I agree with you that statements of “unstable, unreadable, incomplete and completely redundant Java” are incorrect, and to normal java developer, or company that makes extensive use of Java this statement might look funny. We all know that Java is used for mission critical business, already, and noone can change that with marketing. You, however, should also understand the amount of operational experience that SAP has, and is bringing in the equation, which is partially the reason for such statement, I guess. Some of our solutions involved thousands of Java components running in single JVM – no other application server or java infrastructure on the market can handle that with the neccessary modularity, isolation, lifecycle management, performance, scalability and so on.

I also disagree with your statements about core/non-core. If your statement is correct, it would imply that Oracle should do nothing else than DBMS, and Microsoft should do nothing else than OS and office. But they do. And there is good business reasoning in that, and good customer value in doing it. SAP has also proved of being open in both integration open source, where relevant and appropriate, as well as donating and contributing back.

Also, recall that SAP was the first certified Java EE 5 vendor, and the first one that promoted Eclipse/WTP as default Java EE toolset. This was in moments when Java EE had little support from major vendors. Every other vendor followed in that later.

Finally – on the “german thing” – agh, you know, I still like my Porsche better and won’t change it with Ford (no offense implied too, and good luck to all people around the world in these crisis times).

Having worked quite a lot with several Java based “packages” from SAP, I have to say that I don’t think SAP has made any significant difference in the Java space (mildly put).
However this does not mean that the Java language is the problem. Claiming that Java is “unstable, unreadable, incomplete and completely redundant” just reveals that you apparently have no experience with Java other than that of SAP (which is a painful one). Today most companies from banks, insurance to industry are using more and more open source Java based tool. SAP doesn’t see and understand these important trends.
Another problem, as I see it, is that SAP are failing to realize that the company are simply not able to build everything them selfs – maybe this is German thing (no offence) but the future is neither monolitic nor “closed”. Integration plays an increasing role as well. SAP should focus on what they are good at and leave the more infrastucture like work to others. In other words: Don’t waste resource building a RDBMS, Java VM, Java EE server etc. Concentrate on aspects where SAP can make a difference.

Best regards

Jan Petersen

I don’t share your general criticism with regards to Java. Even though I am an SAP Dev Consultant with strong ABAP background, to my mind there is no doubt that the Java language is one of THE IT success stories of the last 8-10 years.

I think one reason why SAP jumped into Java was the fact that there is more Java know-how around than there is ABAP know-how. Therefore Java Developers are cheaper than ABAP resources.

Why should SAP at this stage publicly declare that it abandons its Java products in the near future and potentially lose customers? Isn’t it much wiser -especially in the current climate- to communicate that you develop ABAP stack further and maybe then offer a migration path in a year or two?

On the whole I am not entirely sure how valuable it is to discuss the death and demise of one SAP stack to another. There is a general shift (eSOA, BPX, openness) going on, regardless of programming languages.

Kind regards,
Michael Koch

Wow… Someone has an Axe to grind with Java.

It didn’t become one of the main language of server-side development without merit.

Even .NET and C# borrows heavily from Java’s syntax and interpreted language architecture.

Not sure what your issue is with Java, but outside of SAP, it is one of the great things out there.