I went to four talks today. Nothing much to note. The one about EJB 2.1 was interesting; it contained some very nice examples of why people are buzzing about metadata.
I also walked around the pavilion. Some very interesting stuff being shown. And some nice niche applications (for example, J42. Nice to see them surviving).
More interesting was the hallway buzz. You see, there is a big conspicuous absence here. IBM is not here. There’s no IBM. IBM? Not present. They’re not sponsoring, they don’t have a booth, they’re conspicuous, and I mean conspicuous, by their absence.
Unless, of course, I just completely missed something.
Where do you think IBM was?
IBM missing
A slight correction: IBM Pervasive computing had the tiniest of booths, as did Rational. But the basic point remains valid. IBM, which likes to boast that it has more Java developers than Sun, is conspicuous by its non-presence on the show floor. And so far I've encountered only one IBM speaker, on a panel discussing the JCP.