If LAMP is so easy, why isn’t Java dead?

This is the question that Peter Yared asks in his blog, and it’s fascinating given that he founded a company (ActiveGrid) based on the premise that Java was going to get shunted aside, as Stephen O’Grady notes. My company, Alfresco, is Java-based, so I’m biased in this, but it’s interesting to hear the reasons Peter gives for Java’s resilience:

1. Java has become easier.

2. It’s really hard to move the world off a platform (Java) it is happy with.

On this latter point, Peter writes:

Even if it was quicker and cheaper to build a LAMP application than a Java application, the cost of getting a new software platform approved is pretty astronomical at a lot of enterprises. Adding staging servers, management software, security auditing, training staff in new technologies, etc. is very expensive. Linux and Apache have been enormously successful in the enterprise since they were brought in as a horizontal solution. Bringing in Linux to replace Solaris and running Apache for all static content significantly reduces costs. But running PHP or Python for some applications when an enterprise is already supporting Java and perhaps .Net is not viable for most enterprises, as the cost each added platform multiplies support costs.

This has certainly been my experience. Enterprises are heavily invested in J2EE (or .Net), and just aren’t throwing out that expertise. They’re adding PHP expertise, but there is still the lion’s share of the enterprise market for J2EE/.Net applications.

On the other side of the ledger, Google et al. are building massive businesses on the LAMP stack. Is LAMP the future of the enterprise and J2EE/.Net are its resilient past? I’m not sure, but based on the deals with which I’m involved, it’s a past with a healthy future. I suspect there’s ample room for both.