Monaco,
>>> But this does has something to do with SUNW?
Well, yes. Sun thru its JavaSoft division owns the trademark
to the Java programming language and makes money by the licensing
various Java languages tools to other software vendors like Microsoft,
Netscape, Borland, Symantec, etc.
These companies incorporate pieces of the Sun Java tools into
their own Java development tools and pay a royalty back to
Sun/JavaSoft each time they ship a product.
There is a big battle now a brewing (groan!) between Sun and
Microsoft about who controls the future direction of the Java
language. Sun's master plan is to have applications built in
the Java programming language be able to run unchanged
on any type of computer (Windows, Mac, Unix, IBM mainframe, etc.).
If Sun were somehow successful meeting this goal, then it wouldn't
be necessary for people to buy PC's with Windows 95 in order
to run their favorite word processor, database, or spreadsheet
program. Java is basically an attempt to break Microsoft's monopoly
on the computer software business. Sun is currently running
this expensive PR campaign with magazine and TV ads to convince
the world that 100% percent Java is a good thing. It must be
nice to have moeny to burn like this.
Pretty obviously, Microsoft isn't exactly buying into Sun's master
plan. Microsoft likes the Java language but not where Sun is planning
to take it. So Microsoft has created this new technology called
J/Direct which makes it easier for programmers to take advantage
of features which are specific to Windows 95 and NT. This is good
for programmers (and Microsoft), because they can use Java to write real Windows applications. However, it is bad for Sun because the applications written using J/Direct can not run on the Macintosh, Unix, et. al.
The fight over Java is a classic computer industry battle that has
been played out many times before. Basically the company that controls programming standards ends making the big dollars.
What does all of this have to do with the embedded business? Not
very much really. Basically Java isn't really ready to be used in
embedded systems. Its going to be another year or two before
embedded Java tools are fully "cooked".
BTW, there is one interesting little piece of news about embedded Java. A bunch of tools vendors and RTOS companies are not very happy with what Javasoft has been doing with embedded Java. These companies
have formed a committee and are off defining new standards for Java
when used in embedded systems. These standardization efforts are
independent of Sun and JavaSoft. This is all very hush-hush, of course.
Richard |
