IBM changes its tune over licensing Sun’s J2EE platform, a move that’s news to Sun
June 23, 2000 — In a bid to calm fears that it might not adhere to rival Sun Microsystems’ branded Java platform, IBM this week publicly claimed that it indeed licenses the platform and plans to adhere to it. Sun, however, continued to insist that IBM is not a licensee.
IBM’s proclamation does not change any of the Java tools or capabilities available to users, but if it is true, several users said, it reassures them that the company will adhere to the Sun specification and not embark on a separate Java course.
IBM, of Armonk, N.Y., now says that it is, and always has been, a Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition licensee. It is the first time the company has made such a claim.
“We have contractual rights to all [of Sun’s] Java extensions, so we were a J2EE licensee by default before anyone else,” said Scott Hebner, director of e-business marketing at IBM. Hebner said IBM has had legally binding, long-term rights to all Java platforms and standard extensions supported by Sun since 1995.
However, Sun officials denied those claims.
“IBM is not a licensee at this time,” said Rick Saletta, product line manager for J2EE at Sun, based in Palo Alto, Calif. “We want to work out the business differences with IBM and are extending an olive branch.” Saletta said that Sun wants to invite IBM back to the negotiating table to work out a licensing deal.
Bill Roth, group product marketing manager for J2EE at Sun, said he was “struck by this complete reversal” in IBM’s stance but added, “We’re happy to see the flip-flop. It shows us that this is a solvable problem.”
For months, IBM has been cautious not to endorse Sun’s J2EE specification, while simultaneously pledging to support the technical aspects of J2EE. IBM refused to use the J2EE brand name, and the company’s name did not appear with the 19 other J2EE licensees released by Sun at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco earlier this month.
User Chuck Grindel, a software engineer at Navimedix in Boston, said that IBM’s breaking ranks with Sun on J2EE kept IBM’s WebSphere off of the list of Java application servers that Navimedix was considering. Navimedix is an online health insurance claims processing services company.
“I would prefer that IBM stay with the fold on Java, because it gives the process a great deal of credibility because they are the biggest legacy system provider and have a lot of investments in the Java language and platform,” Grindel said. “When and if IBM realizes that it cannot go out on its own, it would open up the possibility of our using their products. But it’s difficult to make that decision if they are not supporting J2EE. There is safety in numbers.”
WebSphere customer Roy Wiltse, project manager at nuclear power utility Edison International in Rosemead, Calif., called the J2EE licensing issue between IBM and Sun a “hassle” that needed to be resolved.
“We originally went with IBM because they were very standards oriented,” Wiltse said. “We want to be able to move from one platform to another or from one server to another vendor and still maintain most of the code that we’ve written.”
Analysts said IBM, a staunch Java partisan for the past five years, sought to wrestle some control of Java from Sun by delaying its endorsement, but the strategy backfired.
“I’ve been fielding calls from IBM’s customers asking me what their strategy is all week,” said Mark Driver, an analyst at GartnerGroup, in Stamford, Conn. “IBM hurt themselves by coming out too strongly against the J2EE brand, which led to the false impression that they were backing away from Java.”
IBM’s Hebner cautioned, though, that the point of contention with Sun concerns marketing and not technical Java development issues.
