It was also interesting at JavaOne to walk in the exhibit hall where the sponsors explain their product and services. I'd like to point out a funny story that happened to my at the Sun corner there. I was impressed with the many clever projects shown at the Sun corner, as the looking glass project. Then I saw "JavaHelp for desktop" on a wall. Oh, that's interesting: Sun will provide, part of Java SE 6, an integrated help system. It looks similar to the system proposed by Eclipse RCP. So I started a dialog with the girl doing the demos: John: Hey, looks nice. Girl: Thank you. Do you know JavaHelp ? John: No, and I?d like to know more. Can you tell me the feature difference between JavaHelp and the Eclipse help system ? Girl: Hum, .... mmmm .... you know, we propose NetBeans, and ... John: No, no, I don't mean the Eclipse Java IDE to develop Java programs. I mean the Rich Client Platform that let you run a Java business application into the Eclipse container, so you may benefit, for example, of the help system for your Java application. It's cool that now we can have that with Java SE. Girl: Hum, .... mmmm .... I don't know, you should ask the question to my colleague, please wait a minute.

An senior man who apparently was more involved in the JavaHelp project came and we started the discussion:
John: Good morning. I just discover the existence of JavaHelp. Interesting. I've a stupid question.
Man: go on.
John: How do you compare, technically, JavaHelp with the Eclipse RCP help system?
The man turned green and looked at me as it I was a Muslim terrorist.
Man: Hum, .... mmmm .... We don't do Eclipse, we work with NetBeans. You should ask your question to the marketing department.
John: I'm sorry, probably my English is too bad and my question is not clear. I don't talk about Eclipse as a Java editor.
Man: I've understood your question, but you have a press/analyst badge and I can't answer to you. Please go and ask your question to a salesman.
John: Oh, I completely forgot. I find your idea of JavaHelp in Java SE pretty and I asked you this question because I practice desktop programming myself. I did not intend to write anything on it.
Man: Please see with a salesman.

I wish I went to the salesman to tell you what happened (because he would not have been able to answer such a technical question), but I didn't.

I'd like to join Robin in his ?SpringOne?? post yesterday. Sun pushes hard to provide what developers needs (at last) for productivity in the standard Java stack. But they look like upset by competition. The only Eclipse session happened in the smallest room of the conference and was fully booked days before the conference begins (pretty rare).