Java Store update

After seeing some ads for the Java Store on this website, I just read up on it again, and it sounds pretty interesting. The Java Store is currently in a beta program state ... hmm, I just finished poking around, and I can't find any information on when they intend to go from a Beta to a Live state, but after seeing the ads here, I'm wondering how close they are to going live.

It looks like the Java Store has been developed as a Java application, and the Java Store UI is shown on this page, and it looks pretty cool. You can create some really good looking Java and JavaFX applications these days. But one thing I don't like is that you have to download the Java Store application, as described on this Java Store FAQ page. In the age of web technology, that seems pretty old-school, and I hope they have a web-based interface to the store as well.

It looks like there is also something called a Java Warehouse, which is described as "the central repository for Java and JavaFX applications".

The Java Store, and a technology lead that was lost

The business story in all of this is that Java was initially developed as a language and platform that could run on any hardware through the use of a Java virtual machine, and they had a huge technology lead on everyone else. But now that Sun is finally getting around to a program like this, they've already been clobbered by other technologies, and it seems like now they have to try to play catch up.

Looking at this from purely a business perspective, there are a lot of lessons to be learned here. I forget the exact phrase Guy Kawasaki has used, but it's something like "Churn, baby, churn", meaning that you can't rest on your laurels, and have to always keep pushing in the business world, and I think that's Lesson #1.

There are also other issues here related to management, leadership, branding, and innovation, but for anyone that has worked with Java since its inception, I think those issues are clear to everyone in retrospect.

As for the Java Store, I hope it goes well. I still like the Java language after all these years, and even in the web age I think technologies like Swing and JavaFX are pretty cool.