James Gosling, the Father of Java, Joins Amazon Web Services | ExtraSlice

By Tian DuBelko

Amazon Web Services is teaming up with James Gosling, the father of Java.

Gosling announced on Facebook that he will be “starting a new Adventure” with the cloud computing giant as a distinguished engineer. He had been Chief Software Architect at Liquid Robotics, a position that he’d held for the past six years.

While Gosling didn’t disclose what role he’d have at AWS, a company representative did confirm his addition to Amazon’s team. AWS has already added illustrious techies like Adrian Cockroft, Swami Sivasubramanian, and Werner Vogels.

Gosling, himself a renowned computer scientist, spearheaded the development of Java at while working at Sun Microsystems. During his 26 years there, Gosling rose from engineer to chief technology officer. After Oracle acquired Sun along with the Java franchise, Gosling spent six months with Google before joining Liquid Robotics.

Gosling was largely responsible for the creation of Java, one of the most popular programming languages used today. That’s why he is seen as an expert on the subject by many corporate tech CEOS. Many of those CEOs are now debating if they should transfer software from their own data storages to a public cloud such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform, or Microsoft.

Adding Gosling to its roster lends AWS more credibility in the tech world. This will make it easier for AWS to convince companies to move software and data from their own data facilities into Amazon’s centers. Through a public cloud, Amazon aggregate huge amounts of storage, networking, and computer gear that customers share in.

“You get cloud providers like Amazon saying: ‘Take your applications and move them to the cloud,’” Gosling said at last year’s IP EXPO Europe. “But as soon as you start using them you’re stuck in that particular cloud. You have to be sure that all your customers will be OK with the terms of service of the cloud provider you choose.”