IONA Technologies CTO Eric Newcomer, in SYS-CON's annual round-up of technology predictions earlier this year, had a warning about upcoming fragmentation of the Java market: 

"In the Java market fragmentation will increase rather than lessen. The recent split between JBI and SCA, and the disagreements over Java EE 6 and OSGi will escalate tensions as the pressure increases on BEA/Oracle, IBM, and Sun to take market share from each other in a diminishing market.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has an opportunity to grow stronger behind the leadership of Ray Ozzie and is likely to surprise those who believe the battle for the enterprise is over and Java has already won."

Newcomer's predictions came in the SYS-CON.com feature "Where's AJAX, SOA and Virtualization Headed in 2008?" - which also included predictions from: Tim Bray, Sun; Joshua Allen , Microsoft; Dr Adam Kolawa, Parasoft;  Bill Roth, BEA Systems; Brad Abrams, Microsoft; Kevin Hoffman, iPhone Developer's Journal; Ian Thain, Sybase; and Yakov Fain, Farata Systems.

Read Newcomer's 2008 Predictions in Full Here.

• Where Are RIA Technologies Headed in 2008?
• i-Technology 2008 Predictions: Where's RIAs, AJAX, SOA and Virtualization Headed in 2008?
• Rich Internet Applications vs AJAX: "2008 Will Be A Crucial Year"
• 2008 Prediction: "Net Neutrality Will Take an Even Worse Beating"
• AJAX World RIA Conference & Expo - The UX Meme Is Reaching the Enterprise at Last