BEA, IBM team on new Java specs

and hope to provide more consistency across their application servers with three new specifications – most important the Service Data Objects (SDO) aiming to provide a simple, unified programming model for data access from heterogeneous systems, including relational databases, XML-based data sources, Web services and enterprise applications.

Well, after Microsoft has been outpacing the Java community with improvements in tools, process execution and integration with the data center environment the Java dudes have to get more and better development efforts… remember the MSFT CEO Steve Balmer singing "developers, developers, developers" 2 yrs ago or so… the current great situation for MSFT developers vs. Java developers is what he meant…

I just wonder where Microsoft will be in two years?