Sun Microsystems Inc said Java System Application Server Enterprise Edition 7 2004 Q2 would ship as part of JES 2.0, also featuring the 2004 Q2 naming convention. Sun is moving to a year and quarterly branding signature for products.
Sun is expected to unveil JES 2004 Q2 as part of its regular, scheduled series of quarterly product announcements. This week’s quarterly event was due to be held in Shanghai, China.
The upgraded application server provides existing Enterprise Edition 7.0 customers with Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) failover for Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) 1.3, a feature missing in the version of Enterprise Edition 7.0 launched last September.
The launch, though, appeared a backwards step, as Sun had already this year embarked on the first in an expected trio of application server products numbered 8.0.
Furthermore, the concept behind Sun’s quarterly product release schedule was to simplify development, purchase and support for Sun’s hotchpotch of software products, a strategy that appears more a marketing ploy as Sun is now looping back to update older products.
Product manager Deborah Williams insisted Sun’s decision to offer the application server with JES 2004 Q4 meant Sun is on track with its quarterly release schedule.
She said Sun is running on parallel tracks, not turning back by updating 7.0 whilst working towards completion of 8.0. The 8.0 family will be J2EE 1.4 compliant, while 7.0 brings EJB failover to hundreds of customers still running J2EE 1.3 versions of Sun’s Enterprise Edition 7.0 application server.
We are still working on an Enterprise Edition [8.0] for later this year. In the interim we needed to provide a solution for customers who needed EJB failover, Williams said.
