With its Visual J++ development environment and support for Java applets via its own virtual machine, Microsoft seeks to maintain OS dominance
Las Vegas (November 18, 1996) — Microsoft Corp. may not have the clearest vision for how to integrate Java into its overall strategy, but the company is certain of one thing: It wants to make Windows the best platform to run Java applications.
“Microsoft’s goal is to make sure that the best way to run Java is Windows,” said Charles Fitzgerald, program manager of Microsoft’s Internet Platform and Tools Division. “Java is very immature today and Microsoft plans to bring its knowledge of development environments and operating systems to make it a better language.”
Microsoft has a two-pronged Java strategy — its Visual J++ development environment and support for Java applets via its Java virtual machine embedded in Internet Explorer, Fitzgerald said. Visual J++ goes up against similar products from Symantec Corp. and Borland International Inc., as well as Java WorkShop from Java’s creator, Sun Microsystems Inc.
“We don’t see Java WorkShop as a competitive product. After all, no one’s buying it,” Fitzgerald said. Microsoft is confident it can draw the same amount of market share it has for its C++ product (about 50 percent) with its Java language product, Fitzgerald said.
But while Microsoft claims to be wholeheartedly supporting Java, even in conjunction with its own ActiveX technology, it is skeptical that Java-based applications will be strong enough to displace traditional applications written in other programming languages in the near future.
“There are maybe 3,000 Java applets available today, and most of those are flying coffee cups or spinning hippos,” Fitzgerald said. In contrast, there are thousands of applications written for Windows in C++ and Visual Basic, comprising “hundreds of billions of lines of code,” Fitzgerald said.
While Microsoft thinks Java applets run fastest on Windows and Internet Explorer because of its “highly-optimized Java virtual machine,” competitor Sun Microsystems is betting on its own JavaOS, Fitzgerald said. However, JavaOS runs only applications written in Java, while Windows runs the thousands of applications already available for Windows as well, Fitzgerald said.
“Microsoft is language-neutral,” Fitzgerald said.
Like many debates between Microsoft and the rest of the industry, the way the company will use Java to its fullest advantage comes down to the PC versus the NC.
“It is a pretty big bet to optimize a machine at the silicon level to run applications written in only one programming language,” Fitzgerald said of NCs based on the JavaOS. “Once NC developers write hundreds of millions of lines of code in Java, then we can begin to consider the NC on the same level as the PC.”
Earlier today, Microsoft announced that it will make its Java virtual machine, which enables a browser to run Java applets, available for Netscape Navigator.
