James Gosling's departure from Oracle was I suspect entirely predictable; he was never going to sit easy in Oracle after the freedom that Sun gave him. That it happened so quickly after the event is slightly surprising but probably shows what a cultural mismatch Sun and Oracle are deep down and perhaps this is a sign of things to come.
Obviously one man's departure does not seal the fate of a company but Gosling was one of the talisman techies of Sun; will his departure herald a diaspora of the technical brains from the old Sun? Actually, I really hope so; I really hope that we will see a raft of new companies spring up from such a diaspora and that we see some new ideas and technologies come about.
Some might find homes in the other technology giants but here's hoping that just a few strike out by themselves and make new successes. We could do with new cool companies and perhaps VMware won't buy them all!
Actually I was thinking a few days ago, what next? Cloud computing is going to happen in some shape or form; we can argue terminologies, we can argue private vs public but it's going to happen now. So what comes next? Is commoditisation the end of journey? Or perhaps just the start of something different.
Arguably we've come full circle; the mainframe gave way to the PC which has become the mainframe. The personal computer is no longer personal; we talk about VDI which brings conformity and commonality to the desktop. People will strain against that and the truly personal computer will be that which sits in our pockets and not on our desktop.
But will these devices develop into something akin to the application platforms that the PC has become? Well I'm not sure anyone would have predicted that the PC would eventually evolve into a close relative of the mainframe; so who knows? And perhaps the diaspora from Sun will herald something new?
Let's hope so….
