Java Industry News

Google Pulls Out of JavaOne in Snit

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:45:00 EDT

Google has pulled out of JavaOne because Oracle is suing Google claiming that Android infringes on its Sun-inherited Java IP. Google blogged that the lawsuit made it “impossible for us to freely share our thoughts about the future of Java and open source generally” though that open source gambit may not play. It probably can’t get its bronze sponsorship money back, only cancel its sessions. Meanwhile, Java’s grumpy creator James Gosling, who couldn’t stomach the jump to Oracle, has run up some “Java. Just Free It. Hold Oracles to their Pledge.” T-shirts for the September 19-23 event – or anywhere they might be useful. See http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2010/08/update-on-javaone.html.

SmartBear Software Broadens Runtime Analysis and Performance Profiling

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:38:00 EDT

SmartBear Software announces the new major release of its application runtime analysis and performance profiling tool, AQtime™ 7.0. Thousands of users rely on AQtime to isolate and eliminate performance bottlenecks, memory leaks and other runtime problems. Version 7.0 brings its powerful capabilities to the latest development frameworks, including the newly released Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and Embarcadero® RAD Studio XE, and adds support for Java and Microsoft .NET 4 Framework.

Cloud Computing: Bidding for 3PAR Hits $30 a Share

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:45:00 EDT

The bidding for 3PAR now stands at $30 a share. That's like two billion bucks, pushing passed what appeared to be hysterical speculation about how far into the clouds the offers could go just days ago. Dell this morning rolled out of bed and matched HP's price late yesterday of $27 a share, $1.8 billion. HP immediately countered with $30 returning the puck to Dell, which thought it had the apparently priceless storage operation in the bag a week ago Monday at only 18 bucks a share until HP upset the apple cart Monday with a surprise bid of $24 a share on Monday. Dell Thursday morning sweetened HP's $24 offer by 30 cents and HP then went to $27. Wall Street is betting the price will go higher still and had boosted 3PAR's stock price to $3.68 mid-morning Friday.

Software Common Hacks and Counterattacks

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EDT

To ensure payment for use of their application, ISVs must implement some type of software protection, aiming to restrict the use of software to specific license conditions. SafeNet reviews top seven piracy threats and how you can protect your software against them.

Skyline Software Switches from Homegrown to SafeNet Sentinel HASP

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:30:00 EDT

In this white paper read how Skyline Software Systems, Inc. needed a “more comprehensive solution that could work across multiple media formats,” and switched from homegrown to SafeNet Sentinel HASP.

Dell Tops HP's Bid for 3PAR – Just Barely

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EDT

If nothing else, HP Thursday morning made Dell's proposed acquisition of 3PAR more expensive. That was when Dell sweetened HP's unexpected $24-a-share bid on Monday for the virtualized storage house by 30 cents to $1.53 billion, up from the $1.15 billion that 3PAR accepted from Dell last week. HP now has to decide whether to raise again, a move that would presumably be conditioned on getting any advance to stick. See, Dell's got perpetual matching rights.

OpenSolaris Board Quits En Masse

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:45:00 EDT

The OpenSolaris governing board fell on its collective sword Monday and resigned en masse after Oracle continued to ignore its ultimatum to appoint a liaison guy to work with it on the future of the open source project. The move was anticlimactic to say the least. Oracle last week leaked an internal e-mail into the wild effectively saying OpenSolaris is dead.

Larry to Keynote JavaOne

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EDT

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is supposedly going to open his mind on the subject of Java, the prime reason he bought Sun. He’s supposed to deliver the keynote at JavaOne the middle of September and, along with Oracle EVP Thomas Kurian, discuss Oracle’s vision and strategy for Java. There’s unlikely to be bigger news than Oracle suing Google 10 days ago for Android trespassing on its Java widgetry. JavaOne is supposed to be part of OracleWorld in San Francisco September 19-23.

Best Practices of Software Licensing

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EDT

SafeNet discusses IDC's findings on the best practices for the deployment of software licensing and entitlement management technologies. Learn how software publishers can benefit from faster time-to-market, increased ability to capture and optimize revenue, and reduced operational inefficiencies.

Build vs. Buy: The Hidden Costs of License Management

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:15:00 EDT

In this white paper, SafeNet examines the real costs involved in the decision to develop a homegrown licensing and protection solution, providing a detailed review of the actual costs involved, the business considerations that apply and the ongoing total cost of ownership during the solution lifetime.

Oracle Rolls Over & Smothers OpenSolaris

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 08:15:00 EDT

Oracle has apparently rolled back Solaris to its pre-open source days. The company hasn’t made an official announcement, and may never, but an internal e-mail ostensibly to its own remaining Solaris engineers outlining its position on OpenSolaris just happened to fall into the hands of OpenSolaris contributor Steven Stallion last Friday. He posted it under the headline “OpenSolaris is Dead” at http://sstallion.blogspot.com/2010/08/opensolaris-is-dead.html. Generally regarded as authentic, the e-mail says Solaris is meant to drive Oracle’s newfound proprietary server and storage business, which is supposed to be worth “many billions of dollars,” and as such “is not something we outsource to others, it is not the assembly of someone else’s technology, and it is not a sustaining-only product.”

The Value of Automating Application Deployments

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:30:00 EDT

Estimate the value of automating your application deployments and overall software delivery Take two minutes to determine the value your organization could attain. The IBM Rational software delivery automation value estimators illustrate how your organization can be positively impacted by the use of Rational automation software solutions.

Oracle Kills OpenSolaris

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EDT

Oracle is apparently rolling back Solaris to its pre-open source days. The company hasn't made an official announcement, and may never, but an internal e-mail ostensibly to its own remaining Solaris engineers outlining its position on OpenSolaris just happened to fall into the hands of OpenSolaris contributor Steven Stallion last Friday. He posted it under the headline "OpenSolaris is Dead" here. Generally regarded as authentic, the e-mail says Solaris is meant to drive Oracle's newfound proprietary server and storage business, which is supposed to be worth "many billions of dollars," and as such "is not something we outsource to others, it is not the assembly of someone else's technology, and it is not a sustaining-only product."

Oracle Claims There’s Still Some Fire in the Old Sparc

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EDT

Having said nothing for months about its intentions, a deafening silence that had Sun users biting their nails down to the quick about where the technology was really going – then demonstrating their angst in their order rate or their leap into the waiting arms of competitors – Oracle the other day finally opened its mind a tad. For starters, it staged a webcast Tuesday and said that it means to put its resources behind Sun’s Sparc and x86 systems, something it said before however unconvincingly. But now it’s got what it called an “aggressive” albeit stripped-down – and for that matter pretty much unreadable – five-year roadmap to wave around that plots out Sparc server development through 2015.

Managed Methods Announces the Release of JaxView 6.0

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 09:30:00 EDT

Managed Methods Inc., a provider of SOA (service-oriented architecture) & Cloud governance, has announced the availability of their JaxView 6.0. While providing full support for SOA & Cloud management for the IT operations, JaxView 6.0 expanded runtime policy enforcement features such as expanded service virtualization and security federation. "We are very pleased with our customer adoption of JaxView for SOA & Cloud governance for monitoring and securing such environments." states Al Aghili Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Managed Methods Inc.

Oracle ‘Clarifies’ Its President’s Statements

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 11:45:00 EDT

What are the chances that Chuck Phillips, the president of Oracle, the ex-Morgan Stanley guy involved in the company’s many acquisitions, doesn’t know whether Oracle will “probably double what we’ve spent on acquisitions in the last five years,” which is what he reportedly told a Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference last week, adding “if things hold up, we could easily do that.” Well, Oracle “clarified” Mr. Chuck’s statements the next day saying that it “does not have a five-year acquisition budget. We don’t even have a one-year acquisition budget. While it is highly unlikely that we will spend anything approaching $70 billion in five years, we will be opportunistic and, if market conditions warrant, we will buy additional companies that further our strategic goals and address our customers’ needs.”

HP and Dell to Sell Solaris; OpenSolaris Hung Out to Dry

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 10:45:00 EDT

Oracle said Thursday that Dell and HP will sell Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM on their x86 platforms, which will presumably come as some relief to customers uncertain of Oracle’s intentions. HP said in a canned statement that many users “have hardwired stacks of applications and infrastructure that can’t rapidly change.” Oracle will do the support. Meanwhile, things on the OpenSolaris side of the house are in a tizzy with the widgetry’s governing board issuing ultimatums and threatening to disband if Oracle doesn’t pay it some mind while a breakaway movement is believed to be in progress because Oracle, while committed to Solaris, has reduced its support for OpenSolaris as a distribution.

Terracotta Swells Ehcache to a Terabyte

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 07:30:00 EDT

Terracotta is out to cure skimpy cache by making Ehcache really, really big, 1TB in fact, a size only a few people can use right now, but just you wait, it says, the day is upon us when practically everybody with a database will want it to be in-memory. The biggest caches these days are still 100GB-200GB and they’re a lot of work to build. Maybe there are two or three that hit 200 GB. The average, on the other hand, is more like sub-20 gigs. Terracotta swears it’s made it easy to store over a terabyte of data and hundreds of millions of entries in a single cache, so data retrieval is a whole lot faster and clouds and virtualization aren’t bottlenecked.

Day to Be Acquired by Adobe - Implications?

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:37:00 EDT

On Wednesday, Adobe announced it was going to buy Day Software, another WCM manufacturer based in Basel, Switzerland, who uses the same technology foundation as Magnolia. As an initiator of the JCR standard and main contributor to Jackrabbit (the JCR reference implementation), Day is certainly important for the JCR ecosystem. Let's have a look at the possible implications of the deal for Magnolia. Adobe bought Omniture not even a year ago for 1.2B$, which was/is the leader in web analytics. With Day's CQ (their CMS), Adobe now has the final part in their portfolio to create, analyze and publish content. (I couldn't find out yet what part "Adobe Publish" plays. Seems to be an SaaS platform, so probably not competing with CQ.)

Jinfonet Announces JReport 10

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:35:00 EDT

Jinfonet Software, a provider of Java reporting solutions, on Thursday unveiled JReport 10. This new version adds rich visualization and interactive reporting to a robust, agile BI platform, providing embedded operational reporting to developers and self-service reporting to end users. JReport 10 brings Agile Business Intelligence to the next level with rich visualization features. Web 2.0 self-service reporting allows highly interactive reports to be accessible across the enterprise with superior performance and scalability.

IBM’s Dustin Amrhein to Present at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:42:00 EDT

Face it, setting up Java EE application environments can be a time-consuming, error-prone, and highly variable process. A cloud computing approach to Java EE application environments can address these problems and more. In his session at the 7th International Cloud Expo, Dustin Amrhein, Technical Evangelist for Cloud Technologies at IBM, will describe how the IBM WebSphere test organization utilizes a cloud computing solution to enable the construction, deployment, and maintenance of Java EE application environments for testing purposes throughout the organization. This new cloud computing implementation means decreased environment setup times, elevated asset utilization, and increased test iterations. All of this adds up to make the IBM WebSphere test organization more responsive and agile than it has ever been.

Intel Hits It Up, Up & Away; Delivers Record Quarter

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:30:00 EDT

In the midst of one of the diciest global economies in generations, with whole countries going bust, Intel has delivered the single best quarter in its 42-year history. The news sparked the tech sector and an erratic Wall Street in general.

Windows Azure with Java at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 10:15:00 EDT

Microsoft's Windows Azure platform is a virtualized and abstracted application platform that can be used to build highly scalable and reliable applications, with Java. The environment consists of a set of application services such as "no-SQL" table storage, blob storage, queues, relational database service, Internet service bus, access control, etc. Java applications can be built using these services via Web services APIs, and your own JVM, without having to be concerned with the underlying server OS and infrastructure. In his session at the 7th International Cloud Expo, David Chou, technical architect at Microsoft, will provide an overview of the Windows Azure platform environment, and cover how to develop and deploy Java applications in Windows Azure and how to architect horizontally scalable applications in Windows Azure.

New Start-up to Support MySQL

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 04:15:00 EDT

MySQL veterans either disaffected or dismissed by Oracle are starting a new company called SkySQL that will offer “enterprise-class support and services for the MySQL ecosystem.” The outfit is being pulled together by former MySQL SVP of global services Ulf Sandberg and its one-paragraph web site, dominated by a picture of a dolphin, says that whoever else is there – without saying who exactly – are former MySQL employees. However, SkySQL is hiring in “all areas, including support, consulting, training, marketing and sales.” Being detail-free left room for MySQL founder Monty Widenius, who’s formally objecting to the Oracle–Sun acquisition now, to position SkySQL as an alternative to Oracle–Sun, which he evidently blames for running off the old MySQL home team.

Monty Appeals Oracle’s Acquisition of Sun

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 08:30:00 EDT

He said he was going to do it and he has. MySQL founder Monty Widenius has made good his quixotic threat to appeal the European Commission’s decision to approve Oracle’s acquisition of Sun – and with it MySQL, which Sun paid a downright silly billion dollars for two years ago. Oracle closed on Sun in January and Widenius had a few months grace to take his case to the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg. It is unclear what he hopes to accomplish since he has basically gone underground and turned off his phone while the futility of the move has already cost him his chief spokesman Florian Mueller.

EC Wants to Legislate Interoperability

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 06:00:00 EDT

Having forced a dominant player like Microsoft to open up some of its interfaces in the name of interoperability, the European Commission is now proposing to force any “significant” player like, oh, say, Apple and Adobe or RIM and Nokia to open up their proprietary interfaces so it can create a brave new kumbayah level playing field. It forced Microsoft to do it by dint of antitrust prosecution and heavy fines but now it’s proposing to legislate the licensing of interfaces and data formats outside of antitrust considerations by 2012. According to EC’s new digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes, who’s proving to be a very dangerous woman, “Any kind of IT product should be able to communicate with any type of service in the future.”

Oracle Killed Sun’s Plan to Clone Intel’s Xeon Chip: NYT

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 15:00:00 EDT

The New York Times says that Oracle killed a Sun project to clone Intel’s x86 Xeon server chip and turn out a “no-frills, low-power variant” that it could put into thousands of servers for folks like Facebook, Yahoo and Google. The paper said it had heard tell of such a thing for a long time but could never quite nail it until recently when it happened to interview a couple of people “with knowledge of Sun’s plans,” “who are not authorized to speak publicly.” As part of the fey plan Sun bought the assets of one Montalvo Systems that had done work on low-power Intel clones and hired some “top talent” out of AMD.

General Dynamics Sexes Up Sun Ray

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:00:00 EDT

General Dynamics (GD), the big $32 billion-a-year American defense contractor, ushered in four new Tadpole ultra-thin clients Monday, two mobile, two wireless desktops. Those up on their Sun lore will recall that Tadpole was the name of the Texas start-up that created the first and only Sparc-based laptop; that General Dynamics acquired Tadpole; and that General Dynamics is also a Sun Ray licensee, has been for 10 years. So it will come as no great surprise that these Tadpole clients are Sun Ray clients that Itronix, part of General Dynamics' largest unit, has gussied up and means to sell into the cloud as a greener, securer, sustainable alternative to traditional desktop computing.

Larry Hires David Boies to Snag a Billion Off of SAP

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:00:00 EDT

Oracle has hired David Boies to argue its case against SAP. Oracle has made it clear in a 2008 filing with the court that its damages “are, at a minimum, well into the several hundreds of millions of dollars and likely are at least a billion dollars.” Boies is the guy who won the Justice Department’s antitrust suit against Microsoft although the judge’s breakup decision didn’t stick. He also lost Al Gore the presidency and his boys lost SCO its case against Linux. Maybe he and his people will understand this one better. Oracle charged SAP’s now defunct discount maintenance subsidiary TomorrowNow with ripping off its IP. It looks like the Armonk-based Boies is going to argue this one himself judging from his pro hac vice admission to the California bar. The trial is set to start November 1. The judge wants the parties to settle beforehand but with Boies in the picture that doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen. SAP has already admitted TomorrowNow was off base. Boies represented Oracle CEO Larry Ellison in his litigation over the America’s Cup race.

Sun’s Ex-Cloud CTO Finds Home at Cisco

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 13:00:00 EDT

Lew Tucker, who was CTO of Sun’s cloud initiative and was pretty much untouched by the cloud-aborting Oracle, has been hired by Cisco as CTO of its cloud effort, a brand new job with broad pull-it-together remit that reports to Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior and Service Provider Group boss Tony Bates. In a previous life he led the design and implementation of salesforce.com’s App Exchange arguably one of the largest cloud computing success stories so far. He thinks networks need to be more programmable.

Azul Zings Its Java Hardware – Poof, It’s Software

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 08:00:00 EDT

Born to peddle pricey proprietary iron built around exotic multi-core chips that ratchet up the scalability of Java apps – a dangerous exercise that has demanded a $200 million investment from its backers – Azul Systems is now going to start selling software that does pretty much the same thing as its fancy appliances but it’s optimized for the latest class of cheap, ubiquitous, increasingly powerful x86 commodity servers. If the stuff clicks in the next year, eight-year-old Azul may be in a position to organize an orderly retreat from its hardware business, which, as it happens, reportedly just saw record Q1 earnings. It may have hundreds of widgets out there, but software’s an easier sell.

FinancialForce.com Announces VMforce Connector Service for Java Developers

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 08:00:00 EDT

On Tuesday FinancialForce.com announced a new VMforce connector service that will enable Java developers to quickly and easily build FinancialForce Accounting functionality into their own VMforce applications. The announcement was made at The Grape Escape analyst event in Boston. The FinancialForce VMforce connector provides pre-configured web services, opening the doors for VMforce Java developers that want fast, easy access to enterprise accounting functionality on the Force.com platform. It will significantly reduce configuration and set-up time of the FinancialForce Accounting web services layer. Out of the box, VMforce developers will have access to the accounting functionality they need to make their apps enterprise-ready quickly and easily.

Oracle’s Arun Gupta to Present at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 13:00:00 EDT

GlassFish v3, the Reference Implementation of Java EE 6, can easily run on multiple cloud infrastructures. This session will provide a brief introduction to Java EE 6 and GlassFish v3. In his session at the 7th International Cloud Expo, Arun Gupta, Java EE and GlassFish evangelist working at Oracle, will explain how to create a simple Java EE 6 sample application and deploy it on GlassFish v3 running locally and then deploy it using Amazon, RightScale, Joyent, and Elastra cloud infrastructures.

KonaKart v5.0 Released - Java eCommerce System

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:04:54 EDT

DS Data Systems UK Ltd. is pleased to announce the release of KonaKart v5.0.0.0, a Java-based eCommerce shopping cart application that provides an extensive set of features to enable retailers to successfully sell their products over the internet. KonaKart is a Java / JSP / XML based solution with easy to use Java APIs and a SOAP Web Service interface that allow you to quickly integrate eCommerce functionality into your existing systems. The customizable parts of KonaKart are Open Source and available under the GNU LGPL. The new version includes many new features as well as some bug fixes. Reward Point Functionality has been introduced which allows customers to receive and redeem points online. Support for recurring billing has been added for native billing or to use the recurring billing functionality of the payment gateway. A customer and administrator can now download invoices in PDF format and many new custom and other attributes have been added to the important objects of the system. Full details of the new features can be found at http://www.konakart.com/downloads/ver-5000-whats-new

Managed Runtimes Suck; Azul Organizing Rescue Party

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 02:30:00 EDT

Azul Systems, the Java server appliance house, says Java, Ruby and, for that matter, .NET managed runtimes are pushed to their limits and basically crippled. Their response times are inconsistent, their scale is limited, and they’re unable to exploit modern commodity hardware with its multi-cores and memory. They’re unstable and need continuous tuning. They suffer from daily restarts, garbage collection pauses and out-of-memory errors. Operating systems aren’t optimized for them and virtualization and the cloud aggravate the scaling issue.

New World Cup Stats Website 11v11.com Gets Managed Hosting Support From iomart

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 01:00:00 EDT

iomart Hosting has been signed up by football statistics website 11v11.com to provide round-the-clock managed hosting support in preparation for a surge of interest during the World Cup. 11v11.com is the Association of Football Statisticians' official website and has almost every possible World Cup statistic and fact. It aims to create a real-time online community where fans from all nations can discuss the tournament with a Twitter-based application allowing supporters to recreate the terrace atmosphere during matches.

Aepona Wins Global Telecoms Innovation Award

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 07:13:00 EDT

Aepona is pleased to announce that it is the joint recipient of a Global Telecoms Business 2010 Innovation Award. Ibrahim Gedeon, CTO of TELUS, Graham Trickey, Senior Director at the GSMA, and Michael Crossey, VP Marketing at Aepona accepted the award on behalf of Bell Canada, Rogers Wireless, TELUS , Aepona and the GSMA for its work on the Canadian OneAPI Pilot. The Canadian OneAPI Pilot, an initiative that makes it easy for application developers to access the network and billing assets of multiple operators, was launched by the GSMA, TELUS, Rogers Wireless and Bell Canada in February 2010, with Aepona providing the technology platform and managed services.

More Heads to Roll at Sun

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 07:15:00 EDT

Sun appears to be sticking in Oracle’s craw and so it’s gonna cough up more of what it can’t digest and lay off what looks to be a lot more Sun people – mostly in Europe and Asia, it says. It didn’t say how many people but late Friday it told the SEC that the severance charges alone would run somewhere between $550 million and $650 million. Shortly before its acquisition closed Sun fired 3,000 people and took a $75 million–$125 million restructuring charge. You do the math. Oracle’s also projecting charges of $85 million–$115 million related to facilities and $40 million–$60 million in contract termination costs.

Azul Systems Achieves Record First Quarter Bookings and Revenue

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:15:00 EDT

Azul Systems announced record first quarter bookings and revenue for its fiscal year 2011 ending April 30, 2010, with revenue up 64% over the prior quarter. Customers purchasing Azul appliances and services in the quarter included Farmers Insurance, Success Factors, Saks.com, TD Securities, Juniper Networks, Global Collect and many other Global 2000 companies. Azul Compute Appliances enable business-critical Java-based applications to achieve unprecedented levels of scalability, throughput and response times without the complex setup, management, or high operational costs associated with traditional computing models.

Sun Founder Signs Ex-UK Prime Minister

Sat, 29 May 2010 17:00:00 EDT

In a Carlyle Group kind of move, Britain’s former Prime Minister Tony Blair – he of the great rhetoric even if he was Labor – has become a senior advisor on public policy to Khosla Ventures, the $1.1 billion green VC fund run by Sun co-founder Vinod Khosla. Blair’s not merely decorative; he actually knows something about this stuff and is hopefully more honest about it than former US vice-president Al Gore, who’s a partner at Kleiner Perkins. He and his consulting firm Tony Blair Associates are there to pull strings. Meanwhile, RealNetworks chairman Rob Glaser has joined Accel as a venture partner. He will focus on digital media, social media and mobile services.