JavaOne: Java industry comes into its own

San Francisco — One year after Sun Microsystems launched its Java object-oriented programming language, Java has spawned a new industry that came into its own at the first JavaOne Developer Conference in San Francisco in late May.

Bigger than the Microsoft Developer Conference, according to one organizer, JavaOne lured 6,000 attendees and 168 exhibitors for its three-day schedule of announcements, speeches, and sessions.

And companies are lining up to license Java and the new JavaOS for everything from PCs and World Wide Web applications, to Internet appliances and intranet applications, both of which are concepts that were born in the past year.

James Gosling, senior fellow at JavaSoft, Sun’s subsidiary, gave a state-of-the-technology address during his opening keynote, saying Java isn’t just for Web development anymore. Java can be used for “doing more than just applets,” he said. “[With] the actual base technology itself, you can do just about anything.”

A score of announcements gives an indication of the intensity of interest in Java, including ones related to electronic commerce.

• Targeted at Java developers is Gamelan Direct, a Web service that will be open for business during the first week of July. The site will allow buyers to purchase Java applets, class libraries, and other software with credit cards and receive that software over the Internet or through regular mail. The site was started by EarthWeb, based in New York.

• For companies looking to sell anything else online, NetConsult Communications announced Intershop Online. The package includes a Sybase SQL database server and Java-based tools that will link their databases and accounting systems with a company’s Web site. Priced at ,000 for Windows NT systems and ,000 for Unix systems, version 1.0 is due in July in English and German, followed by French and Spanish. The software adheres to U.S. and European online commerce regulations. NetConsult is based in Jena, Germany.

• IBM unveiled its OpenDoc-based Arabica technology, which will enable developers to have diverse Java applications to interoperate and connect Internet applications to enterprise transaction systems and databases. IBM will begin beta testing Arabica in the fourth quarter.

  Also, IBM announced that users of IBM’s infoMarket service will be able to open Internet material secured by Cryptolope technology on any Java-enabled platform and that it is embedding the Just-in-Time compiler in its OS/2 and AIX operating systems, followed by MVS and OS/400.

• Borland International’s InterClient for the InterBase SQL database server, written entirely in Java, will allow companies to distribute applications via the Web and perform transaction processing.

• Netscape Communications’ Navigator 3.0 client for Windows 3.1 will be released in beta in June. It includes LiveConnect technology that will allow objects on a Web page to interact. A LiveConnect software developer kit will be available, as well as a pre-release version of Java user interface component and application programming interfaces.

• SunSoft, another Sun subsidiary, launched Solstice WorkShop, a developer tool kit that offers Java-powered objects and tools for building applets that manage the enterprise network over intranets.

• Mitsubishi Electronics America’s Electronic Device Group demonstrated its M32R/D multimedia processor which integrates two megabytes of dynamic RAM and two kilobytes of static RAM on a 32-bit RISC processor, as well as a memory controller and peripheral circuits.

• Justsystem developed its Ichitaro word-processing software for Java. Justsystem is based in Japan.

• Bulletproof announced JDesignerPro, an application for developing intranets with Java.

• Wyse Technology will port JavaOS into its 00 Terminal 2000-based Winterm devices in the second half of this year.

• Dimension X will release in late June a Macintosh version of Liquid Motion for 2-D Java application development, as well as a developer’s tool kit for Liquid Reality, which has VRML 2.0 support. A beta version of Liquid Reality will be available on Windows 95, Windows NT, Macintosh, Pippin, Solaris, and Linux in June.

• Penumbra Software’s Mojo development environment allows users to drag and drop components into its Designer interface and organize and access them using Coder software. Mojo version 1.0 will be released by the end of June. Priced at about 00, it will run on Windows 95 or Windows NT.

• Rogue Wave Software introduced a suite of Java language products, including JDBTools 1.0, a Java language API for database access; JTools 1.0, a class library with data structures and text and numeric formatting objects; and JFactory 1.1, the latest release of the company’s GUI builder for Java. The products will support Windows and Unix platforms, and JFactory 1.1 also runs on OS/2. JDBTools will be available July 15. Jtools 1.0 will be available July 30, and Jfactory 1.1 will be available July 23. Pricing has not been established.

• The Object Database Management Group will deliver a specification for Java in September with a final version to be published in 1997.

• Lucent Technologies has teamed up with Sun to develop specifications intended to enable integration of the Internet and telephony technology using Sun’s Java language.

  The Java telephony object specification allows software developers to write applications that jointly manage voice and data connections. Using this specification, applications will be able to integrate World Wide Web applications with existing call-control software, including applications compatible with Novell Inc.’s Telephony Services API (TSAPI) and Microsoft Corp.’s Telephony API (TAPI). Applications based on the specification will allow users to make analog voice calls and manage conference calls while browsing the Internet.

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