Enterprise Java, Tate said, is in good shape.

Panelist Ari Zilka, president and CEO of Terracotta, said changes are needed in the Java Virtual Machine to accommodate lower-end applications. "There is a current gap at the low end for Java, but I think it will be filled by the community, by the people sitting here," Zilka said, referring to conference attendees.

Concurring about the prospect of innovation in Java, panelist Floyd Marinescu, who founded TheServerSide community, expressed optimism about both Ruby and Java.

"I think [Ruby on Rails] has a lot of promise," he said.

"Something will come up in the Java community to do it our way," Marinescu said.