Java's the News at JIBE

September 1997

JIBE, the Java Internet Business Expo, was (in spite of Microsoft's contrary comments) a huge success. Don't do that by counting noses (although 16,000 attended the conference); look at five packed keynotes and countless conference sessions and tutorials, where everyone was busily taking notes, asking questions, and trading war stories. Even a ride on the shuttle bus leads to note-taking, card exchanges, and follow up emails. We try to figure out what it means

Java: A Status Report

The big news at JIBE was how big and noisy Java is and where the focus is; we were surprised!

We're not sure we agree with George Gilder that Java is a tsunami (tidal wave), but we do think it's one of the Next Big Things. That means some vendors like Lotus and IBM who were in early are in leadership positions in this market.

The "New" Java Alliance

The NOISE boys (Novell, Oracle, IBM, Sun, Everybody but Microsoft) were already Java's backers before the JIBE conference, but JIBE made it clear that the partnership between Sun, IBM, and Netscape was growing stronger over time -- much stronger. Proof of this is a series of announcements in support of Java -- and Microsoft's interesting need to discount it all.

IBM, Netscape, and Sun have together established a Java Porting and Tuning Center, housed at Sun's JavaSoft division in Cupertino, CA, to work on speeding Java performance and ensuring the timely, consistent delivery of Java implementations. It will be funded and staffed by all three companies. Other companies in the Java community are expected to join. Will that include Microsoft? No one knows.

Netscape is creating a 100% pure Java version of Navigator to be available by early 1998, which will incorporate Sun's Hot Java (browser) technology. This product will run on the JavaStation and any other platform with a Java Virtual Machine. This will permit vendors with network computers (like IBM) to have a Java browser for the platform and software component vendors like Lotus to have a Java browser for their Java components suites. Sun and IBM intend to use the Netscape Java browser for NC's. In turn, Sun, will include the Netscape HTML rendering component, a Java Bean, in the JDK.

Netscape has unbundled Navigator 4.0 from Communicator. Basically this means Lotus and IBM played hardball and Netscape gave in, realizing that Lotus would indeed ship only Microsoft IE instead of Netscape Navigator, if necessary. Now Lotus will be back to shipping both, preserving customer choice.

PersonalJava is intended to let information device manufacturers build Java-based appliances. At JIBE, Sun announced that three consumer telephony vendors, Alcatel, Nortel, and Samsung were stepping up to the plate, with webphones to connect users to the internet and to a variety of web-based services. All are expected to be shipping by 1998. You should expect many more vendors -- and lots of imaginative products, especially in the small, mobile, and specialized categories. (Expect a round of Microsoft Partners with Windows/CE devices, too.)

IBM was at JIBE to discuss San Francisco, an IBM-led coalition to bring AS/400 applications to new platforms.

San Francisco offers a layer on top of Java to provide services-layer extensions which are not yet present in Java; over time they will be pushed into the JDK. Frameworks are being built for applications, starting with General Ledger (now available), Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and others (by contractors paid by IBM); ISV's can license these frameworks, complete the application and then sell it, paying a royalty to IBM; the goal is software not revenues.

Is Java a sure thing? Nothing’s sure but Java looks more certain than ever.


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Entire contents © 1997 by Amy D. Wohl. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden.