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Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Red Hat announces strategy to "future-proof" Java

By | June 1, 2009, 9:48am PDT

Summary: Red Hat today announced the JBoss Open Choice application platform strategy, an approach that the company says will redefine the use of Java in the enterprise by making it easier to develop and deploy applications. The idea, the company said, is to give developers a single environment for launching different programming models from a common [...]

Red Hat today announced the JBoss Open Choice application platform strategy, an approach that the company says will redefine the use of Java in the enterprise by making it easier to develop and deploy applications. The idea, the company said, is to give developers a single environment for launching different programming models from a common platform. In a statement, the company said:

The JBoss Open Choice strategy represents Red Hat’s response to the expanding and rapidly changing landscape of Java for the enterprise, which is marked by more variety and more choice of programming and deployment models than ever before.

The state of Java today has changed significantly - not only in programming languages and models but also in the varying needs of the enterprise as it related to applications. At the same time, the needs and demands in the enterprise have become more complex. Red Hat’s new architecture within Open Choice - called JBoss Microcontainer - “uniquely isolates core enterprise class platform services from the variety of container and framework choices available today,” the company said.

With this strategy, the company said that customers can embrace the latest innovations in Java by choosing the framework, language and programming technologies that best meets their needs. But more importantly, the announcements “future-proof” customers from any uncertainty about Java in the coming years.

Earlier this year, Oracle announced an acquisition of Sun Microsystems, which included Java. It’s unclear what will happen under the acquisition - and certainly that will be a topic of conversation at this week’s JavaOne Conference in San Francisco.

Still, the company - in a webcast announcement of the news today - said that it’s unclear where enterprise java will be headed in the coming years. But if new methods are developed, customers won’t have to throw out their architecture and start over. Red Hat, the company said, will be able to support it.

The new products are expected to be available in the third quarter.

Also see: Special Report: Oracle buys Sun - and Java

Linux leader: Oracle-Sun good news for Linux

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Talkback Most Recent of 9 Talkback(s)

  • another nail in M$ coffin
    with OSS backing red hat and java will prosper and M$ FUD machine is running out of fuel.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Linux Geek
    1st Jun 2009
  • Not at all
    A.) Java is platform agnostic and runs great on Windows

    B.) Windows still is a VERY compelling platform thats relatively easy to development and maintain.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Heatlesssun
    1st Jun 2009
  • A is true...
    I don't believe I would call Windows compelling however. With semi-dummy-proof administration also comes lack of flexibility.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    storm14k
    1st Jun 2009
  • Well I don't know about MS...
    ...but I definitely hope this is the beginning of FOSS playing nice with Java again. It would be nice to see Java make its way into FOSS desktop programming...or at least Groovy.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    storm14k
    1st Jun 2009
  • Java is tired, outdated
    There are almost more Java updates than windows updates. Every time I look there is that annoying icon reminding me there is a new download to install.

    This for a platform that was supposed to be sandboxed

    Time to throw it out and start new. Windows Win 7 and OSX also makes the Java UI tired-looking.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    croberts
    1st Jun 2009
  • Doesn't make sense...
    If theres something to improve there will be updates. I don't really see where starting from scratch is going to help anything.

    I haven't fooled with Swing in some time. It was supposed to look like the UI of the machine it is on. If it hasn't kept up with this idea then someone needs to propose this to the community. However I doubt it will ever achieve this on Windows as MS doesn't want it to happen. Again though it doesn't really make sense to start over.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    storm14k
    1st Jun 2009
  • Starting over makes sense
    if you're Microsoft and you need to use computers to gouge revenues to give to the greedy.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    fr0thy2
    1st Jun 2009
  • However...
    Java will take longer to "go away" than Fortran or Cobol, which are still with us and doing fine.

    Note also, that some folk can actually have fun with Java and do great work. Your comment implies either you are one of those who can't, or have some sort of lame prejudice.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    zkiwi
    1st Jun 2009
  • RE: Red Hat announces strategy to
    Nice Approach from Red Hat!!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    hanen105
    2nd Jun 2009

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