Things have changed somewhat since the announcement at I/O of a Spring-powered Java run-time in the App Engine, or was it just developer tools, I couldn’t be so clear, but needless to say, Spring’s partnership with Google, in the cloud, is significant, for so many reasons…. JBoss has no cloud story, and neither does Red Hat outside of KVM, while VMWare and SpringSource are running circles around everyone when it comes to the cloud, pushing the inevitable of Red Hat running in to the arms of IBM to get more account coverage, more R&D, and ultimately, more pull to get in to clouds at customer sites…. SpringSource has this covered with Google, and there is no better partner, than Google, right now, with the patent arsenal to fend off an attack on Linux or Open Source, in general, Spring is sitting pretty, after this round of announcements, and it is up to JBoss to do something pretty remarkable with their JEE 6 product-line, including finally monetizing Seam, like they did Hibernate…. where in the heck is Seam, it shattered the development practices of enterprise Java, with innovations that even Spring could not match, and it has gone under-ground since then, waiting and waiting, for what? the right moment? just get something done, and start marketing it, I am tired of waiting around for the next greatest thing, when there is Spring and Guice, get it together over there, or abandon the project, to work on standards…. SpringSource has lots of room to spread its wings, and get comfortable knowing they are within the Google-sphere, what does JBoss have to say, that they are perfectly comfortable, getting second-hand R&D, from the parent company, that is still a Linux-primarily company, no major promotions of JBoss people, no major integrations with the core OS, it is still a nice money maker, but is being purposefully put in the background, as Linux takes on a whole new meaning, now that Novell is dead…. JBoss is running a first rate product-line, on a second rate budget, and a third rate distribution network, as Red Hat ISVs, SI, and other partners dont know how to sell Java, and will not, at least not as well as Global Services, who have whole international practices devoted to implementing Enterprise Java at client sites, so where do you think JBoss would be better served: in Red Hat’s tiered status system, or in IBM’s division that makes the most money for the largest IT vendor, on the planet…. Spring is in the cloud, is Java? Can anyone say that there is a legitimate Enterprise Java presence in the cloud, anywhere? Network.com is dead, but that was really about Solaris, and no one has hosted anything, with an emphasis on getting standards implementation, Java should be leading this, but it has allowed proprietary extensions to seize the day, and though mirrored in Java, it is still not yet Java….get it through the standards-process, and then I will start giving its due, but coding to Spring or Guice for a Java developer, is still a leap of faith, that has not been challenged in some time, but could be challenged, today…. does Seam even run in the cloud? these questions need answers, and JBoss is still, once-again delayed on JEE6, as it was on JEE5, what is taking so long to recognize the problems, that are bigger, or at least beyond, Red Hat’s problems….it is time for Enterprise Java to get its act together, and start competing, in the cloud, on mobiles, on the browser, and start delivering innovation, again, it is not good enough, to just say that we are the standard, and that is Java, and that is innovation-enough, its time to start doing something about the resources that are invested in Java, and make it work…. Technology Industry