Analysts: Sun Lacks Leadership In Web Services Space

Sun Microsystems

Jason Bloomberg and Ronald Schmelzer, senior analysts with the firm, said Microsoft and IBM are far ahead of Sun with their Web services strategies because they have products to back up their plans, while Sun does not.

If Sun plans to successfully sell its Sun ONE software platform, on which the company hopes solution providers will deliver Web services to customers, Sun must create a strong product road map for developers, said Schmelzer.

"Sun ONE is a marketing vision, not a product vision," said Schmelzer. "It's still just a collection of renamed pieces. Sun needs a coherent product vision for Web services."

Schmelzer said Sun must find a viable way to derive revenue from Sun ONE because the scenario of Intel-based servers running Linux is commoditizing the hardware and operating system markets, phasing out Sun's Solaris-on-Unix servers stronghold. "Sun doesn't play well in a space where hardware and operating system don't matter," he said.

Sun's insistence on the "write once, run anywhere" nature of Java, the programming language and platform it created, also is hindering the vendor's ability to get Web services right, said Bloomberg.

"Sun's version [of Web services is Java virtual machines on every computer," said Bloomberg. "In the Web services story, you no longer care about the one on the other side, you just care about exposing services. In that sense, it goes against 'write once, run anywhere,' which is what [Sun's holding onto."

Ed Julson, Sun's group manager for XML and Web services, said this view is hogwash. He said Schmelzer and Bloomberg are confusing the Java development environment with the connectivity of applications, which is what Web services addresses.

Julson said there is nothing in the Java development platform that precludes a Java-based application being communicated as a Web service to a system that does not run Java. "If you build a Web service on the Java platform, that should interoperate just fine with other platforms that are not Java-based because we comply with all the platform-independent messaging mechanisms [for Web services," said Julson.

In fact, Sun won a small victory last week in the Web services arena as IBM motioned for Sun to be given equal footing with IBM, Microsoft and other leading technology companies on the board of the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I), a group aimed at ensuring that Web services actually work throughout the industry. While the decision is still pending, if passed, Sun likely would join the organization as a leader in Web services interoperability, a Sun spokesman said Monday.

Sun earlier declined to join WS-I, although Sun executives said they have been considering membership since the group's inception. Observers have noted that Sun's lack of participation in WS-I could be a blow to its leadership in the Web services space.

The Zap Think analysts also said IBM is "eating Sun's cake" in terms of how the vendor is offering Java-based developer tools and products, such as the WebSphere application server, that are superior to the Sun ONE products. They compared Sun to Novell and its former superiority in the network operating system market, implying that Sun may end up as a "marginalized" player in the technology it created.

In fact, latest numbers from research firm Giga Information Group have the Sun ONE Java-based application server, formerly called iPlanet, lagging well behind co-leaders IBM and BEA Systems, which each have 34 percent of market share to Sun ONE's 7 percent.

Julson said Sun recognizes it has "an uphill battle" in creating leading Java-based software but is working diligently to create "the best Web services platform in the industry."

"It's an ongoing effort," said Julson. "We're not going to get there overnight. It takes time to execute it."

Julson also said he is not troubled by IBM's leadership in the Java space, since Sun purposely helped to create the community around the technology.

"The Java model is built around community--we all compete with each other around the same technologies," said Julson. "In some cases, Sun is going to be better than competitors, and others Sun is not. That's what makes Java work-- the competition."