I guess Sun see’s JavaFX as a cornerstone of it’s mobile strategy - which I still don’t get. I get that mobile devices are increasingly important - what I don’t get is how Sun thinks it can be come a comsumer electronics company nor why it feels it needs to. I’m not even completely sure about Java on mobile devices - I’ve spend the last 10 years with Java and was an early adopter of the cell phone and have lost count of the devices I’ve owned and the money I’ve spent on services. Yet I still haven’t seen a compelling / unique use for Java on a cell phone; and I simlply don’t buy that Java needs to become a consumer brand to become sucessful. It’s already wildly sucessful.

Java is one of the most sucessful enabling technologies ever but it it’s not a consumer brand.

Some news from Gartner and Forrester today pushed the bar for OSS a little higher. First the report from Forrester ($$) - based on a pretty exhaustive survey of application server users - it’s the first report I’ve ever seen that is essentially based on Quality - not the usual speeds and feeds and feature comparison. It very clearly busts any remaining myths that OSS is a riskier proposition than conventional, proprietary software - in fact it the report’s findings are pretty clear - JBoss App Server 4.x is likely of superior quality, is able to handle demanding workloads and our ability to resolve issues is better than our competitors. Note - I also think this demonstrates the difference between the old and new models of Software - ie. where the value is about the services you provide beyond the bits; not the bits themselves.

That said - the bits have to be good as well - again nobody is giving OSS an easy passage in the enterprise and according to the latest Gartner MQ on Enterprise App Servers ($$) - our bits are damned good (or I guess technically - our vision and execution of that vision is damned good).

Hopefuly we’ll get reprint rights for the Forrester report - not only is it good for JBoss and Red Hat but I think it’s good for the whole OSS ecosystem.