Java Beans/OpenDOC interoperability is in the works, and Microsoft is hard pressed to deliver on its multiplatform, open claims for ActiveX
At NetWorld+Interop, held September 16-20 in Atlanta, GA, Sun Microsystems Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. announced a networking and multimedia alliance aimed at boosting each other’s fortunes in the intranet market.
The companies plan to improve the interoperability between Solaris servers and Macintosh clients, officials said. The OpenDoc compound document architecture developed by Apple and IBM will be made interoperable with JavaBeans, Sun’s model for building Java components. And Sun’s JavaMedia will be integrated with Apple’s QuickTime, so a Java applet on a Web page can run a QuickTime movie.
“[Users] will have a powerful and competitive alternative to the Wintel platform,” said George Scalise, Apple’s chief administrative officer, during the announcement at NetWorld+Interop.
The companies plan to set up an interoperability lab to make sure that their technologies mesh well, officials said. Also as part of the alliance, Sun and Apple will work together to boost support for mediaLib, an interface to multimedia-capable processors.
Sun’s chief technical officer Eric Schmidt said he had been personally pushing very hard for the alliance, because he has admired Apple’s technology for a long time.
The OpenDoc/Java Beans interoperability plans are a boon for OpenDoc, which has been struggling to gain developer support, one analyst said. They are also a boost for Java, helping it counter Microsoft Corp.’s ActiveX specification for writing applets, he said.
Microsoft pitches ActiveX as a platform for development, while it sees Java as “just a language,” said Daryl Plummer, research director for application development tools and technologies at the Gartner Group in Atlanta. “This announcement firmly puts Java in the [ActiveX] competition arena,” Plummer said.
ActiveX has functionality, said Ellen Hancock, Apple’s chief technology officer. “But it has not yet answered the multiplatform, open standards questions that my customers are asking,” Hancock said.
No date has been set for final delivery of the integrated offerings, officials said. But Sun and Apple are demonstrating some of their integration efforts at the show, including Java Management Application Programming Interface (JMAPI) desktop control functions running on a Macintosh, and Solaris servers distributing Apple multimedia across a network to different types of clients.
To improve Solaris/Mac interoperability, Sun and Apple plan to bundle the Apple File Protocol with every Solaris server, so Macintoshes can be fully managed by SunSoft Inc.’s Solstice management package, officials said. Sun and Apple also plan to develop a common security architecture, and give Mac clients access to Web applications via Sun’s WebNFS, among other enhancements.
