Every year for the past 10 years, SYS-CON Media's "Readers' Choice Awards" have given the multiple constituencies we serve - developers, architects, IT managers, vendors - a chance to exercise their democratic rights, not just through the ballot box but also through the nomination process. The products, tools, and services voted on in any particular set of awards are also nominated from within the community. If there are sins, either of omission or commission, then it is accordingly to the community itself that one needs to look, not to JDJ or SOA Web Services Journal or LinuxWorld Magazine or any of the other SYS-CON publications that hold RCAs each year.

Looking at the Java results, in a year in which the JDJ Readers' Choice Awards were given to winners and finalists in 26 distinct product categories, one of the most striking things was the strength of Eclipse. And the simultaneous - defiant, almost - resurgence of Sun.

In spite of its name, in other words, the Eclipse IDE doesn't mean that "SUNset" is on its way any time soon. Just consider the sidebar below with the Sun results gathered into one place. With an extremely low barrier to entry, as in, free, it would seem that awareness of Sun's software portfolio is growing fast. This was a point picked up on right away in the Java blogosphere.

"I think what what SYS-CON is doing is good for the industry," blogged John Klingan, the day the results hit the news wires. "Popularity (awareness) is important for a product's success. Sometimes popular products are the best, sometimes not. Just take the results with a grain of salt. The best way to find out is to try it yourself. Easy to do when it is free." [My emphasis.] Klingan actually works for Sun, albeit not in Corporate, but his point is no less valid for that.

Another Sun blogger, a tad better known - not only within Sun but industry-wise - is president and COO Jonathan Schwartz, arguably the highest-profile blogger anywhere in the Valley. The power of his corporate blog was driven home this month when he used it to set the record straight after some idle speculation that there was some sinister significance to his not appearing at the Sun-Oracle lovefest held in the Redwood Shores, CA, headquarters of Oracle, in which Oracle committed to Java and the Java Community Process for the next decade.

Sun was represented by Scott McNealy at the so-called "Town Hall Meeting," in which the audience was drawn from the respective staffs of the two companies (plus invited press such as SYS-CON Media and SYS-CON.TV), just as Oracle was represented by Larry Ellison. These are, after all, the two longest-serving CEOs in the industry.

"Please don't read [anything] into my not being at Sun's recent announcement with Oracle," Schwartz wrote, adding: "There are better conspiracies."

For those who missed the press event, he then went on to explain: "Sun and Oracle just announced a broad-based reinvigoration of our working together - we announced a new 10-year partnership once again endorsing the Java Community Process, dousing any possible fear that the Java platform was at risk of fragmenting."

Sun also announced Oracle's adoption and endorsement of NetBeans, Schwartz added, "building on the groundswell of support we're seeing for NetBeans 5.0."

"We announced a special promotion for Oracle on Sun," he continued, "through which Oracle customers can now purchase Oracle's flagship database at 50% off by running on Sun. That alone is reenergizing our respective field organizations..."

Where in the world was Schwartz? In Mexico, it turns out, energizing Sun's field force there. In the next issue of JDJ, we are pleased to say, he will again be writing for us; his last article, "The End of Middleware," was one of the best-read Java articles anywhere in 2004.

SIDEBAR

Sun's Results in 2005 Java Developer's Journal Readers' Choice Awards

Best Web Services Platform
Winner: Java EE

Best Framework for SOA and Web Services
Winner: Java Web Services Developer Pack

Best SOA IDE
Winner: NetBeans/Java Studio Enterprise

Best XML Parser
Winner: Java API for XML Processing

Best XML Utility
Winner: Java API for XML Processing

Best SOA or XML Training
Winner: Sun Java Web Services Developer Pack Tutorial

Best SOA or XML Site Winner: http://java.sun.com/webservices

Best SOA Security Solution
Winner: JWSDP XML and Web Services Security

Best SOA Portal Platform
Winner: Sun Java System Portal Server

Best SOA IDE
Winner: Sun Java Studio Enterprise

Best Java Training
Winner: Java BluePrints

Best Java Virtual Machine
Winner: Java SE