"At JBoss our mantra is open source, open standards," Connolly added. "Simplicity (is) as a key piece of our vision (and) we must remain portable. The benefit is that being an open source company really keeps each group building the application sever innovating at the highest levels."

Sun's Sharples noted that the key is to have software that is "integrated in that the stuff all works...and integratable (in that ) when you are trying to replace enterprise middleware, you can't just rip tthings apart, you need standards. Java EE is one of them, for example." He added that this discussion is ongoing at Sun, among Sun's customers, and in the broader community, noting, "one important thing to think about is that the software ecosystem is bigger than Java (Enterprise). How would people like to see (it) grow? Should it grow up the stack, for example?"

Geelan commented that there seems to be "an embarrassment of riches" among customer offerings by these companies today, and asked them to focus on a single key aspect of what they offer to customers. The answers ranged from "simplicity" to  "independence" to "completeness" to "flexibility" to  "productivity," reflecting the diverse views held by the panel members and the companies they represent.

The hour allotted for this event passed quickly, with each panel member given a fair chance to answer several penetrating questions posed by Fain and Geelan. The entire webcast is available at SYS-CON's Web site.

Meanwhile, SYS-CON Media is gearing up for its next webcast, to be held on Wednesday, December 7 from New York, and to be hosted by Yakov Fain with an emphasis on Java code.

In this first "SOA World Conference & Expo Power Panel" series presented Eric Newcomer of IONA, Paul Lipton of CA, Aaron White of Mindreef and David Kershaw of Altova. "Enterprise Open Source Power Panel" participants included Andy Astor of EnterprsieDB, Shaun Connolly of JBoss, Yakov Fain of JDJ, and Eric Newcomer of IONA.