In an industry as complex and rapidly-changing as software development, finding constants is extremely rare. Most things are improved every day and the way we approach our work always has to be on top of the latest standards. In other words, competition is always fierce and that makes it extremely hard for any technology to become an indisputable leader in any field. However, Java is here to be the exception to the rule.
For decades, enterprises have resorted to Java development services to develop all kinds of large-scale applications that improve their business operations in one way or another. There’s no doubt that Java has managed to become the go-to language for enterprise software, even after 20 years of increasing competition in the field. Let’s see why.
#1 Java and Enterprises Go Way Back
Back in the early ’90s, software development was only a small part of what it is today. Web development was just starting to become a thing, and low-level languages like C and C++ were what most people thought of when it came to developing enterprise applications. And even though the C languages are unquestionably fast in running times, they were not exactly fit for enterprise needs.
Enterprises needed a more robust development solution that could extend over their not-so-structured infrastructure and act as a unifying element in software technology. Java’s platform-independent environment and scalability potential (which we’ll talk more about later) was the exact answer to that need. And so, the long-time relationship between Java and Enterprise applications began.
Today, most enterprises prefer to stick with Java because of all the things you can create with it. The language has become an integral part of most IT infrastructure systems, and going through all the trouble of changing it to something else for negligible benefits is simply not worth it. As they say, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
#2 Libraries
A long relationship isn’t the only thing keeping enterprises and Java together. Definitely not. To keep up with the needs of the ever-changing market of enterprise applications, the people at Java have spent years building extensive libraries of useful code. If you want to develop any kind of enterprise application, you’ll most likely find not one, but many comprehensive Java libraries that come with everything you would need to make things happen.
These libraries are specifically designed to address particular enterprise needs and solve the problems that most Java developers run into when developing enterprise applications. What’s more, most of the time these libraries are free, open-source, and provide business-friendly licenses, which means that you could start using them right away.
However, this may also act as a double-edged sword. Some argue that there are too many choices in the Java ecosystem, which often increases the number of decisions Java developers have to make. The effects of these are varied, but as long as you know how to hire the best developers for your team, you should have nothing to worry about. After all, developing enterprise software is an inherently complex task where you’ll definitely be making a lot of choices, so in many cases, it would be better to have all the options you could need.
#3 Java is Great for Scalability
Enterprise software needs to be scalable. That’s just a given. Without the headroom to grow and support more features and users, enterprise software can become very inefficient very quickly. Java was built with this purpose in mind, with a design tailored to performance in enterprise-scale workloads.
Similarly, Java works great with Hadoop, a popular open-source platform for reliable, scalable, and distributed computing which, coincidentally, was also written in Java. Many enterprises today use Hadoop to manage Big Data applications, making it easier to integrate their operations with data-driven decisions.
But what really makes Java so great for enterprise scalability is its platform independence. Java is a WORE (Write Once, Run Everywhere) language, giving enterprises the option to work with multiple third parties to implement their solutions. Working consistently under the same standards saves a lot of time and effort in developing enterprise applications while facilitating new opportunities to provide added value in software.
Java can actually run on any modern hardware and reduces the technicality dependency to nearly zero. This also makes it less expensive for enterprises to set up and maintain Java software and links all the devices and operating systems that may be used within the enterprise (Windows, Mac, mobile devices, etc).
The Bottom Line
Java might be old, but it has aged like fine wine over the years. Right now, it’s the top choice for enterprise software—and that’s probably not going to change any time soon. If you want to learn more about enterprise software development, check out this great article where we talk more in-depth about enterprise software and what exactly you should be looking for.
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