Sun Moves Away From Stand-Alone J2EE Middleware

Sun Microsystems

Sun Chairman, CEO and President Scott McNealy made the announcement Wednesday at the Sun Network show here. McNealy was responding to a question from an analyst about whether Sun is serious about winning share in the J2EE app server market, currently dominated by BEA Systems and IBM.

McNealy said Sun has created a new product category by bundling its Sun ONE Application Server into Solaris 9.

Calling Sun's strategy "U2EE," McNealy said Sun has merged its Unix-based Solaris with J2EE by putting both functionalities into Solaris 9.

"That means we've either gotten out of Solaris or out of the J2EE app server business," McNealy said. "We've created a new category."

Singing a familiar tune, McNealy said that a Java application server should be a feature of an entire system, not a market segment in and of itself.

"The people at BEA and [IBM think app servers are an industry," McNealy said. "It's the same way Novell used to think directories were an industry."

McNealy said many of the segments industry analysts currently track, such as app server and portals, aren't likely to exist as separate markets in the long term.

Instead, McNealy said, they will exist as components of an operating system--namely, Solaris or Sun's version of Linux--that runs an entire end-to-end computer system.

Indeed, Sun's software strategy is not simply to sell packaged software on a stand-alone basis, said Sun's Executive Vice President Jonathan Schwartz. Rather, Sun plans to tie much of its software to its server products.

In other words, customers can't buy Sun software unless they buy a server to run it on, Schwartz said.

Sun already bundles Sun ONE software on servers running Solaris 9 and on the LX50 server, a move it will continue with other software products, but the vendor will still sell Sun ONE software on a stand-alone basis as well.

For instance, Mad Hatter, the code name for the Linux desktop product introduced here Wednesday, will not be offered as a packaged product like Microsoft Windows XP.

Instead, the final product will be distributed in a group starting at 100 users on Sun Ray network appliances, which--since they only run using a network connection--likely will be tied back to Sun servers.

John Howard, principal and vice president of sales for Sharon, Mass.-based VAR Boston Computers and Peripherals, said including software and middleware on its LX50 is Sun's value-add against competitors Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft.

"In the Wintel market, you could not put together a solution [like Sun's based on Windows without it being triple the price for software," Howard said. "If you piecemealed it together, you will have compatibility issues, and you have to iron those out, which will take hours, days, weeks, even if you're good."