The Disco Blog

Albert Einstein once mused:

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

Unfortunately for the vast majority of commercial players in the Java tools market, he may be incorrect– reality isn’t an illusion. It’s a harsh (and rather persistent) truth. You need only scan the various development tools you use on a daily basis to see that free, for the most part, is king these days.

Two recent SDTimes articles do a great job of highlighting this reality: first, Andrew Binstock wrote an article dubbed “Java tool market disintegrating” in which he states that the market for selling tools to Java developers

has been unhealthy for years. It is hard to think of a single Java-only tools company that has grown and prospered. One exception is KLGroup, which later became Sitraka and sold for a small fortune to Quest Software during the Internet bubble. Beyond it, though, things drop off quickly. Small companies struggle, living out their bets on Java.

He goes on to highlight three recent events such as Agitar’s demise, Enerjy’s freebee spree and lastly, CodeGear’s mercy acquisition (one can argue Embarcadero received an 85% discount on the purported $150 million value of CodeGear). Each of the aforementioned affairs do suggest the market for selling tools to Java developers (keep in mind that the CodeGear acquisition included non-Java tools and the support revenue associated with them i.e. Delphi) is rather limited.

Second, SDTimes was quick to release the news that McCabe Software is acquiring Agitar’s assets. On the surface, that could be good news, except for the fact that a Gartner analyst is purported to have said that Agitar’s product

might be a good fit within larger suite or a family of QA technologies.

Because it’s my bag, using the word might in the same story regarding an acquisition is not exactly positive. It’s like having the word disappointing show up on your resume or during a reference check, man. What’s more, no dollar figure was highlighted in the article nor the official press release, suggesting Agitar’s IP was picked up for peanuts (do you think McCabe received an 85% discount like Embarcadero? $5 million? It’s hard to believe they would pay even that much).

It remains to be seen if McCabe can attain a reasonable market share with the purchased assets; suffice to say, history (and don’t forget reality, baby!) are working against them.

That’s not to say that all commercial tools are doomed– in fact, you need only go to a Java oriented conference to see that IntelliJ continues to impress legions of smart people, who do pay for the copasetic tool even in the face of free competition from the likes of Eclipse. Plus, Atlassian continues to wow developers across the globe (they sell various products, however, like JIRA, which isn’t necessarily a tool marketed to and used by Java developers alone).

It seems a more apt mechanism for describing reality for the majority of commercial tool players in the Java market is, as Jane Wagner eloquently stated,

“Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.”

Indeed, as Andrew Binstock pointed out in his article and as Atlassian is currently demonstrating, the actuality of the Java tools market is that those companies that wish to prosper selling tools to developers must offer a cornucopia of products to a wide range of audiences. That is, they must sell tools not only to developers but to other stakeholders in the application life cycle– and even then, success (i.e. healthy revenues) is no guarantee. Plus, in this Age of Aquarius, it helps if the company is bootstrapped and thus isn’t required to provide exponential returns in a short timeframe. Can you dig it?

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