Simon is a hands-on software architect and has a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science from the University of Reading. Over the past 12 years, he’s been involved in projects ranging from rich desktop clients and web applications through to highly scalable distributed systems and service-oriented architectures; predominantly within the finance industry. He's also undertaken consulting and training roles with a broader focus on people, process and technology.
JavaOne Wednesday keynote
Today's keynote was fairly good although it did drag on a bit towards the end. I actually think that they were overrunning by about 30 minutes! Again, we saw lots more about Java everywhere and there was lots more information on java.net, mobility and how Java is being pushed out to the (more mainstream) corporate developers through companies like SAP and the JSR that is combining scripting languages with Java web apps. Essentially, Sun want to take the Java developer community from 3M to 10M over the next few years and see the corporate developer/scripting type applications as the way to really acheive this. Possible? Probably, but only if Java can win over the more casual VB style of developers and applications from Microsoft. Not an easy task.
The big news today was around the distribution of Java to consumers. Microsoft have now said that they will (next year I think) stop shipping Java with the Windows platform. Although this is a killer blow to really getting Java out there to regular computer users, Sun have just signed deals with HP and Dell for these two companies to ship the latest version of Java on every desktop PC and laptop computer that they sell. Wow. I bet Bill's not happy! ;-)
