In the past Cocoa Java apps really haven't been very interesting to
me. I've been on a Mac long before Java, but my Java development has
been J2EE, Swing, and SWT. But now that Apple is shipping Intel-
based computers capable of running Windows and Linux, I find access
to Cocoa and the Core APIs from Java would be compelling.
I am currently consulting to a Fortune 100 company on Wall Street,
which does not include OSX as a supported OS. However, I do all my
work on a MacBook Pro, and there are a few other users that are
unofficial mac users. My point here is that companies need
motivation for opening up to Apple products. Individuals at the
companies I visit always gawk at what I can do on my Mac, but
companies don't currently take notice.
My app is EclipseRCP and involves data center recovery and
visualization. Currently my app is pretty simple, but provides a
very compelling GUI to the managers and executives backing the
effort, and is built on OSX and delivered for OSX, Windows and
Linux. Most specifically it is a rich client app accessing an SOA
backend. I believe that as enterprises extend into Service-Oriented
Architectures, they will be more open to rich client applications.
Since XML enables crossing technologies, it opens the door to have
rich client applications which specialize in specific areas such as
3D visualization. The demo of CoreAnimation in Leopard struck a
chord with what I'm doing. Creating an app that can produce
visualization of applications, servers, and networking in and among
multiple data centers is exactly the kind of thing that could pull
OSX into the enterprise space (unlike the still impressive flying
album covers in 3D). And it's also the kind of thing that AJAX (or
Windows for that matter) just isn't going to be able to match, at
least as efficiently.
However, asking enterprises to foster and support Objective-C
development is pushing a bit too far. So here is my request to Apple
for getting behind Cocoa Java and especially Core API access from
Java. While it wouldn't guarantee enterprise adoption of OSX, it
could open the door to getting OSX as an accepted platform in many
organizations (for specific purposes anyway) and lead to a market
that currently totally ignores Apple products.
Vince Marco
Enterprise Frameworks, Inc.
(and Taligent Alumni ;-)
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Java-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/java-dev/email@hidden
