Why 100M JavaFX Downloads Is Impressive
Sun CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, has been getting a fair bit of publicity in the last week or so for a recent blog, entitled – JavaFX Hits 100,000,000 Milestone! – in which he called the news that Sun has shipped 100M copies of the JavaFX run-time “extraordinary”.
Some have been reacting negatively to the news, suggesting that shipping this number of run-times isn’t an impressive achievement. I’m not sure what their benchmarks are for reaching that conclusion. I think a comparison will help put the JavaFX numbers is context…
Let’s take another RIA run-time – Adobe’s AIR. Version 1.0 of AIR was released at the end of February 2008. That compares with JavaFX, where version 1.0 was released in December 2008. That means AIR has been out for about a year, while JavaFX has been out for about two months; or in other words, AIR has been out for about about six times longer than JavaFX. Despite this difference, it turns out that both JavaFX and AIR reached the 100M download milestone at the same time – around the beginning of February 2009.
Why is it important to distribute a run-time for a RIA platform? Well, the aim is to have the run-time installed on a computer before the end-user wants to install or run a software application built on the platform. Why do that? Because it makes for a much smoother end-user experience for people wanting to run RIA software.
Now, one question that arises in considering the meaning of these numbers is – how are these two platforms being distributed to people’s computers ? As I understand it, it’s similar for both JavaFX and AIR. That is, the main way is through bundling with other products. Sun distributes JavaFX by bundling it with the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). That means, if you keep your version of Java up-to-date on your computer (Go to Java.com, and click on “Do I have Java?” if you want to check if you’re up-to-date), you will already have the JavaFX run-time installed on your computer. Adobe distributes AIR with popular products like the free Acrobat Reader (you can get it from Adobe.com).
So, what we have here are two RIA platforms, JavaFX and AIR, both being distributed primarily via bundling with other products. To date, it seems that JavaFX has been distributed much more rapidly than has AIR. As of now, they’re neck and neck in terms of absolute numbers. If the rates of distribution stay the same, though (which they may or may not) then from here you’d expect JavaFX to rapidly overtake AIR in terms of distribution.
It’s important to note that download numbers like these say nothing directly about the number of developers using a platform to build applications. However, the breadth and rate of distribution of a platform are strong leading indicators of future developer use. So, it will be interesting to check back on these numbers in a few months to see what they look like then. Whichever way you cut it, though, it’s hard to say that 100M downloads for JavaFX in two months is anything other than an impressive milestone…
James Ward wrote:
Hi Simon,
Interesting perspective. I’d like to add a little bit…
AIR has had 100 million INSTALLS in the first year. Installs are a very different statistic than downloads.
The primary runtime for Flex applications is Flash Player which is on 98% of PCs worldwide. Also the latest version of Flash Player (10) was installed on 55% of PCs worldwide in the first 2 months it was out.
I’ve asked before of Sun but never received a response… When will Sun have a third party do a studies to track the penetration of Java with version granularity? Adobe does this:
http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html
-James (Adobe)
Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 7:36 pm ¶
simon wrote:
Hey James,
Informed comment is always appreciated here! You make an interesting point about installs vs downloads. It is different, I agree. Although I’m not sure about it being “very” different. There are a couple of reasons for this; one being that I guess we both know these kind of numbers are rather far from perfect as measures of distribution. For example, what proportion are upgrades rather than new installs etc.
I think it’s rather early days for both AIR and JavaFX. I’ve never yet found an AIR application I wanted to run personally; and the only AIR apps I’ve heard of being used are Twitter apps. Similarly, I’ve never found a JavaFX app I wanted to run. In that case, FX has only just been released so there’s an excuse there – that excuse won’t last forever, of course. The RIA platforms are certainly in search of killer apps that aren’t video.
I throw that out there, just to illustrate that it’s early days still. I think both are potentially strong platforms, though.
As for the Flash run-time – yes, of course you’re right there. I don’t think anyone would question the amazing success Adobe has had with distributing that on PCs. It’s a really significant achievement. For Flash, there is a question mark over video playback being potentially the dominant use, and so there’s a big question mark as to whether that is the dominant driver of adoption.
I’ve been aware of the use of Flash as a general purpose app platform for many years (I’ve followed Flash since version 1 – I hope you have some sympathy
) The truth to date, though, is that the Java run-time has been more powerful than Flash as a general purpose software development platform. I don’t believe anyone serious can dispute that. Whether it will prove to be a business benefit in the RIA world, I don’t know.
So – it will be an interesting battle for the future. Competition is good – developers win if all the RIA platform innovate to provide the highly capable platforms.
Ultimately, my intention in this post absolutely not to “dis” Flash, Flex or even AIR. Adobe has done a great job with their products to date. Rather, the point of this post was simply to address the point that quite a few people were saying that 100M downloads for JavaFX is meaningless. I don’t think it is.
Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 8:33 pm ¶
Jacko wrote:
JavaFX in its current incarnation is a pile of crap. It looks theoretically powerful but it does not look useful due to lack of a mature toolset.
Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 8:54 pm ¶
simon wrote:
Ah Jacko, thank you for your insightful comment. I can quite understand, from your eloquence alone, that you might indeed need some impressive development tools to help you create software.
Have you tried Popfly? I think you might really like it…
Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 9:24 pm ¶
john wrote:
AIR is nice but it’s very limiting (no native library access, can’t spawn processes, ect).
Posted 21 Feb 2009 at 2:56 am ¶
Uli.W wrote:
JavaFX is not very different from Silverlight or Flex. It is a PROPRIETARY product of Sun Microsystems. There is no JSR for JavaFX and the future FOSS-licence will be something that fits best to Sun’s business-model but not to the developer-community.
JavaFX will replace existing Java-APIs currently backed up by JSR’s. So JavaFX is basically a strategy to make the Java-community “Sun-only”. There is neither participation and apparently neither interest expressed by other companies backing up the JCP.
What is the role Oracle, IBM, Redhad etc. pp. in that JavaFX-universe?
Posted 21 Feb 2009 at 8:58 am ¶
Chase Saunders wrote:
So what does it mean that Silverlight had 100,000,000 downloads in 4 weeks?
Posted 21 Feb 2009 at 4:40 pm ¶
simon wrote:
The number for Silverlight obviously has similar meaning: that is, the number is a measure of how widely, and how rapidly, Microsoft can distribute their run-time to desktops. It’s all useful data for developers to derive information from.
It’s clear that all three players here: Adobe, Microsoft and Sun have the ability to distribute their run-times pretty rapidly to desktops. There are currently differences in breadth of reach, though: in terms numbers of OSes, and percentages of desktops and mobile devices that can be accessed.
Posted 21 Feb 2009 at 4:58 pm ¶
Eric Dessen wrote:
Thank you Simon for a very reasoned post.
I have tried JavaFX, AIR and Silverlight. And I have to admit, I found JavaFX to be by far the most well thought out. It’s not the most mature (Silverlight seems to be that), but it’s certainly the most comfortable fit for a designer/programmer.
AIR, like Silverlight, felt constraining, as if the vendors were trying to trap/control, force me to buy their tools, etc. rather than free up my time. I don’t want to have to learn a whole new paradigm, not have native access, spin through hacky programming models and expensive tools.
So I can’t vouch for numbers, but I can vouch for programming efficient. JavaFX 1, AIR, 0.
Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 4:55 pm ¶
simon wrote:
@Eric – yes, I think many developers are really going to like JavaFX when they try it. The JavaFX team has done a great job – JavaFX Script is really powerful.
Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 9:04 pm ¶
Asam Bashir wrote:
When will Apple distribute this code through the established Software Update route, and how secure is the platform at this stage?
Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 11:54 pm ¶
simon wrote:
Difficult to say what Apple’s plans are. They’re definitely working on a more up-to-date version of the Java platform that’s needed to do a really good job for running JavaFX. No idea when they’ll release it though.
Apple’s current implementation of the Java platform is certainly a little buggy. However, the company does seem to make an effort to fix security-related Java bugs (even if it doesn’t do a great job of fixing other types of bug). So, I’d have thought end users could be as confident in the security of Apple’s implementation of the Java platform as they can in any other aspect of Apple’s software.
On a general security point – one of the advantages that JavaFX has over its competition, is that it runs on Java. A lot of thought, and well over a decade of elapsed time, has gone into making the Java platform a secure application platform. So aside from bugs which can be fixed (there will always be bugs in any sophisticated piece of software), it’s genuinely likely to be fundamentally rather more secure than some other RIA platforms.
Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 8:21 am ¶
george wrote:
thank you simon—for an unbiased and therefore, useful bit of info. You also handle the vitriol from some quite skillfully–well done!
Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 3:19 pm ¶
Mark Nankman wrote:
I agree that the 100M downloads is significant. I also agree with James Ward that Sun should track the device penetration of Java. Now we are indeed comparing apples with pears.
By the way, there is a rather nice (I might be slightly biased…) and open source Twitter client that is built in JavaFX (http://tweetbox.org).
Posted 10 Mar 2009 at 2:49 pm ¶
simon wrote:
Sure. James (of Adobe) is a good guy; but the truth is that his implication in the comments here that Adobe is somehow more transparent about this stuff than Sun is naive at best and disingenuous at worst. *All* vendors in this area use various numbers and statistics to present their offerings in what they think is the best light; even if that means using numbers/stats that aren’t the most interesting/useful for customers.
Posted 11 Mar 2009 at 10:14 am ¶