As I'm sure you all know, Java was born to provide a single development platform for any hardware system. The dreams were idealistic, yet within reach, but the implementation severly lacks. This is all old news, however.
I've always found it interesting that each J2EE application server provides a different set of extensions to the base J2EE class library. This just shows the inadequacies of the platform and the lack of support Sun and the JCP provide. The question is, with the recent release of Mono, will there be a need to extend the .NET framework to provide functionality that customers need, but Microsoft has yet to provide? Who knows. Only time will tell.
For now, though, the Java community continues to move in different directions. BEA is working on an application framework project with the Apache Software Foundation that can only be used with the BEA WebLogic app server. That makes me kind of wonder why ASF is supporting it, but oh well. Another question arises, though: How will Sun react to this effort? Will they support it, compete with it, or ignore it? Based on the past, I think Sun will try to compete with it. Sun likes to show the Java community that the platform is their baby and they are in control.
We'll see. I can't say that I'm hopeful of the community, but I do hope to see some good things come out of Java. The better Java gets, the better .NET will get. And, we all know who wins when Microsoft gets into a pissing competition...us! :-)