Simon Ritter on the State of Java in India: A Q&A

With Oracle's recent pricing changes for Java SE, the Indian enterprise landscape is undergoing significant transformations. Organizations are actively exploring cost-effective and secure alternatives to Oracle Java.

Simon Ritter, Deputy CTO at Azul, offers insights into the evolving landscape of the Java Development Kit (JDK) and Azul's strategic response to meet the growing needs of Indian enterprises.

With significant shifts in pricing and a surge in interest in open-source alternatives like OpenJDK, Ritter provides valuable perspectives on the key trends shaping the market and how Azul is positioned to cater to the unique requirements of Indian organizations.

Navigating Java's Shifting Landscape: Simon Ritter on Azul's Role in India’s OpenJDK Market

Excerpts: 

Given the significant shifts in the JDK landscape, what are the key trends you're observing in the Indian market?

The shifts we are seeing in the JDK landscape are really down to the changes in Oracle’s Java pricing. Oracle introduced pricing changes to its Java SE in January 2023, where Java SE went from a per-instance license to an employee-based license. This is having a dramatic impact on companies of all sizes globally.

At both the macro and micro level, the overall effect is a significant shift away from enterprises using Oracle Java to exploring different distributions of OpenJDK, including Azul Platform Core.

How has Azul positioned itself to cater to the evolving needs of Indian enterprises, particularly in the context of open-source alternatives like OpenJDK?

Our focus has always been, and remains, how we provide a product that is the same if not better than what you would get from Oracle Java. Organizations want a pre-packaged JDK where they don’t have to worry about doing all of the complex building of open source, and at the same time get a level of support and maintenance to ensure that they get all the regular updates to keep their systems as secure as possible.

Additionally, we expanded our local India presence with added sales presence and marketing support as well as a roster of channel partners to address market demand and the unique business use cases of the country at the start of this fiscal year.

How do you see the impact of Oracle's recent pricing changes and Java usage audits on the Indian market?

I was in India recently speaking to a number of companies, and it is very apparent that many organizations are looking to move off Oracle due to the Java pricing changes. These companies are looking for an alternative that can deliver the same levels of security and the same levels of stability for their applications, without the high price tag.

Many of these companies are receiving audit letters and phone calls from Oracle, and the prices they are being quoted are between 2x – 10x what they have been paying previously. In our recent Oracle report, cost was the Number 1 reason that 86% of respondents had either already migrated off of Oracle Java, were in the process of migrating or were planning to migrate.

What are the primary reasons driving Indian enterprises to consider alternative Java distributions, and how is Azul addressing these concerns? 

As mentioned previously, the changes in Oracle Java SE pricing is a big driver of this. From our perspective, we are delivering an identical product at a lower price point. One new customer in India, a very large financial institution, received an audit letter from Oracle and this was the initial trigger for them to look at alternatives, and ultimately select Azul.

Likewise, India’s growing global presence has escalated the need for application performance while offsetting spiraling cloud costs, particularly in select industries like financial trading and exchanges.

Could you elaborate on Azul's strategic plans for the Indian market? What are the key focus areas and initiatives?

Our key focus areas are targeting large enterprise users of Java who are looking for very high levels of security and stability of their mission critical applications. What we aim to achieve is that these companies can continue to use Java seamlessly, in exactly the same way as before, but without having the high costs that Oracle are charging based on their new pricing structure. Java is so pervasive across enterprises; this really addresses almost every vertical business in India that you can think of.

How are you differentiating yourself from other Java vendors in the Indian landscape? What are the advantages of using Azul's OpenJDK-based solutions over other commercial or open-source options?

We are focused on providing an identical, if not better, product to Oracle. With Azul’s JDK, we provide regularly scheduled security and full updates four times a year within one hour – most other OpenJDK vendors deliver their updates days or weeks after and no other vendors parse out security-only updates from other fixes and enhancements to reduce regression testing and other costs associated with keeping Java recent and secure. In addition, we provide support for older versions of Java, including Java 6 and 7. No other vendor provides support for JDK 6 (which is the very first opensource version) and 7, which are still prominent in many enterprises today.  As one of the primary stewards of the Java programming language, we are proud to deliver the same or better commercial support as Oracle, but with a significantly reduced price tag and 100% customer satisfaction.

How is Azul contributing to the OpenJDK community and ensuring that its offerings align with the latest developments in the Java ecosystem? 

Azul is a member of The OpenJDK Vulnerability Group – this is a very important organization as they are the people who develop the patches to address security vulnerabilities identified in Java. We are part of this group and contribute to this organization to ensure that our engineers are able to provide the patches to our customers as quickly as possible. In terms of the wider OpenJDK Project, we contribute ideas and effort behind this. I represent Azul on the Java SE expert group which is all about the standardization of Java. And we are part of many other different projects, focused on functionality to make Java better, faster and more secure.  

How do you envision the future of Java in the Indian market, and what role does Azul see itself playing in this landscape?

In the Indian market, as with other markets, I expect that Java will continue to be the platform of choice for mission-critical and enterprise applications. As long as customers in India have a need for cost savings, performance, and security and stability for their Java distributions, Azul will have a place in this market.

What are the key challenges and opportunities that Azul is anticipating in the coming years?

One of the challenges we see is convincing enterprises that migrating from Oracle Java to an alternative OpenJDK distribution is not difficult. However, this couldn’t further from the truth. In fact, in our recent report, 84% of respondents who had already migrated off Oracle Java reported that the process was easier than expected or went as planned.