Sun has launched its ONE range, supplying software as an Internet service.
Microsoft’s .NET strategy will offer software as a service over the Internet. However, it has encountered immediate competition in the form of Sun’s similar ONE (Open Net Environment) range. Both firms believe that businesses will stop buying software to install on to their computers. Instead, they will subscribe to online software services.
There is an extent to which both Sun’s and Microsoft’s announcements of ‘software as a service’ are marketing vapor – the projects are effectively repackaging existing components. Providing software applications as an online service as opposed to a one-off investment isn’t particularly radical. The end result for the user is the same – they have access to a set of applications that they pay for.
But there is a more important point at stake. For all Microsoft’s dominance in desktop software, Java is the major enabling tool in this scenario. The recent settlement with Sun means that Microsoft is no longer allowed to develop applications with Java, instead offering C# (C-sharp) as an alternative language. A key part of Sun’s launch is a set of software tools to help developers produce web-based Java applications – aiming to attract programmers away from Microsoft’s platform.
Microsoft hopes to counter this with its JUMP to .NET offering, which allows applications developed in Java to operate in the C# environment. However, why would application developers care which framework their applications work within? If the Sun solution gets first-to-market advantage and thus offers users the path of least resistance, then Microsoft will need to offer something over and above equal compatibility to attract users.
Sun has several factors in its favor. The final version of JUMP to .NET will not be released until later this year, so Sun has a useful few months in which to move further ahead of Microsoft in consolidating its mass of Java developers and generating critical mass for ONE. It has a good chance – there’s nothing like a bandwagon gathering speed upon which to jump.
