The thing is, as someone stated below, Oracle is all about short-term wins. If Oracle wins this patent suit against Google and gets lots and lots of damages from it, that's nice, but it'll scare everyone away from Java. That's not good for Oracle or anyone else. If they'd just cool their jets and let things like this slide while focusing on creating great Java-based products and improving the Java ecosystem, they'd have much better long-term prospects. Even Ellison stated that Java is the most important product Oracle has ever acquired, and he's going to kill it in desperation to milk every last cent of licenses that he can get today.
If Oracle continues with this kind of ruthlessness, they may squeeze several million out of Google et al, but Java is done for. Nobody will want to use that platform anymore because it will be too risky legally. It'd be a huge opening for .NET and other competitors. Java would go the way of COBOL, only running in the darkest abysses of megacorporations that never modernize.
You can be happy that Ellison doesn't play this "good for developers" thing, but what's good for the goose is good for the gander. By promoting software development and Java development specifically, Oracle would be ensuring generations of Java programmers, and lots of Java-related services and licenses from enterprises. If someone without any programming experience learns Java to write code for Dalvik/Android, as they may because Android is a "cool" platform that would attract young programmers, they can and likely will go on to big corporate environments and continue to work in Java.
I think they've actually got the long term covered. Everyone in The Enterprise (which is all Oracle cares about anyway) is already using Java. Those people want to buy official looking software with support contracts from someone.
They're going to be doing so for decades to come, either from Oracle itself, or someone who's paying Oracle truckloads of licensing fees to be allowed to publish their own Java implementation.
The only thing that could upset their subscription to money would be some inconvenient little company that decides to make a clean-room Java implementation that could target the same customers. This is what Google has done.
If they can win this in court or force a settlement that pretty much guarantees that anyone thinking of building that business model won't even bother to get off the ground, and Oracle can keep printing money.
It's funny that you should mention COBOL. Java turning into the next COBOL would be awesome for Oracle. IBM still makes billions selling systems to run COBOL[1], that's more than Sun ever made off Java.
Most companies buying mainframes, buy mainframes to run Linux and Java apps on it. The COBOL+mainframe market is not growing (very much). (source: talking with an IBM research director in Böblingen, Germany responsible for mainframe development)
Mainframes promise turnkey-reliability, where the IBM support guy comes in before you notice anything going wrong. The point is that "mainframe" is a strong brand and IBM has the monopoly on it. There are solutions magnitudes cheaper and just as reliable as a mainframe.
Isn't that the exact strategy followed by Sun? Being open and fostering a community sure didn't translate into sales for them.
The message Oracle wants to send is pretty clear: if you want to use Java in the mobile and enterprise space, you're going to have to buy one of our very nice support contracts. Considering that this is par for the course for most enterprise platforms and mobile (until Google wrote Dalvik), why would previous licensees make the costly decision to switch?
That's the result of their bonus policies. If your bonuses reflect short-term earnings, that's the kind of earning your company will generate.
OTOH, this and the Google lawsuit are so completely boneheaded, I would not be surprised the people responsible for it end up like Rick Belluzzo or Sandeep Gupta - in nice positions at Microsoft properties. Even the lawyers are the straight out of the SCO lawsuit...
Except Oracle doesn't do this. They don't focus on creating, promoting, or even maintaining. They're like the Borg. They assimilate and they rent seek. That's it.
I don't think the other players on the Java "ecosystem" will be much affected by the lawsuit. Pretty much every other Java implementation passed the JCP TCK, and so is indemnified against patent lawsuits. There might be some impact in developers mindshare, but I doubt it will be significant (most devs in the enterprise world - the only market Oracle cares about - won't even know about the lawsuit).
I think Oracle will have considered this, no idea what their long term strat is. I sometimes wonder if Larry cares about long term gains or once he retires he's done.
Comments
The thing is, as someone stated below, Oracle is all about short-term wins. If Oracle wins this patent suit against Google and gets lots and lots of damages from it, that's nice, but it'll scare everyone away from Java. That's not good for Oracle or anyone else. If they'd just cool their jets and let things like this slide while focusing on creating great Java-based products and improving the Java ecosystem, they'd have much better long-term prospects. Even Ellison stated that Java is the most important product Oracle has ever acquired, and he's going to kill it in desperation to milk every last cent of licenses that he can get today.
If Oracle continues with this kind of ruthlessness, they may squeeze several million out of Google et al, but Java is done for. Nobody will want to use that platform anymore because it will be too risky legally. It'd be a huge opening for .NET and other competitors. Java would go the way of COBOL, only running in the darkest abysses of megacorporations that never modernize.
You can be happy that Ellison doesn't play this "good for developers" thing, but what's good for the goose is good for the gander. By promoting software development and Java development specifically, Oracle would be ensuring generations of Java programmers, and lots of Java-related services and licenses from enterprises. If someone without any programming experience learns Java to write code for Dalvik/Android, as they may because Android is a "cool" platform that would attract young programmers, they can and likely will go on to big corporate environments and continue to work in Java.
I think they've actually got the long term covered. Everyone in The Enterprise (which is all Oracle cares about anyway) is already using Java. Those people want to buy official looking software with support contracts from someone.
They're going to be doing so for decades to come, either from Oracle itself, or someone who's paying Oracle truckloads of licensing fees to be allowed to publish their own Java implementation.
The only thing that could upset their subscription to money would be some inconvenient little company that decides to make a clean-room Java implementation that could target the same customers. This is what Google has done.
If they can win this in court or force a settlement that pretty much guarantees that anyone thinking of building that business model won't even bother to get off the ground, and Oracle can keep printing money.
It's funny that you should mention COBOL. Java turning into the next COBOL would be awesome for Oracle. IBM still makes billions selling systems to run COBOL[1], that's more than Sun ever made off Java.
1. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1567595
Most companies buying mainframes, buy mainframes to run Linux and Java apps on it. The COBOL+mainframe market is not growing (very much). (source: talking with an IBM research director in Böblingen, Germany responsible for mainframe development)
Mainframes promise turnkey-reliability, where the IBM support guy comes in before you notice anything going wrong. The point is that "mainframe" is a strong brand and IBM has the monopoly on it. There are solutions magnitudes cheaper and just as reliable as a mainframe.
Isn't that the exact strategy followed by Sun? Being open and fostering a community sure didn't translate into sales for them.
The message Oracle wants to send is pretty clear: if you want to use Java in the mobile and enterprise space, you're going to have to buy one of our very nice support contracts. Considering that this is par for the course for most enterprise platforms and mobile (until Google wrote Dalvik), why would previous licensees make the costly decision to switch?
> Oracle is all about short-term wins
That's the result of their bonus policies. If your bonuses reflect short-term earnings, that's the kind of earning your company will generate.
OTOH, this and the Google lawsuit are so completely boneheaded, I would not be surprised the people responsible for it end up like Rick Belluzzo or Sandeep Gupta - in nice positions at Microsoft properties. Even the lawyers are the straight out of the SCO lawsuit...
Except Oracle doesn't do this. They don't focus on creating, promoting, or even maintaining. They're like the Borg. They assimilate and they rent seek. That's it.
I don't think the other players on the Java "ecosystem" will be much affected by the lawsuit. Pretty much every other Java implementation passed the JCP TCK, and so is indemnified against patent lawsuits. There might be some impact in developers mindshare, but I doubt it will be significant (most devs in the enterprise world - the only market Oracle cares about - won't even know about the lawsuit).
I think Oracle will have considered this, no idea what their long term strat is. I sometimes wonder if Larry cares about long term gains or once he retires he's done.