Insider: Oracle has lost interest in Java

New sources are questioning Oracle's stewardship of Java

There has been a lot of scuttlebutt lately about Oracle and a supposed de-emphasis on Java within the company. The rumblings are getting louder.

From the apparent dismissal of Java evangelists to an email alleging a shrugged-shoulders attitude about Java, Oracle’s commitment to the platform has come into question. This is happening despite a road map that commits to a modular Java 9 release in a year and a planned emphasis on enterprise Java at next month’s JavaOne conference.

The email, sent to InfoWorld on Tuesday by a former high-ranking Java official, claimed to feature details from inside Oracle. It said the company was becoming a cloud company, competing with Salesforce, and "Java has no interest to them anymore." The subject line cited "Java -- planned obsolescence."

Oracle is not interested in empowering its competitors and doesn't want to share innovation, the email further alleges. The company is slimming down Java EE (Enterprise Edition), but it also doesn't want anyone else to work on Java or Java EE and is sidelining the JCP (Java Community Process). "They have a winner-take-all mentality and they are not interested in collaborating," said the email. "Proprietary product work will be done on WebLogic, and there'll be a proprietary microservices platform." WebLogic is the Java application server Oracle acquired when it bought BEA Systems in 2008.

Copyright © 2015 IDG Communications, Inc.

How to choose a low-code development platform