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JavaOne: Java industry comes into its own
Vendors show off numerous Java-based products
By Elinor Mills & Kristi Essick, IDG News Service
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San Francisco -- One year after Sun Microsystems launched its
Java object-oriented programming language, Java has spawned a new
industry that came into its 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," he said.
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 Gamelon 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 $5,000 for Windows NT systems and $8,000 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.
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- 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 2 megabytes of dynamic RAM and 2 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 its
$500 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 $500,
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.
--Elinor Mills & Kristi Essick, IDG News Service
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