Originally posted by Tony Karta:
If the certification is based on SUN products and they won't be used in real-world, where is the value of this certification compare to .Net?
Sun Microsystems is the source of all Java and Java EE orthodoxy, what Sun puts out there is canon. Every member of the
anti-Microsoft league has to implement Sun's specifications for their application servers to remain compliant to Java EE - thats the part of the WORA (Write-Once-Run-Anywhere)
philosophy.
Corporate entities love their Microsoft desktops but they love their databases more - if they are already using a non-microsoft (IBM, Oracle, etc.) database they are probably already leaning heavily towards the Java platform on the server side.
Microsoft tried to lure corporations into full commitment to COM/DCOM and VB (for the promise of a cheap IT labor force) only to all but abandon it for the next generation of technology (or at least thats how it looked to them) - so many organizations are now reluctant to follow Microsoft again - if Microsoft will not support Microsoft technology (indefinitely), who will (without getting sued)?
Microsoft was counting on Windows Server 2003 (formerly Windows Server .NET) to force .NET into the market at large. Well, it hasn't done so. Again some attempt was made through MS certifications make "cheap" sysadmins available but the fact is that Windows Server 2003 is an OS/Application Server hybrid and as such is a complicated piece of software that you cannot expect to comprehend with only a two year community college education (or less) in IT.
It currently seems that most
Windows Server Success Stories are related to larger corporations sorting out their desktops - an important function but usually one that is peripheral to the core business.
.NET is here to stay - but this will mainly happen once the next MS desktop OS with WinFX built in becomes more mainstream. This unfortunately sets up a situation where Java EE would often be chosen for the server-based systems while web service consuming .NET desktop clients could give you the best "presentation". Only the most affluent IT departments will keep both Java EE and .NET developers on staff (or those who through market positioning are forced to deliver both Java and .NET clients). Most (smaller) organizations will simply use their existing Java EE staff to create the desktop clients, possibly using SWT instead of Swing for more performant (and native looking) desktop clients. Others will be entirely Microsoft shops.
Originally posted by Tony Karta:
compare to .Net?
And why is .NET the holy grail?
Sun Microsystems is primarily a hardware company. Now some of their (anti-Microsoft) strategic decisions are a bit bizarre (see
Headline: Sun Develops Java; New "Bytecode" System Means Write Once, Run Anywhere) but they are the ones who lead the Java Community Process to set the specifications followed by other Java EE vendors.
So if you want to compare .NET/Windows Server to something compare it to BEA Weblogic, or IBM Websphere, or Oracle OC4J.
Sun Java certifications are about specifications, not Sun products.
And web services on any platform are based on a lot of specifications: XML, XML Schema, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI and WS-Security (not to mention second generation standards like WS-AtomicTransaction, WS-Coordination, WS-BusinessActivity, WS-BPEL, WS-CDL, WS-Addressing, WS-ReliableMessaging, WS-Eventing, etc.) - which explains the steep learning curve.