Sun's Jonathan Schwartz wrote an interesting essay on how Sun plans to monetize Java. He discusses how in the late 19th century railway gauges had been standardized, and how this basically started the locomotives and rail cars manufacturing business, which again helped the transportation business grow.
The parallels to the IT industry? Well, Schwartz does not share the believe that software or hardware products will become commodities. Internet bandwidth (and, if you ask me, computing power) will. And Sun wants to sell you the locomotives for the network.
To make that work, standardization is the key. Java, web services and the Internet Protocol.