June 15, 1999 5:02 AM PT
URL: zdnet.com
Updated at 12:30 PM PT
SAN FRANCISCO -- Java has arrived on the Palm hand-held, which may give corporations a reason to start building them into applications.
Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq:SUNW) and 3Com Corp. (Nasdaq:COMS) used the opening of the JavaOne developers conference here today to introduce Sun's Java programming platform on the Palm V hand-held. The Palm is the best-selling handheld device in the market right now.
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Riding the MS Java bandwagon
"3Com has to do this if it wants to get into corporations," said Diana Hwang, an analyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass. Hwang said that corporations are just starting to look at ways to develop applications for handheld devices, and supporting Java broadens the potential market for the Palm.
Since Java was first launched in 1995, Sun has touted it as a language that developers can use to write an application once that will run most kinds of computer systems.
Hwang noted that 3Com rival Psion PLC has already built support for Java into its handhelds, and Windows CE also supports Microsoft's Java virtual machine.
Extending outside the corporation
So far, though, while Sun has announced many deals for Java-based consumer wireless devices or set-top boxes with companies like Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT) and set-top box makers, Java is mostly being used in corporate computing as the glue to connect many diverse computing systems.
"We have not had any implementation of Java on Palm Computing devices or other wireless devices like cell phones or two-way pagers," said Alan Baratz, now president of Sun's software products. "We needed a smaller version of the Java platform that fit into a smaller device." A common complaint among Sun developers is that Java is too big and memory-intensive for designing applications for smaller devices. Indeed, Donna Dubinsky, who ran Palm before leaving to become president and CEO of Handspring, which makes Palm applications, said that Java hadn't made sense when she was at Palm.
Now, though, "The advantage of Java is that enterprise developers like it. They like the idea that making a common set of applications," said Donna Dubinsky, CEO and president of Handspring, a Palm developer. Dubinsky said with Java on the Palm, companies can "stop thinking about Java as a language working on the Web, and instead look at it as a way to move data over the network."
She said companies might now use Palms with Java applets for their sales forces, though it is still unclear that Java will be the right path for that.
At JavaOne in March 1997, Sun launched a version of Java that was supposed to answer those needs, called Personal Java, targeted to the developers of applications for network computers, smart telephones and television set-top boxes.
Baratz said Personal Java, which he said was designed for stand-alone computing, would now be incorporated into industry-specific profiles that can be used in Java 2 Micro Edition -- for example, a version for a set-top box maker.
Sun, based in Palo Alto, Calif., said a beta version could be downloaded onto a Palm Pilot starting on Tuesday and Java would be integrated into the next version of the Palm device.
Sun serves Java on Palm
Meanwhile, as Sun is touting a new version of Java to developers of applications for wireless devices, it will also announce a Java package aimed at developers of big corporate applications, called Java 2 Enterprise Edition. Baratz said examples of companies using Java to develop hefty corporate computing applications include IBM Corp. (NYSE:IBM), BEA Systems Inc., Gemstone Inc. and even Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HWP).
HP, however, continues to develop a competing Java clone product, called Chai, targeted to developers of so-called embedded software for information appliances. The announcement of this rival version of Java at last year's JavaOne sparked a flurry of attention and also fears that the Java language was going to become fragmented, like the Unix operating system.
On Tuesday, HP plans to launch a new software technology called ChaiFreezeDry, which shrinks the size of a Java application by as much as 50 percent to 90 percent. HP also plans to announce new customers of its Chai embedded software for the development of information appliance applications, including Hitachi Ltd. and Siemens, for next-generation products.
"We are not supporting it. It's a clone," Baratz said. "End users want the real thing. They want Java technology from Sun Micro."
Another Java clone company that will be demonstrating its software at the show is Transvirtual Technologies Inc., which has developed another embedded clone of Java called Kaffe.
"We think Sun's version is too big and too slow," said Tim Wilkinson, founder and chief executive of Transvirtual, a six-person start-up based in Berkeley, California. "Ours will run Sun's version and Microsoft's version of Java, so developers can use it on any box they like."
Polluting Java?
Microsoft Corp., a key rival of Sun, is engaged in a long courtroom battle over its license of Java. Sun alleges that Microsoft created its own Java products that run only on Windows, thus "polluting" the goal of Java. Microsoft is now appealing a judge's ruling that it must stop shipping all its Java products that are not compatible with Sun's.
Microsoft funded part of the development of Kaffe, which is also known as a clean-room version, meaning that it did not use any previously existing Sun or Microsoft code.
"The only interesting thing in this announcement is that Microsoft is involved," Baratz said. "Microsoft has been saying for a couple of months, maybe six months, that they were going to kick the Java habit. The 12-step program to freedom hasn't worked."
Material from Reuters was used in this report.
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