How Can Sun Monetize Java?

The burning question at JavaOne 2008 on lots of developers and businesses mind was how Sun was ever going to monetize all the cool technologies at JavaOne? If Sun goes down, so does the technologies it championed. I got the opportunity to ask the questions on the Java panel for media, to JavaFX lead and others.

Sun is pretty much banking on Project Insight, which as far as I understand is Sun’s effort to provide Google AdSense like platform for Java developers to monetize their content through context sensitive advertisement.

Sun’s official answer for a long time has been that with popular Sun products in the market, people will need Sun’s hardware to run them. However Sun knows that its arguments are weakening as Java products run well on all platforms including but not limited to Linux. In 2000-2001 I ran several tests on Java’s performance on Linux and Solaris. Even then standard Linux desktops were much faster than much beefier 4-CPU Solaris hardware. I doubt that Sun’s hardware can make that much difference.

I find it baffling that Sun doesn’t venture into providing software consulting and services like IBM. Sun has enormous experience and brainpower on Java and related technologies. I would have thought that it would be a no-brainer. Fortunately Tim Bray, Sun’s Director for Web Development (who is sitting opposite to me as I write this piece) agrees. He too think Sun should get into providing software consulting services.