We often think of business as a competitive sport,
a contest to win customers, but it's much more than that. It's an education.
The
business we're in - technology - happens to be one of the most competitive, and
we thrive on that. But it also provides a classroom for something quite
different: cooperation.
More than perhaps any other industry, the tech sector
requires competitors to work together.
You can learn a lot about teamwork in
sports, but we don't know of any sport where you cooperate with your opponents.
In high-tech, you do. (Unless you're a monopolist.)
Nowhere is this more evident
that in the case of a cross-platform technology known as Java. It was invented
by one company but developed in cooperation with many others. Nobody has a
monopoly on innovation, after all, and it's really astounding what can happen in
terms of both innovation and across-the-board wealth creation when you create an
open market.
The company that invented Java happens to be Sun Microsystems, but
the technology has rapidly matured, thanks to the contributions of a global
community that includes some of Sun's fiercest rivals.
Why do rivals cooperate?
The answer lies in art, science, and philosophy - all required subjects for an
advanced degree in business.
The key concept is that, in a networked world,
agreed-upon standards make the market bigger for everyone. After all, my
telephone is worth more to me if it works with your phone and vice versa.
That's
the philosophy. The science is the underlying technology, and the art is in
reaching agreement. In all those subjects, we'd say that the Java community has
earned an A.
All Java specifications are developed in an open, industry-wide
process, and adoption rates have been phenomenal: Every major technology company
(except one) has adopted Java technology, and 80% of the world's companies are
using it in their business systems.
Java technology has made the grade because
it runs on personal computers, mobile phones, TV set-top boxes, smart cards, and
network servers. The result is that a wide range of companies are selling Java
products and services - companies such as IBM, Oracle, BEA, and Computer
Associates, not to mention Electronic Arts, which recently ran 6 billion minutes
of Java games online in a single month.
Add to that nine of the top 10 mobile
phone makers - plus carriers covering the United States, Canada, Europe, Hong
Kong, Korea, and Japan - and it's easy to see that Java has steadily opened new
markets and new opportunities. (Handsets running Java software can bring in as
much as twice the revenue per user by enabling access to new services.)
But the
cooperative, cross-platform nature of the technology and its rapid adoption are
really just object lessons in a special brand of alchemy that turns cooperation
into gold.
Where Java really shines, and the whole community moves to the head
of the class, is a subject that has grown in importance as network computing has
become a vital component of the worldwide economy: security.
Strong security was
designed into the technology from the get-go - strong typing, strong checking,
and strong contracts between the pieces, if you want the technical terms. Seven
years and two million software developers later, there's never been a Java virus
of any consequence.
So give the Java community - partners and competitors alike
- an A+ in both wealth creation and wealth preservation. If that doesn't win
customers, we don't know what will.
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