At the Java Education World Tour, 4-company team is showcased -- but Microsoft is the subtext
San Francisco (February 24, 1997) — The Java Education World Tour kicked off here Friday with IBM Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., Netscape Communications Corp., and Novell Inc. teaming to evangelize the potential of Java while taking steps to make sure Java-based products enter the market “pure.”
The companies have formed a “Team Java” for a 40-city tour and on at least some fronts set aside their competitive relations to do battle with Microsoft for the hearts and minds of developers.
The true goal of the Java coalition, however, is nothing less than to transform computing by making the standard-bearing Microsoft Windows-based PC obsolete. A Java-based world where developers write their programs once in Java to run everywhere — from smart cards to supercomputers — is the recipe for this transformation, they said.
“Java is going to unlock the value of network computing,” said John M. Thompson, head of IBM’s software efforts. “And network computing is going to fundamentally change the way we live, just as things like the light bulb and the automobile did.”
For the first time, IBM — which has been perceived by some to be an active but quiet supporter of Java technology — stood front and center with Sun, which owns and licenses Java, and staunch Java supporter Netscape. Thompson took the prominent role of delivering the first of three brief keynote presentations that kicked off the seminar held on a pier over San Francisco Bay.
Thompson went on to tell the crowd that despite Java’s relative youth as a programming language, it is now beginning to be deployed in mission-critical areas.
“Java’s very, very young,” he said. “But there are a number of prime-time examples of Java deployments.” Thompson listed a Belgian bank, the Charles Schwab stock brokerage house, and manufacturer John Deere as examples of early users of such Java applications.
The message was clear: IBM is implementing Java across its myriad product lines, has high hopes for the network computer/Java paradigm, and will go to great lengths to convince developers to learn and produce in Java. “1997 is the year Java applications roll out big-time,” Thompson concluded.
“It makes sense for Java, since IBM is a company that can go places and do things smaller companies like Netscape could never do,” said Clay Ryder, industry analyst with the Redwood City, CA-based Zona Research. “IBM is in everything from software to the back-end hardware.”
Leaders of the usual Team Java members also addressed the crowd of several hundred developers who paid 9 to attend the all-day seminar.
Intoning the Java mantra, “Write once, run anywhere,” Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale once again highlighted the potential for Java to address a long-term headache facing developers.
“We’ve been dreaming of doing this for years in the computer industry,” he said of Java’s cross-platform capabilities. He also pledged to work with Sun and its JavaSoft division to keep Java “pure” so that cross-platform potential can be realized.
Sun has developed an initiative called “100% Pure Java” so that consumers can be sure that applications labeled as Java will run on their computers and not be geared specifically at some operating systems or environments.
“Either you adhere to the architecture and it’s Java, or you deviate and it’s Windows,” said Sun CEO Scott McNealy after his presentation.
Notably absent from the Java world tour was Microsoft, which is a licensee of Java. “It’s kind surprising to be up here with IBM,” said McNealy. “And you’ll notice that there’s one company that’s kind of missing.”
“I’ll represent Microsoft,” McNealy joked with the crowd, and then proceeded to read a tongue-in-cheek “Top Ten List” of “reasons you would want to download an ActiveX control from the Internet.”
McNealy said that Microsoft’s ActiveX technology is inherently unsecure compared to Java, which employs a “sandbox” approach to contain viruses or other undesirable code from entering a client via a Java applet.
“ActiveX is incredibly different. You can’t do in ActiveX what you can do in Java,” said McNealy, who spurred on Java developers by telling the audience that Java breaks Microsoft’s Windows dominance.
“All of a sudden, no one company is in control,” he said. “We’re going to make sure that people hear about Java as an alternative to other environments.”
When Barksdale, McNealy, and Thompson were asked about Microsoft’s Java efforts, each noted that Microsoft was developing both 100 percent compatible Java and a version that is optimized for Windows. Again, Thompson took the lead in how this situation might be resolved.
“I think they have a foot in each camp, and haven’t made up their mind on which way to go with Java,” Thompson said of Microsoft.
Then Thompson indicated he would make an outreach effort to Microsoft. “I’ll encourage them to develop fully compatible Java,” he said. “I’ll try and work with them.”
