Web App Server Vendors Look Beyond Java

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January 15, 2001 (5:34 AM EST)

Sun Microsystems Inc. will showcase next week the latest version of the Java enterprise platform -- but the star technology might have to share the spotlight with new e-commerce technologies.

Java-creator Sun (stock: SUNW) and its partners will meet with media and analysts in San Francisco Tuesday to showcase Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) v1.3, which encompasses the many specifications that define the services and technologies available within the Java enterprise platform. Those services include transaction management and messaging, as well as the Enterprise JavaBean component model, and Java Server Pages for dynamic Web page generation.

J2EE v1.3 is finished on paper, and reference implementations of the platform is expected to be highlighted at the JavaOne developer conference June 4-8 in San Francisco.

Among the highlights of the latest version is the integration of the Java Messaging Service with the EJB component model. The integration promises to make it easier to use messaging middleware to connect EJB applications with software running on different platforms, experts familiar with the technology said.

J2EE also includes a better specification for container-managed persistence, which significantly reduces the amount of coding when building transactions between EJBs and databases.

J2EE defines the specifications used in building Java application servers, which provide the necessary infrastructure to execute, manage, and maintain business-critical applications, especially many e-commerce apps.

But while stressing the importance of the J2EE, application server vendors who will join Sun next week said the future of Web development will also include newly emerging technologies based on Extensible Markup Language (XML). Collectively, those technologies will provide the glue for connecting businesses over the Web by exposing applications as Web services, so they can be accessed irrespective of the underlying platform.

The emerging technologies include UDDI, SOAP, WSDL, and XAML. SOAP, or Simple Object Access Protocol, has been submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium. The others are under development by various vendor groups, which have all promised to turn their work over to an independent standards body.

"While making sure our application server is up to the J2EE standards, we are looking at how we can take it forward and embrace some of these emerging Web services specifications and technologies," said Simon Pepper, director of J2EE products at Iona Technologies PLC, Dublin, Ireland. The company plans to offer SOAP support in its product before April, Pepper said.

Al Smith, senior vice president of engineering for Bluestone Software Inc., Philadelphia, Pa., said Web services have momentum within the industry.

"It seems the way a lot of independent software vendors are going and they tend to be a pretty good predictor of the market," Smith said. "People who build IT shops tend to follow the methodologies that get started by ISVs."

IBM, a major Java development house, also has announced its support for the emerging XML-based technologies, as well as Microsoft Corp. (stock: MSFT). The concept of Web services is core to Microsoft's Internet strategy, called Microsoft.Net. The strategy is focused on XML and the Windows operating system, not Java.

"There will be two competing stacks of functionality for implementing Web services," said Mike Gilpin, industry analyst for Giga Information Group, Cambridge, Mass. "There will be the Microsoft.Net stack and the J2EE stack. Many people will use one or the other, and perhaps both, depending on their particular situation."

Oracle Corp. (stock: ORCL), a Sun partner and Java licensee, has announced its version of Web services, called "Dynamic Services," which is separate from the industry-supported specifications.

Silent on its Web services strategy is Sun, Palo Alto, Calif., which Gilpin said has become too focused on Java. "It keeps them from being able to see the broader picture, which is that Java, while important, is just part of the story," Gilpin said.

Sun Java partner IBM agrees. "They're overly obsessed with J2EE being the complete environment, when in fact it is part of the complete environment," said Scott Hebner, director of WebSphere software applications for IBM (stock: IBM). "J2EE without XML and Web services is an incomplete environment."

A Sun spokeswoman said it was "premature" to discuss Sun's Web services strategy, adding that the company planned to make an announcement in early February.