J2EE Automation ISV AltoWeb Closes Its Doors

J2EE startup AltoWeb has apparently closed its doors--a move that one analyst said could signal further consolidation among smaller players in the Java software space.

John Meyer, senior industry analyst at Forrester Research, said the demise of AltoWeb, which sold J2EE and Web services automation software, has been rumored for about a month, but no one from the company has stepped forward to admit as much.

CRN Tuesday visited the site of AltoWeb's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. The doors were locked and, through the window, it was clear that the first floor of the building had been stripped bare. In the building's lobby, a faint outline of the company's name could be seen on the wall where it appears a company logo used to hang.

A woman who identified herself only as an employee of another company in the building said AltoWeb liquidated about a month ago, and that all of the company's computers, office furniture and the like were cleared out around the same time.

No one at the company could be reached for comment Tuesday. Calls to the main switchboard number and various extensions resulted in a constant busy signal, and an e-mail CRN sent to AltoWeb's internal PR contact was returned undeliverable.

The company's Web site, www.altoweb.com, remains live, however, which Meyer said could be a sign the company hopes to sell off some remaining assets.

Meyer attributed AltoWeb's alleged demise to the maturation process of J2EE, which he said poses a situation that, in the challenging economic climate, "makes it hard for companies other than the big players to survive."

Further, leading software vendors such as IBM, BEA Systems, Oracle and Sun Microsystems have been focused for the past 18 months on providing an entire software infrastructure consisting of the Java application server, portal server, integration server, tools environment and, in some cases, the database and even the hardware on which the software can run. This means there will be less room for smaller companies trying to find a niche by offering tools that simplify J2EE and Web services development and deployment to play, Meyer said.

"I think that the going out of business of companies like AltoWeb is an indicator that consolidation is moving toward the large vendors," he said. "Companies like M7, Bowstreet and others are going to have a hard time surviving in the future, especially when the other vendors have an entire stack to offer."

Another competitor in this space, Wakesoft, will unveil the Wakesoft Architecture Platform later this month in an attempt to broaden beyond simplified J2EE development into the Web services automation arena. But Meyer said that because companies like Wakesoft and its competitors are privately held, it's hard to gauge how they are faring economically, and new product launches do not ensure company longevity.

Meyer also hinted that because large vendors will be providing Java software in the future, J2EE will continue to be limited to enterprise deployments and not have an easy time successfully branching into the midmarket or to departmental-level deployments, as companies--such as IBM with its WebSphere Express offerings--have been hoping to do.

In fact, Meyer predicted it will be easier for Microsoft to gain traction in the enterprise space, a move the company has been pushing with Windows Server 2003 and Visual Studio.Net 2003, than it will for Java to permeate the SMB market.

"I've always used the analogy of someone going up and someone coming down a ladder," Meyer said. "The perception is it's easier to go down a ladder, but in many cases it's easier to go up. It's easier for Microsoft to move up to the enterprise than it is for J2EE folks to move down."

Microsoft has always provided tools that were easy for developers to use, while J2EE is a notoriously complicated environment, observers said.

In the past year vendors have begun to introduce new tools--most notably BEA WebLogic Workshop, a new 8.1 version of which will GA in early August, according to Meyer--that are trying to make J2EE digestible for corporate developers without high-level Java skills.

Solution providers have said developing solutions more efficiently and cost-effectively is their No. 1 goal in the current economic environment, and they will use whatever development platform is the best suited to their needs.

"Programmers will adopt whatever makes their life easier," said John Rohner, an independent developer and solution provider.

Rohner compared the Java vs. Microsoft battle to the similar one pitting Microsoft's Windows against Linux. "With Microsoft it's all in one huge easy-to-use bundle, but with Linux it's still a fractured environment," he said. "Microsoft is right with its 'users want only one interface' mantra."

Indeed, "the whole reason you buy software is to add efficiencies," said Joe Lindsay, CTO of Costa Mesa, Calif.-based solution provider eBuilt. "It's all about reducing cost and time [of building applications]."

Lindsay said it "makes sense" for BEA, IBM and other Java software vendors to build out an entire development platform comprised of application server, portal, integration server and tools, because it will make building Java solutions easier.

"There's the base application server [for development], then there's common things every enterprise needs for the application," Lindsay said. "You need a consistent way to integrate, consistent way to deliver functionality to end users, consistent security, databases, all those common things. You end up with something that looks like a portal product and integration product on top of an application server."

Meyer said this trend will lead to much less "mixing and matching" of different Java vendors' products in the future, with a move toward deploying, for example, an all-IBM Java software environment rather than one that has best of breed products from different vendors.