Java speaking for itself

In the light of the delayed Sun-Oracle merger (and see the New York Times Dealbook blog for a brutal analysis of how the deal was structured to put Sun in a poor position in case of just such delays), there's been a lot of anxiety about Java's future. With the companies unable to really comment on future plans, of course, this has led to anxious seizing on any little tidbit to guide the way.

Take, for instance, this anxious piece from Bert Ertman. Ertman went to Oracle OpenWorld and saw attention being lavished on Sun's hardware and on Solaris and MySQL (despite the trouble the latter has caused) as future components of seamless Oracle appliances. He's seized on a gnomic line from Larry Ellison -- "Java speaks for itself" -- as indicating that Java will get short shift.

I think he's probably right in his speculation that Oracle sees Java as a "product" from Sun that it can take advantage of. But maybe we should wait until we see how this plays out before we start really panicking.