How Sun plans to guarantee Java's ubiquity through a branding initiative, plus highlights of the show's product announcements
New York — In conjunction with Apple Computer, IBM Corp., Netscape Communications Corp., and Oracle Corp., along with the explicit backing of over 100 independent software development firms, Sun Microsystems yesterday unveiled its new “100% Pure Java” program. The announcement, held on the first day of Mecklermedia’s busy Fall Internet World show, came in a caffeine burst of corporate partnering apparently brought on by recent moves from Microsoft Corp. to undermine the integrity of Sun’s heretofore open Java development specifications.
Spokespersons for the major participants admitted that the agreement to support the new branding initiative was finalized only in the last few days. The 100% Pure Java program consists of three major thrusts: a certification suite to evaluate the compliance of new software to the authentic Java standard; a global educational campaign to inform developers of the benefits of Java technology; and a marketing effort, already underway at IBM, to promote Java worldwide.
The 100% Pure Java announcement comes just weeks after Microsoft announced plans at Fall Comdex, according to “PC Week,” to release a Windows native-code compiler for Java and to rebrand the Win32 Java Virtual Machine as the Microsoft Virtual Machine. The reported move by Microsoft would potentially open the door for competing specifications for Java. Since the Comdex announcement, both Sun and Microsoft have been circumspect in their statements regarding the relationship of their one-year-old licensing agreement for Java. In an unsual move, JavaSoft president Alan Baratz and Microsoft senior vice president Brad Silverberg co-authored an open letter to “PC Week” stating that: “Microsoft is committed to full compatibility with the Java programming language and virtual machine.”
“Microsoft has done exactly what they were licensed to do, which is to build a great implementation of the Java platform for the Win32 environment,” said Baratz yesterday. “We licensed them to do that, just as we licensed IBM and Apple and Novell and on and on to build their own implementations of Java for their own operating environments. But that is all they [Microsoft] were licensed to do. They committed, like all of our other licensees, to remain compatible. And they have reconfirmed their intention to do so.”
Purity of purpose
According to Sun, the 100% Pure Java initiative will provide the following services:
An industry education campaign centered around the Java Education World Tour 97, which will kick off in February with seminars to be conducted throughout the new year in over 40 cities in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Rim.
A testing and certification process (scheduled for finalization in the first quarter of 1997) to ensure that software vendors using the Java Developers Kit (JDK) build compatible implementations of new applications.
A 100% Pure Java logo for inclusion in new product presentation and marketing materials.
Web site exposure through the “100% Pure Java Hall of Fame” network. Availability of co-marketing funds for selected software vendors (details of which will be announced at JavaOne in April). And a suite of services for technical and marketing updates.
“The [compatibility] test for application developers will be very simple,” said Baratz. “Not the 5,000 individual tests that were reported in one major newspaper this morning, but a single, simple test that you run your application through. And if you pass that test, you are entitled to use the 100% Pure Java logo on your application package — along with marketing, branding, cooperative advertising, and cooperative merchandising support. The 5,000-criteria test mentioned in the newspaper applies to operating system providers, who are all now licensed and have all committed to passing the Java-compatibility test suite before delivering their platforms into the marketplace.”
When asked why Microsoft was not in attendance at yesterday’s press conference, Baratz said: “Microsoft was invited to participate in today’s announcement. Their reaction was, ‘OK, Alan, if we understand the program correctly, we assume that if we submit applications that are certified as 100% pure that we can get the branding just like anybody else.’ To which I responded, ‘Of course.’ Then their reaction was, ‘OK, well, that’s probably all that’s important for us, so we’ll discuss it internally and get back to you.’ And that was the last conversation I had with Microsoft.” He admitted that a number of other companies were also unable to attend the announcement due to short notice.
Representatives of the four principle partners in the announcement — Andy Lauta, Apple’s AppleNet product marketing director, Patricia Sueltz, IBM’s Internet software vice president, Danny Shader, Netscape’s industry and developer relations vice president, and Beatriz Infante, Oracle’s media and Internet products senior vice president, all of whom spoke yesterday on behalf of their companies’ complete support for the new initiative — each readily agreed that the speed at which the kickoff to the 100% Pure Java campaign had been put together was remarkable.
“We just learned about this over the weekend,” said IBM’s Sueltz. “So we made our decision and got things to happen very quickly.”
“This is Internet time, after all,” Baratz added.
Netscape IFCs will be pure
Sun and Netscape also announced at yesterday’s press conference that the new Netscape Windowing Internet Foundation Classes (IFCs), available now, have been designated as a GUI environment capable of building 100% Pure Java applications. The Netscape Windowing IFCs, written entirely in Java, offer enhanced GUI functionality to developers writing Java applications. According to the companies, software developers can now choose to use either the Java AWT, with its native look and feel, or the Windowing IFCs, which will be submitted for testing and certification by JavaSoft upon finalization of the 100% Pure Java test suite. As recently as even yesterday, Netscape had been described in the mainstream press of using proprietary extensions in its development software to create specialized versions of applications that run more efficiently in its own operating environment — the same charge that has been levelled against Microsoft.
“Clearly, it is in our strategic best interests to make sure that we’re all aligned, and that’s why we are working so hard to make sure that this happens,” stated Netscape’s Shader. “But particularly, the IFCs are written on top of Java. They are pure Java classes. So they are architected to make sure that they pass certification. We are 100% backers of 100% Pure Java.”
All the news that fits
There were several other noteworthy announcements to be found in Sun’s hefty press kit for Internet World.
According to JavaSoft, the beta version of the JavaBeans Development Kit (BDK) will be released on December 16. The BDK will enable developers to immediately begin creating Java-based components. The BDK beta (available at http://java.sun.com/beans/) will include: a reference implementation of the JavaBeans API; the BeanBox, which is a reference text container that allows developers to test the JavaBeans they develop; twelve sample JavaBeans that can be run in the BeanBox; and early documentation that includes reference source code and tutorial information. JavaBeans will run seamlessly inside Microsoft ActiveX containers and Netscape LiveConnect containers, according to the Sun business unit.
JavaSoft also unveiled two important API initiatives yesterday: Java Transaction Services, part of the Java Enterprise API family; and Java Speech, a new member of the Java Media API family. In addition, JavaSoft announced that the Java Media Framework API specification (for the playback, capturing, and conferencing of timed media) will be released on January 15.
The Java Web Server, the Java NC Server, and the Java Server Toolkit also made their debut at Internet World. The Java Web Server (available now as an early access release at http://java.sun.com/java-server/) is a one-stop, platform-independent, enterprise Web technology that supports the Java Servlet API, a full-featured alternative to CGI. The Java NC Server will support the JavaOS and HotJava Views, Sun’s new webtop productivity environment. And the Java Server Toolkit is designed for developers building customized servers in Java.
In addition, Sun yesterday announced the immediate availability of two high-performance Java Just-In-Time (JIT) development technologies: a beta JIT compiler for the Solaris SPARC platform and the JIT Validation Test Suite (both downloadable at http://www.sun.com/workshop/java/jit/).
The JDK 1.1 beta became available for downloading on December 9 (at http://java.sun.com/). The upgraded JDK includes new versions of the Java VM, Java class libraries, and Java development tools. It also incorporates support for developing and deploying applications in international languages, as well as “major enhancements” to the AWT.
And finally, prior to Internet World, Sun announced the availability of its Java Commerce Toolkit, a comprehensive set of technologies for creating open, secure, and integrated electronic commerce applications. The Java Commerce Toolkit (downloadable for review at http://java.sun.com/commerce/) consists of: Java Wallet, an interface for financial transactions; Java “cassettes,” which represent payment instruments, such as credit cards; a Java “shopping cart,” a purchasing applet; and sample code and documentation.
Coffee for everyone
Sun’s Java Pavilion at Internet World boasted no less than 56 independent software vendors barking for their trade. They had to, for two endlessly in-demand cappucino makers stood nearby and, at the height of opening day, the crowd packed into the special-event area only slightly less hazardously than a New York City subway. Every vendor was limited to one machine and three feet of space, which made for one of the most chaotically pleasant experiences of the show.
In contrast to the hyperactivity of the Java Pavilion, opening day at Internet World was Java Day, which was a studious affair. Sponsored by JavaSoft, the daylong agenda of seminars attracted some of the finest minds in the Java development arena. James Gosling, JavaSoft’s chief science officer opened the proceedings with an appraisal of “The State of Java.”
Speaking on the question of perceived latency in Java application performance, Gosling was as unperturbed and optimistic as ever: “Take a look at the Alpha chip, one of the most finely tuned chips around. The thing screams. But it’s so finely tuned that the number of applications running on it is virtually nill. For Java, we wanted something that would run everywhere. So there definitely are initial performance issues. But if you look at the progress being made on things like JIT compilers, the Java OS, and the virtual machine, you can see that these problems are being addressed pretty aggressively.”
Gosling’s talk was followed by a panel discussion on “Java in the Real World,” attended by representatives from ICon CMT Corp., D.H. Brown Assoc., EarthWeb plc, GEAC, and NEON. In the afternoon, two roundtables, one for developers (comprised of speakers from Aimtech Corp., Borland International, Marimba, Sun, and Symantec Corp.) and one for corporate partners (including IBM, Netscape, Oracle, and Wyse Technology representatives), discussed the latest trends in Java before audiences in the hundreds. Dozens of issues were discussed, but one speaker in particular left a significant impression on his listeners with a simple anecdote.
“I made a presentation last week to some very distinguished people at CIA and the National Security Council, folks who are at least mildly concerned with security issues,” said Lee Love, director of strategic marketing at Netscape. “And what I found was that even the CIA guys — after I had talked about all of these issues going on in the business world — said ‘this is exactly the stuff we’re going through ourselves’. They no longer are looking to build their own apps. They’re looking to customize off-the-shelf stuff. And believe it or not, Java was what seemed to be the most appealing to them.”
