In an impromptu appearance onstage appearance at the Java One keynote, Robert LeBlanc, general manager of IBM’s WebSphere division jokingly announced that IBM was re-upping for 11 years.
Everyone’s pushing us for better performance, and 11 is 10% better than 10, he quipped. His appearance followed a video taped Java endorsement from IBM Software head Steve Mills, who is in London for an unrelated SOA partnership program announcement.
As part of the agreement, IBM continues to license Java technologies, participate in the JCP, and will expand efforts to deliver Java as a channel partner on embedded platforms. As a bonus, it is also porting DB2, Rational, Tivoli, and WebSphere middleware to Solaris 10 on x64 AMD Opteron platforms.
IBM’s public show of long-term support for Java tamps down speculation that recent disagreements such as over JBI (Java Business Integration, a new Java standard covering enterprise services busses), won’t prompt IBM to walk out of the JCP wholesale anytime soon.
