No, "Javagator" is not featured in Spielberg's <em>Lost World</em>
San Mateo (09/01/97) — The promise of an all-Java computing environment grew larger if not later last week when Sun Microsystems Inc. and Netscape Communications Corp. said they would jointly deliver an all-Java Web browser next year and provide immediate support for Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.1 in Navigator 4.0.
Dubbed Javagator, the 100% Pure Java browser, coming next year, will use Sun’s HotJava as its core, even though the current version of the HotJava browser does not yet pass the 100% Pure Java test, a Sun product manager said.
Sun and Netscape both need a pure Java browser to fulfill the promise of their low-cost-of-ownership, Java-based, thin-client plans. Such clients, or network computers, will include Javagator to access applets and HTML-based data on corporate networks, and a Java virtual machine (JVM).
The work to produce Javagator will coincide with other joint work between Netscape, Sun, and IBM at a new Java Porting and Tuning Center, in Cupertino, CA. The center, announced last week at the Java Internet Business Expo, in New York, will work to fine-tune the JDK 1.1 and to finish developing JDK 1.2, when the center opens for business this fall.
Sun and Netscape also are at work on a common HTML JavaBean that will render HTML pages on any computer with a JVM in the same way.
Javagator will form the browsing element for Sun’s WebTop client package when it appears in final form in March ’98, said Carole Amos, product line manager for Java applications at Sun’s JavaSoft unit, in Mountain View, CA. The WebTop client will be joined by a WebTop Server sometime next year.
“A lot of people will want a browser to just run on thin Java devices with most linking done in the server,” said Amos. “Javagator will be a component of WebTop because browsing outside the server on the Web or extranets will also be necessary.”
JavaSoft’s HotJava Views browser running on a Sun JavaStation, for example, cannot browse the Web beyond the server it is connected to. An upgraded version, now in beta testing, will be able to browse the Web, but it will not be a 100% Pure Java product, said Colleen Sullivan, a JavaSoft product manager. That’s where Javagator will come in handy.
Although well hyped for the enterprise, the basic building blocks, such as a pure browser and a mature JDK, appear many months off.
“How quickly do developers get meaningful code, and how are they going to do heavy lifting?” asked Tim Sloane, an analyst at the Aberdeen Group, in Boston.
Potential customers don’t seem too fazed that they may have to wait until the end of next year to leverage Java as a platform.
“For our external clients, any Java-compliant browser is fine,” said Win Cody, CIO of The Copeland, a unit of The Travelers Group. “In our intranet we’re still using green screens. We want to take the Java thin-client model to replace these.”
Cody estimated that some 75 percent of the desktops in his company could become Java thin clients.
Microsoft derided the notion of a 100% Pure Java browser, saying it would suffer serious performance and functionality problems and would not live up to its cross-platform billing.
Sun, in Mountain View, CA, can be contacted through the Web site at https://www.sun.com. Netscape, in Mountain View, CA, has its site at https://home.netscape.com.
