WHITE PAPERS SPONSORED PROFILES JOB BOARD WEBINAR CENTER FREE SOFTWARE BZ RESEARCH ALMSHAREPOINT EVENTS CALENDAR PRINT/PDF EDITION PRINT/PDF BACK ISSUES

SUBSCRIBE TODAY CUSTOMER SERVICE EDITORIAL CALENDAR EDITORIAL BEATS GUEST VIEW GUIDE SD TIMES 100 GUIDE EVENTS CALENDAR ADVERTISING ARTICLE REPRINTS REPORT A BUG SITE MAP

ABOUT US BZ MEDIA NEWS BZ RESEARCH NEWS ON MONDAY SPTECHREPORT SPTECHWEB SPTECHCON IPHONE/IPAD DEVCON ANDROID DEVCON PRIVACY POLICY CONTACT US

HOME >> ZEICHICK'S TAKE

Zeichick's Take:Do we need another rich Internet platform?

By Alan Zeichick

December 8, 2008 — Sun’s JavaFX is here. It was announced at the JavaOne conference—in 2007. Sun began delivering early bits of its rich Internet application software this summer. As I wrote last May, Sun is talking big about having a common display platform for “all the screens of your life,” that is, desktops, notebooks and mobile devices.

It’s a good plan, and Sun has delivered on the first part this week, offering JavaFX 1.0 for Windows and Mac desktops. But what’s missing, beyond the mobile code (due next year), is any originality.

Aside from plug-ins for NetBeans, I haven’t seen Sun articulate any clear advantage for JavaFX 1.0 over the mature offerings from Adobe and Microsoft. It’s a competitor without a message.

That’s not necessarily bad. Adobe must not be allowed to dominate the market without a fight, and there’s no way that Sun could watch Microsoft enter the market without offering its own platform. (It’s disappointing that Sun is offering an Eclipse plug-in for JavaFX developers, but isn’t offering one for Visual Studio.)

In fairness, I believe that Sun’s JavaFX plans were hatched totally independently of Microsoft’s Silverlight plans. Sun’s prizes are mobile devices, where its other technologies already have an edge and which represent the biggest licensing opportunity. Frankly, I’m surprised that Sun didn’t focus on delivering mobile code first, leaving the desktop for later.

However, while Sun’s entry isn’t necessarily bad, it’s not necessarily good either. Without articulating a clear vision for JavaFX, or demonstrating why JavaFX solves problems that its competitors can’t, I don’t see why any but the most Sun-centric developers would target it.

What do you think about JavaFX? Write me at feedback@bzmedia.com.

Alan Zeichick is editorial director of SD Times. Read his blog at ztrek.blogspot.com.

Share this link: http://sdt.bz/33162

Most Read Latest News Blog Resources

Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans

Zeichick’s Take: Radio moves from analog waveforms to digital packets
Streaming radio highlights the need for streaming applications to be designed to take up as little bandwidth as possible

Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Add Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities to its Industry Leading Titanium Platform
Appcelerator Offers Messaging, Social, Location and Storage Mobile Cloud Services to All Mobile App Publishers

ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development

Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans

Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists

Not so fast when it comes to testing in the cloud
Developers face outsourcing, virtual lab management and mobile devices as obstacles

Xceed releases UX-focused suite for Microsoft’s WPF
"Blendables" helps match user experiences to developer visions

Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.

The Hidden Costs of Software Licensing Moving beyond paper-based software licensing to more flexible, software-based licensing is a business decision. There is a growing trend tow...

Case Study: You May Need a Development Mechanic As a contractor for a major financial player in Germany, SOBEGE, a German-based consultancy specializing in embedded IT and web services, wa...

Ensuring Software Quality at a Major International Bank One of the world’s leading international banks has adopted AgitarOne technology for delivering generated unit tests for their Java software...

Load Testing Adobe Flex Applications Adobe Flex applications may be different from applications you’ve worked with before. For classic HTML web applications, the server does all...

Technorati

Digg

Slashdot

Facebook

Friendfeed

Twitter

del.icio.us

Platform Computing brings HPC to cloud management A newly released beta of Platform ISF aggregates resources from virtual machines, clusters and grids.

Collaborative, rich application development catching on with businesses According to an Evans Data survey, close to 40% of developers coding Web 2.0 applications said they are writing for enterprise users. A majority show an interest in using agile development.

The maturation of Web-based IDEs While they're not exactly a hot topic yet, these IDEs are starting to become usable, especially for cloud-based developers

Add comment

Name*
Email*
Country

Comment

Platform Computing brings HPC to cloud management
A newly released beta of Platform ISF aggregates resources from virtual machines, clusters and grids Read More...

News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>

Download Current Issue
FEBRUARY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?

Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
02/09/2012 02:16 PM EST

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
02/07/2012 11:57 AM EST

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
02/04/2012 01:57 PM EST

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
02/03/2012 12:17 PM EST

Facebook claims hacker cred
Facebook's SEC S-1 filing form includes a short essay on the Hacker Way by Mark Zuckerberg himself.
02/02/2012 08:26 AM EST

Ryan Dahl steps down
Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, steps back from his position as gatekeeper for the project.
02/01/2012 04:58 PM EST