21 June 1999

Wow. JavaOne was a trip. I got home late Friday night and had to take the weekend to recover; didn't start to perk up until late Sunday night. The afterglow of the four day conference warms this old hacker's heart, and I'm still sorting out the meaning of it all. It was the largest software developer conference in history, with over 20,000 geeks in attendance. The Geek Density Factor (GDF) was near the saturation limit of 1.0 -- 100% Geek per cubic centimeter -- a boundary condition at which unknown things happen -- something like a black hole of human intellectual prowess, I suspect. It was an awesome scene.
Coincidentally, TNT aired the world premiere of the Pirates of Silicon Valley last night, the much ballyhooed story of Mr. Gates vs. Mr. Jobs and the early days of personal computing. Frankly, the showed sucked. Both Jobs and Gates were portrayed as unidimensional characters -- probably more to do with the script than the actors. And while both actors gave respectable performances given the material, the treatment left me feeling a little cheated -- almost like using Windows. I've never been a Bill Gates fan -- that's no secret -- and I've not known enough about the personal side of Steve Jobs to care one way or another; his contribution to the history of personal computing has been legendary. But after seeing the film, I find Jobs to be a repulsive human being with Gates appearing to be merely a pathetic meglomaniac by contrast. Could Micro$oft have funded the production? And via the juxtaposition, softened Gates' image in the process? Probably not...however, in these most interesting times, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Steve Wozniac came across as a very cool dude. But I digress...
There were hundreds of keynote, technical, and industry sessions and Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) breakout meetings at JavaOne, featuring nearly 600 speakers. This was one conference where, instead of speaking, I went to listen. Leading developers and engineers from hundreds of companies shared information with developer attendees who were seeking practical guidance and late breaking news on the Java platform. Special events -- award ceremonies, receptions, parties, a hockey game, and concerts at the nearby Yerba Buena Gardens -- capped the week's wealth of offerings to attendees. Thursday night my organization at Sun hosted a huge invitation-only party for nearly 3,000 Independent Software Vendors at the Pier 35 building near San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf, celebrating the first birthday for the remodeled Sun Developer Connection. It was a blast. We even got so busy, I ended up tending bar for several hours -- something I haven't done in earnest since the disco era. There's more than one way to serve developers! :)
The biggest buzz at the conference revolved around the Motorola and Palm devices enabled by Sun's new tiny footprint KJava Virtual Machine. The "Get Synched" stations were swamped, where attendees could download the latest information onto their Palm organizers, and developers beamed data at each other's devices. The attendees lined up to buy 10,000 Palm Pilot V units at a great discount and were synching the entirety of the show. I brought mine home and immediately handed it to my son, who will be busy for several weeks, I'm sure, programming it to do fun and interesting things for which it was not designed.
This years show was 50% bigger than last year. There were that many more attendees, that many more sessions, that many more books and shirts and trade show floor participants. And most certainly, that much more Java software in the world. A lot more than 50% over last year, to be sure. This was the 4th JavaOne to be held. It's clear that the Java platform now holds a well established place in enterprise computing as well as internet applications. And with the Palm Pilot on board, the long-awaited post-PC consumer device revolution will clearly be a win for the Java platform as well. It simply makes sense.
Mr. Jobs has joined the Java party. Apple has announced a strong commitment to Java in the future. Mr. Gates remains the sole defector. In the scheme of things, it appears as though Micro$oft will be isolated as the community gathers around a standard platform that is good for all; one based on open interfaces, community sources, and solid engineering. Maybe the real pirates of Silicon Valley are yet to be recognized? How ironic would it be if Java were the thing to bring down Micro$oft? I mean, the history of the computer industry was changed the day IBM inked a deal with the then nascent Micro$oft to license DOS; like a Trojan Horse, Micro$oft was able to penetrate IBM accounts and then use their control over the operating system to dictate terms going forward. Could Java be the undoing of Micro$oft in the same way? The day Bill Gates signed the deal with Sun to offer a JavaVM with every copy of Internet Explorer, he single handedly increased Java's penetration by several orders of magnitude. Poetic justice would indeed be served if the undoing of the software giant was akin to their beginning -- so much for pirates.