Is Switzerland a competence center for Java development?
Not If you take the large developer conferences as an indicator. While JavaOne already took place in San Francisco earlier this year, Antwerp in Belgium will host JavaPolis and the various JAX conferences will be held in Munich, Singapore, Jakarta (where else would you expect a Java conference?), Wiesbaden and Bangalore.
Switzerland is left out there. Well – it was until this year. Beginning from next Monday we will have our own Java Developers Conference: Jazoon ‘07. It is branded as “the international conference on Java™ technology”, revealing the plans of the organizers to establish an event with – at least – European reputation. However, you could not expect them to reach this goal already in the first year. Most of the speakers are earning their money in Switzerland, with the sponsors it’s the same. Audience however is expected from 28 different countries, still most of them being Swiss. This does not tell anything bad about the conference itself but there are still some miles to go on the road to international relevance. Anyway, they managed to acquire some high-class people for the keynotes, such as Roy T. Fielding and Erich Gamma. (more…)
