Re: Any WWDC News (Business Logic)
Re: Any WWDC News (Business Logic)
- Subject: Re: Any WWDC News (Business Logic)
- From: Karl Gretton <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 22:26:26 -0700
I share your sentiments Ashley. Apple has a raft of great stuff that
came out of NeXT for the most part.
4 years ago Apple was dead in the water...OS 9 that was really just a
Windows 3.1 level kernel and a bunch of failed OS attempts...can't even
remember the names and the order there were so many.
Copeland...Rhapsody...
Today, they wow and amaze everyone with...hmm...10 year old technology
repackaged with a pretty UI and still more advanced than the rest of
the market. The core of MacOS X including Mach-O executables and Cocoa
is essentially the same KVC based technology that we like and love.
Will WO have its day again? Maybe. Apple is certainly getting
attention in the Enterprise space. Oracle is pushing 10g on Apple.
Sybase says that it is getting great performance from a 1U 2CPU G5
server...the throughput is constrained by the power of the CPU and
nothing else.
Apple is a pretty leading edge business. It needs and uses things like
Web Services (the real SOAP-based kind) and high performance
mechanisms. It does all of these things with WO and we pay for it (a
cheap price admittedly).
Apple uses the same technology that we do. Pretty much everything that
they do is available to us. Compare this with Microsoft who have and
are converting all of their web holdings to a version of their stuff
that will not be available to us for a year or more.
There are three visions on the planet today. Microsoft, Sun and Apple.
The Sun seems to have set so maybe that now leaves just two? Or is
Java the follow-on from Sun? I'll take Apple regardless of whether
they make an iPod or not.
Karl
On 30-Jun-04, at 9:20 PM, Ashley Aitken wrote:
Howdy All,
I think this is an important discussion that we should have. I share
your general admiration for the technology WebObjects technology and
utter frustration with Apple.
On 01/07/2004, at 10:24 AM, Trae Nickelson wrote:
... I don't think there is anything more the WO community can do for
Apple. The ball's in their court.
... and has been for a long time.
I think we all understand the situation. I give regular two hour
seminars on WebObjects (the seminar is titled "Rapid Development
Technologies" but basically it is an explanation of the technologies
within WebObjects with lots of demonstrations) to IT managers and
developers in Australia. Of course, none of these are supported or
even encouraged by Apple Australia.
The results are always the same, the audience is amazed by the power
of WebObjects (and its price), and sometimes somewhat embarrassed that
they have charged their clients so much for what they could do so
quickly with WO (EOF, D2*). Of course, there is always the "Why
haven't we heard about this (if its so good)?" questions. With the
obvious (and sometimes rude) answers.
So I think we need to look at Apple's business strategy - why Apple
isn't taking advantage of this situation. The following is just
speculation, of course, I have no inside information, and I am never
run a company the size of Apple (or anywhere near it ;-). However, I
think it can be useful to try and understand (perhaps) why they are
doing what they do.
I've mentioned in a previous email in this thread why I think Apple
(and perhaps NeXT) failed when they made their initial push with
WebObjects (mostly because they were so far ahead of their time, most
developers and management were just not ready). Recently, however,
Apple is trying to move slowly back into the Enterprise space (a
space where WO fits in well).
The problem is if Apple goes to businesses suggesting that they use
WebObjects, most companies will think it is the same-old-Apple pushing
proprietary non-standard technologies. Apple has tried to ameliorate
this concern by making WO sound standards-compliant, but the fact is
it is not PHP, or J2EE, or .Net (of course, it is something much
better for most things).
So Apple is trying to keep the business profitable, sticking to a
business plan to get back into the Enterprise space. WebObjects is
not a part of this plan, and only kept around because it gives them a
real competitive advantage in-house, and selling it enables them to
(somewhat) support the development. They can't afford to market it
(and don't) when it only costs $699.
So the problem, I think, is Apple is not in the
enterprise-application-development-framework/tool business, even now,
when I think it is the perfect time for them to be (with developers
and management just becoming aware of the need for lighter-weight
containers). I think they were burnt by their earlier "push" and have
just decided it is not in their plan.
So what can/should we do? I am not sure (this is an analysis email
not a solutions post ;-). I think we should keep using (and
evangelizing) WebObjects where we can and are able, it is the best
solution for a lot of cases and is not going away in the short-medium
term. Apple will help where they can (i.e. cheap and easy) but don't
expect much more.
We could also lower risks by investigating alternatives like
Tapestry/Cayenne (or using interfaces for business logic classes).
Like others have mentioned, other technologies are catching up.
However, as I also said before, I don't believe anything comparable to
JavaClient (real business-side objects) or the D2* technologies (Web
and Java client) presently exists.
Perhaps (horrible word to base a business decision on) when Apple gets
into the Enterprise then WO may get fuller support. Unfortunately
though, by then there will probably be other comparable (or better)
offerings. Finally, please understand, I'm not trying to find an
excuse for Apple here, I'm just trying to analyse and understand why
they are behaving the way they are.
Cheers,
Ashley.
--
Ashley Aitken
Perth, Western Australia
mrhatken at mac dot com
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