while Sun's going to use the annual JavaOne developer jamboree to make its most aggressive push yet into web services, c|net News wonders how much longer Sun can play both leader and loser in the Java world.
by making Java just barely open enough to support other vendors' participation, Sun's managed to find itself baring almost all of the R&D burden without any sure way to dominate the market. it reminds me a little of Apple's ill-advised foray into licensing the Macintosh platform. it gets even more complicated when you factor in Sun's hardware bias -- from the top, Java's long been seen as a way to sell more server hardware. as i've pointed out before, Sun's going to have a hard time staying far enough ahead of Linux-on-Intel-based hardware to keep to make that strategy work long-term. (via c|net)
