Since the 1990s, Java has become one of the most popular programming languages and an established technology for enterprise development. However, despite this history and the role it played in the beginning of the Internet, Java is not always seen as an instrumental technology in the cloud. 

For our latest podcast episode, Bola Rotibi, Chief of Enterprise Research at CCS Insight, talks to Ian Robinson, Distinguished Engineer and Chief Technology Officer of the IBM Application Platform. Ian has more than 25 years of experience working in distributed enterprise computing and is responsible for the technical strategy of IBM Application Platform technologies including WebSphere, Liberty and Java. Clive Howard, Chief Technology Officer at Huozhi, a provider of a humanitarian fintech platform, and associate analyst with CCS Insight, also joined the podcast discussion. 

Our discussion touched on the importance of Java in the early days of the Internet and how this may translate to its place in the cloud, looking at some of the initiatives that IBM has put together to make the coding language relevant for cloud operations.  

The podcast also offers listeners strategic guidance on the topic, such as: 

• How to harness existing software development teams with specific skills and experience using Java in the transition to the cloud. 
• Finding opportunities to innovate and overcome the challenges facing Java's future in the cloud, such as taking advantage of the cloud to optimize existing workloads in Java. 
• The importance of these initiatives to leading technical roles from a business perspective, for example, reusing existing skills, teams and technologies to make the cloud more efficient and cheaper.