It's not enough to offer developers platforms upon which to build applications. Today's developers need platforms upon which to build businesses.
That's the message from this year's JavaOne conference, which kicked off at San Francisco's Moscone Center this week. With characteristic optimism, Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz dismissed any concerns about the future of Java in the wake of Oracle's impending purchase of Sun, instead choosing to focus on what he characterized as a new chapter in the ongoing story of Java, with the unveiling of the much-anticipated Java Store.
At first glance, Sun would appear to be an unlikely contender in this market. Sun is late to the app-store game in general, and while Nokia and others have announced app stores of their own, so far none has enjoyed the success of Apple, whose iTunes App Store pioneered the field. Nonetheless, Schwartz believes Sun has a good chance of success; the secret, he says, is all in the numbers.
Java: A potential market of billions
Where other app stores are built for specific platforms -- iPhones, for example, or Nokia handsets -- the Java Store is based on Sun's cross-platform Java and JavaFX technologies. That means it could deliver applications to the entire range of Java-enabled client devices, including not just phones but also desktop PCs -- a total market, Schwartz claims, of some 2.6 billion devices.
Sound familiar? This is yet another manifestation of Schwartz's pet concept of installed-base-as-opportunity. Only now he's not just talking about delivering ads in installers. When it leaves beta, the Java Store will give developers access to the entire market of Java clients, and they will actually be able to deliver the software itself.
Schwartz sees the value proposition for developers as simple mathematics. By way of example, he likes to talk about RuneScape, a massively multiplayer online adventure game written in Java. RuneScape's business model is a modest one. Most users play for free. Out of that audience, some percentage of players become involved enough in the game to subscribe for a fee, for access to more content and features. That's a viable model not just for games but for many other kinds of applications as well, Schwartz says; and if you want the percentage who pays to be a big number, you need to start with a big number of potential users. That's where Java's installed base comes in.
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Sounds like Mr. L. Ellison finally has secured an opportunity to live up to his own self image. :]