BEA Killed the OS
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Regular reader know painfully well my position concerning IT technology and how the application drives everything. No computer, middleware, database or even operating system is purchased except for the explicit purpose of supporting application software.
Now BEA is trying to remove the operating system as part of the stack.
BEA is producing a version of their WebLogic server runs Java directly atop a hypervisor, and eliminates the need for an operating system while delivering virtualized instances of the application server. In this Java becomes the unified OS and application server, dependant perhaps only on a DBMS somewhere on the network. Will it be long before a smart DBMS vendor or Open Source project creates a database system that too requires no OS?
With Sun Open Sourcing Java, with BEA creating OS-less application servers, and much of tomorrow’s applications becoming Java based, we may be witnessing a new definition of an IT stack — one that eliminates an entire layer and, in the process, eliminates the need for Microsoft, Red Hat, HP-UX, Solaris, or AIX.
Profit margins in the high tech world have been moving up the stack ever since Linux became enterprise grade. BEA’s approach pushes them a little higher, making profitability in IT technologies more and more an applications game. We’ll know for certain that this is the future wave the moment we see the Apache Group deliver an OS-less application server like BEA’s.
