J2EE still dominating application servers

Java will remain the dominant technology to support application servers while web services will take some time to find acceptance, according to a new report.

Application Servers. The Facts and How They Compare examines major application server products and supporting technologies such as J2EE and Microsoft .Net.

The report's author, Alan Lawson of Butler Group, compared ten products in terms of features and performance. The selection of products was based on a combination of market position and future potential, he said.

IBM and BEA lead the market at the moment but other products were selected for their interesting features or for strategies that might be able to erode this market lead, Lawson said.

Both the IBM and BEA products are based on J2EE, which remains the major architecture behind application servers. Microsoft's .Net is seen as the only credible threat to J2EE.

Lawson said .Net was focused more on future needs than current priorities. "At present, .Net is the most reliable platform for XML web services. But web services haven't taken off yet," he said.

He also argued that by the time web services became important, there would have been significant additional Java development. "Java will continue to provide competition to .Net when web services mature. It's still a developing market," he said.

More current considerations for application server vendors centre on performance. Lawson said: "vendors are making certain of basics. Scalability and portability are the biggest priorities at present."