Network computers and Internet appliances hold great promise for the world at large -- and for Java in particular
Blundon’s Third Law of High Technology Marketing describes the three phases vendors of existing products go through when a new technology enters their marketplace. These players aggressively promote the following messages, in order:
Don’t worry about the new technology — it isn’t important
Don’t worry about the new technology — we will incorporate it in our own products
- We invented the new technology
Usually there is a direct correlation between these phases and the three “products” companies sell during a period of rapid technological change:
Slideware
Demoware
- Hardware or software
If you have followed Oracle’s pronouncements on object technology over the last few years, you are familiar with the three-pronged pattern. That company clearly is in phase three (“We invented the new technology”) — at least in their product marketing.
What does all this have to do with Network Computers (NCs) and WebTV? Well, those of you who believe there is no future for these devices should note that Microsoft and Intel are already at step two (“We’ll incorporate it.”) in the above sequence, and with the NetworkPC, they are moving rapidly to the “invention” phase.
Let your fingers do the walking?
When Microsoft coined its rallying cry, “Information at your fingertips,” we were all encouraged to envision a world of personal computers linked to one another and to a wide range of information repositories. Intel would provide the basic hardware components and Microsoft the software and content. The software components were to be Windows NT, Office, BackOffice, and The Microsoft Network and Exchange — all integrated into a seamless computing experience with content coming from a wide range of online services, and through strategic relationships with media giants.
This world of instant access to information has arrived. Unfortunately for Microsoft, it is called the World Wide Web. This Web version of “Information at your fingertips” has become an almost instant reality, but it poses a new question: What do your fingertips use to access this information? Clearly, Microsoft and Intel would like the answer to be a traditional personal computer running Windows, but new and more accessible options are appearing everywhere.
A call for Internet omnipresence
Wei Yen, CEO of Navio Communications (Netscape’s joint venture with Sony, Nintendo, and five other electronics companies) has an updated rallying cry. “For the consumer,” he says, “the Internet should really be like electricity.”
How true. In the networked world of the Internet, information and services are everywhere and available for download to remote systems. Information can exist in the form of static documents, images, audio, and video. Services can be dynamic, in the form of database transactions or entire software applications.
This distributed environment creates a whole new design center for computing. Traditional mainframe software assumes a terminal at the end of a wire, and client/server applications expect there to be personal computers on a local area network. But in hardware terms, what if the client is a browser and the server is somewhere in the great maze that is the Internet?
The result is that client hardware can be anything — well, anything that can render a few basic content types like HTML, GIF, and JPEG. The nature of the client, its cost, resources, and capabilities are variables that are unique to each specific purpose or use. In the case of applications that are highly transactional or repetitive, there is no need to store much information or perform much computing (beyond rendering) on the client. In fact, with applications that are entirely transactional, there is no need for local storage beyond the requirements of display and network caching.
This new “design center” has fostered a rash of innovation. Three types of appliances in particular — WebTV, the network computer, and the NetworkPC — warrant some additional discussion.
But first, let’s look at how Java ties into this new computing paradigm.
Java and Cinderella’s glass slipper: A perfect fit
The Network Computing Reference Profile Version 1 defines a standard client environment for network computing. Java figures prominently as the working environment for applications due to its cross platform capabilities — and because of its unique ability to produce both fast, compact applets and sophisticated applications software. Complete Java applications will be available for download and execution on the diverse chip sets found in the NC clients that are currently in design or production.
These clients will maintain an integral operating system but will rely on a Java virtual machine to execute network applications. Most analysts forecast relatively few native applications; the majority will be downloaded dynamically from the network. This may be a self-fulfilling prophecy since the NC specification does not mandate a local disk. NC vendors are relying, perhaps optimistically, on an adequate supply of third-party applications published by independent software vendors.
Since the NC standard does not mandate a specific CPU or motherboard, it can accommodate multiple implementations by different computer vendors. In development are CPUs based on the Intel X86 family, PowerPC, and Intel 80960. The NC also is creating a market for completely new chips, such as Sun’s picoJava.
People with a long memory and no sense of humor may try to equate the NC with Sun’s diskless workstations of the 1980s. These computers and the X terminal proved to be too slow for most users. They also created a tremendous aftermarket for add-on disks and network servers. Comparisons between these workstations and NCs are inevitable but unfair. The NC is not a diskless workstation. It is a true network device for modern networks that support distributed computing. Their target user is also different. Where workstations were designed for engineers doing heavy computational and disk intensive work, the NC is designed for the less demanding computing work of office workers.
Variations on a theme
The NetworkPC is Microsoft’s hasty response to the NC. It is based on an Intel design that requires a 486 or Pentium CPU and an operating system based on Windows 95. It is, in short, a personal computer. Dell, Gateway, and Compaq are supporting the NetworkPC — at least in the press. Compaq and others, however, also have a new strategy and are trying to drive down the price of their standard personal computer lines to break the magic ,000 price point. Compaq’s Presario 2000 does so (well, without a monitor) and does not require a network for operation. Good luck to the NetworkPC.
While the computer industry rushes products to market, television and electronic game makers have entered the network appliance fray. Mitsubishi is using Spyglass technology for an Internet-enabled television, and even Sega is using a browser from Planet Web as an add on to its Saturn gaming products. The first and perhaps most exciting of these new players is WebTV. Its eponymous WebTV products include a browser designed for Web illiterates and optimized for the National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) format. Most observers predict a slow adoption rate for Internet televisions, but eventually they will take the Internet to the world at large.
AT&T, Nokia, and others are developing Internet-ready telephones that use alphanumeric browsers to provide instant network access to telephone directories as well as more sophisticated applications. New versions of these ‘Net phones are designed to run a Java virtual machine, opening up the world of the telephone to limitless possibilities.
“Java at your fingertips”
What do all these devices share beyond a basic browser? Java. While JavaSoft’s slogan “Write once, use anywhere” ultimately may become a debatable proposition on the server, increasingly it rings true on the client. Both the NC and the NetworkPC will be Java-enabled through use of a Netscape or Microsoft browser, and WebTV recently announced its intent to license Java for its set top boxes.
Microsoft is actively licensing its Windows CE product for handheld devices, but so far it has provided little competition for the avalanche of Java-enabled clients. ActiveX will continue to be a major player on personal computers and on the corporate intranet. But Java has the chance to dominate on nearly all the new consumer products designed for the Internet.
Wei Yen is right: Internet access should be as automatic as electricity. More than 90 percent of the people in the world do not have access to a computer. Many who do have access still find computers intimidating. Yet, telephones, televisions, and electronic games are everywhere. Can the Internet and Java be far behind? In 1997, it seems that everyone is in that phase three listed above. Let’s face it, if Alexander Graham Bell were alive today, he, too, would claim to have invented Java.
