things - they could let their Sun subsidiary run all that stuff just to keep current developers and customers happy/fidelized.
And if Sun succeeds big time with something, then Oracle just wins another cash cow to milk. Not a bad bet so far, considering that Sun's Java division is already profitable (probably pocked change for Oracle, but at least it's not losing money, so the risk is low).
Osvaldo Doederlein replied on Wed, 2009/06/03 - 8:33am
in response to:
Jacek Furmankiewicz
The OOo/JavaFX comment was weird indeed. I think Larry's got a 10-minute briefing / elevator pitch about JavaFX, and just didn't know what he was talking about.
JavaFX may have something to add to OOo, perhaps Impress, but even for that, OOo is already mature enough that it just doesn't make sense to dump the code and rewrite stuff, even if there are no problems like platform support or performance. There are much more important needs like ever-improving MS documents compatibility, better revision tools in Writer, a more modern GUI, etc.
JavaFX would be a best fit for completely new components of the suite, e.g. competitors to Microsoft's OneNote etc.
Andy Leung replied on Wed, 2009/06/03 - 9:21am
JeffS replied on Wed, 2009/06/03 - 11:42am
in response to:
Jacek Furmankiewicz
"Things such as closures,"
From here on out, can we call you "Closure Jacek"? ;-)
Please do send an email to Larry, I'm sure he'll be glad to consider closures!
I'm a little bit pleasantly surprised about Larry's comments about being committed to JavaFX.
I don't see JavaFX as being there yet, but it does have great potential. And if it get's all of it's promised features (rich set of components, design tools, full cross platform capability, cross device capability, fast downloads, etc), I'd much rather use it for RIA over Flex or Silverlight or Ajax, and much rather use it for devices over Android, Blackberry APIs, iPhone APIs, etc.
Jacek Furmankiewicz replied on Wed, 2009/06/03 - 2:20pm
in response to:
JeffS
I doubt very much Larry cares about my opinion :-)
But some evolution of the core language constructs would be welcome.
cowwoc replied on Wed, 2009/06/03 - 5:06pm
Excuse me if I remain skeptical about Oracle's commitment to Java, JavaFX and other such technologies. History has shown time and again they have done the exact opposite of what they seem to be promising in JavaOne.
Oracle isn't a technology/innovation company. The Sun acquisition doesn't change that one bit.
Manjuka Soysa replied on Wed, 2009/06/03 - 7:06pm
Java 7 is pretty much baked, but we'll see what Oracle can do for Java 8 to see if it can really keep up with the expectations. Things such as closures, list comprehensions and some sort of functional programming support are long overdue.
Did Larry mention how much he likes closures - forcing it in to Java was one of the main motivations to buy Sun :-)
Rainer Eschen replied on Wed, 2009/06/03 - 8:04pm
Who are these old Java men?
Otengi Miloskov replied on Thu, 2009/06/04 - 12:07am
in response to:
cowwoc
Yes history teach many things but sometimes the history is not the same as before. It does not make sense that Orcale just throw away from the window all this projects, community and many more. Oracle is doing and investing here and they will try to push it forward. Java is already a platform and it is a success for everybody so don't worry about it but lets see how is with JavaFX, OpenOffice and MySQL.
With JavaFX 1.2 and the previews of the SDK for Linux looks promising maybe I will change my mind and begin to use JavaFX for RIA and say bye bye to Flex. Of course Silverlight bye bye bye I have never used it, I dont want to mess anymore in my life with Microsoft products.
James Jamesson replied on Thu, 2009/06/04 - 12:08am
jame jack replied on Mon, 2009/06/29 - 4:14pm