Tough road for Java shrinkwrap

Packaged applications face marketing, retail and business hurdles.

By Chris Nerney
Network World, 7/6/98

Every day, it seems, some eager start-up or established player announces a new Java software product. This year alone, nearly 500 Java applications and development tools were added to a list of Java products compiled by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

But while the number of commercially available products continues to grow, the Java software market is hamstrung by several problems, which include:

Overall confusion over what products are available, what they do and how to get them.
Uncertainty over the future of many software developers, especially smaller independent software vendors (ISV).
Much smaller selection of software compared to what's available for Windows, Unix and Macintosh platforms.
Lack of a retail presence for commercial applications.
Ineffective marketing compared to leading Windows applications.

Users can go to Sun's Java Solutions Page and find more than 1,500 Java products listed in categories ranging from database connectivity and electronic commerce to network administration and groupware (see graphic). Sun likes what it sees in the list. "Java is moving into just about all areas of software, from map libraries and components through middleware and personal productivity products," said Lew Tucker, director of strategic relations for Sun's Java software division. But questions remain as to the quality, and actual availability, of all this software.

Two of the most prevalent Java application areas today are groupware and database connectivity software. But the largest Java product category is development tools. This is not surprising given that the three-year-old programming language is still primarily in the development phase.

But even as ISVs continue to unveil enterprise Java products - or sometimes merely product plans - some potential buyers are holding off on purchasing until the vendor picture becomes clearer. "We've got a little bit of Java on our Web site," said Tod Bryant, director of IS for New York Benefit Services, Inc. of Norwood, Mass. "Other than that we haven't made a commitment to it. It's early.

It's kind of like Unix used to be. Is there going to be a standard, and what company do you pick?"

For Java ISVs, this kind of prolonged tire-kicking period could spell potential doom, meaning the vendor landscape could be dramatically altered in a matter of months.

And nowhere is this phenomenon more likely than in the tools arena, analysts said.

"The market will be able to sustain no more than about 60% of the current Java tool vendors," said Joseph Feiman, a research director at Gartner Group, Inc. in Stamford, Conn. "I warn my customers to be careful selecting a tool vendor. In two years the vendor might cease to exist, and their customers won't be able to get support for the tool they purchased today."

One good example is NetDynamics, Inc., a former leader in the applications server and tools market. Sun last Thursday announced it was purchasing the company, which will put Sun directly in competition with vendors such as WebLogic, Inc., Novera Software, Inc. and SilverStream Software, Inc. It's not likely that more than a handful of the server/tools vendors will survive against Sun and Netscape Communications Corp., which last year bought applications server start-up Kiva Software, Inc.

Not everyone thinks Java's popularity among developers and the hype generated by Sun and Java ISVs translate into real software. Feiman, for his part, said the number of products listed on the Sun Web site is vastly inflated. "There are not too many ready-to-use Java applications on the market," he said.

And an investment banker said that those who rush to embrace Java now do so at their own peril.

"There are companies completely based on Java that are finding out pretty quickly that they need to tie into the real world and that there aren't as many Java applications as people might have imagined there would be by now," said Christina Morgan, managing director of Hambrecht & Quist in San Francisco.

Indeed, a random sampling of vendors listing products on the Sun Web site reveals that many simply aren't available to customers today.

One start-up, Business Evolution, Inc. of Princeton, N.J., lists a product called InteractPro, a collaboration server designed to allow users to connect, chat and collaborate in real-time and asynchronously. The company tells potential customers that the product can be used within an intranet, extranet or the Internet.

But InteractPro no longer exists, a company official said.

On the other hand, you'll have better luck if you want to write a check for IPnetWATCHER 1.0 Java Edition, a network monitoring product sold by Avesta Technologies, Inc., also based in New York. The $5,000 monitoring software, developed by Caravelle, Inc. of Ottawa, began shipping in January. (Avesta purchased Caravelle in March.)

And even if a product does exist, there's no guarantee that customers will find out about it. Other than Sun's Web site for Java ISVs and the www.developer.com Web site, there are almost no centralized information and purchasing centers for Java products.

"The channels for Java-specific products haven't really been developed or refined yet," Tucker said.

"It's the traditional reseller channels that are dealing with a lot of these products. So there isn't one place to go to buy Java products," he said.

Java Lobby founder Rick Ross said his organization is considering filling that void by launching a Java Lobby product store Web site. "We're hoping to make it the single place where customers can go when they're looking for Java products," he said. "It hasn't really been done by anybody else." n