Sebastian Meyen, Editor-in-Chief of Java Magazin and Eclipse Magazin declared the 2006 edition of Software & Support Media’s JAX Conference open in Munich, Germany. The conference registered a whopping increase of 30% from the previous year, with around 1600 participants in all. JAX also received another shot in the arm with more than 55 sponsors and exhibitors supporting and participating in the premier event. Clearly, JAX has positioned itself as the largest and numero uno enterprise Java conference in Europe.

As part of a new initiative, three conferences were rolled into a single package. Attendees at the JAX conference could also gain access to the Enterprise Architektur Konferenz (EAKon) and Eclipse Forum Europe 2006. While EAKon (http://www.eakon.de) looks beyond Java and brings up for discussion, important topics relating to SOA and the integration of heterogeneous environments, the Eclipse Forum Europe (http://www.eclipseforumeurope.com/) was the first European conference for all relevant topics pertaining to the Eclipse ecosystem. From a content perspective, the conference tackled new and exciting areas, apart from proven Java topics like JSF, Eclipse, Open Source, SOA, Scripting Languages and Web 2.0.

Another new feature at this year's event is the JAX Innovation Award (www.jax-award.com), to be presented tomorrow evening. This award recompenses the best contribution from Europe to the fields of Java and Eclipse. As prize money, Software and Support Media have raised altogether 20,000 euro. Ten projects are in the running for the grand prize – Bioclipse, e-Chalk, Fruit, JamaicaVM, jLibrary, push2you, RAP, SOPA, Jump and World of Java.

Christopher Hearn of SAP delivered the first keynote of the main conference. He stressed on the differences between the "dapper suit types" and the "T-shirt/Jean types", although both types work in the same companies nonetheless. The question: “is this differentiation applicable to the world of packaged applications on one hand and self-development on the other?”. The only relationship that connects the traditional splitting of the two worlds was data exchange, answered Hearn. However, it would be desirable to aim at a closer relationship between the two – packaged and developed.

“Despite the SOA hype and the strong focus of the IT industry on web services, time is of importance. When we stand at the end of an era, where technological communities stand as if on opposite sides of a religious war, the result counts and the business manager is not interested in whether an SAP application was developed or extended and adapted by self-developments,” Hearn said.

In the ensuing three days, participants can take advantage of a diverse program, which will feature altogether nine keynotes by IT experts like Craig McClanahan, Mike Milinkovich, Rod Johnson and Doug Clarke.

For a detailed program list, visit the JAX Conference web site.