Nashville 04/24/96 — Java is busting out all over IBM. Nearly five months after inking a Java licensing deal with Sun Microsystems Inc., IBM is halfway towards embedding Java support in its four platforms. It is also working on building Java links to its legacy systems and integrating Java with its object technology, according to an official at IBM’s Technical Interchange here.
Much of the work is being done in Hursley Park, UK, site of the IBM Research Center for Java Technology Development. But the Java-jive is also happening company-wide at a fast pace, the official said, for one reason: The power of platform independence.
“What the industry needs is an open alternative to Windows-based, Microsoft solutions,” said Simon Phipps, IBM’s marketing manager for Java Technology, addressing an audience of developers for IBM platforms. “We think Java is the best bet for offering that on IBM platforms, and we’re deploying it everywhere that moves.”
IBM announced its port of Java to AIX Version 4.2 this week, Phipps said. Software developers at the show got a copy of IBM’s Java port to OS/2, and the Java virtual machine and class libraries will be embedded in Merlin when it is released later this year, Phipps said. It is also working on porting Java to Windows 3.1 by the end of the year — somewhat of a slip from their earlier published projections — but there is no firm date.
IBM also plans to port Java to its server platforms, the AS/400 and S/390, he said. IBM hopes to have a beta of Java for OS/400 by the fourth quarter of this year, Phipps said. An OS/400 implementation could be useful for a host of server-based applications, he said. For example, a datamining application could be written in Java and go gather information from mainframes, or AS/400s, or other platforms.
At Internet World next week, IBM will be demoing several new Java capabilities, Phipps said, including a version of its VisualAge application development product for Java and a CICS client for Java. IBM is also looking at developing a Java Database Connector (JDBC) to DB2, in conjunction with Sun’s work on a JDBC API for SQL, Phipps said. It is not ready to make any announcements on that, however, he said.
IBM is working on developing an equivalent to Joe, Sun’s CORBA-compliant middleware for linking Java applets with legacy applications, Phipps said. There is also work in progress on making Java useable in a SOM/OpenDoc framework, he said.
“Making objects that can be run anywhere is a very important development for object technology,” Phipps said. “Something like Java is absolutely imperative for a compound document view of the world.”
It is also working with Sun to improve Java’s support for other language sets, Phipps said.
For more information on IBM’s Java efforts, contact the development group in Hursley Park, UK. They can be found on the Web at http://ncc.hursley.ibm.com/javainfo, or via e-mail at java@hursley.ibm.com.
