Mike, A small JAVA battle is "brewing" in the August 1997 issue of Internet Magazine. In Part I of a special report on JAVA is entitled, "JAVA-Growing Up Fast in the Web Hot House." Part II is entitled, "Active Platform-Microsoft's Future Foundation."
The article is not online as of tonight, so I'll post the link when it appears. A couple of tid-bits are interesting:
Part I
"Java is far from reaching maturity, but observers say JavaSoft and its partners have been adding features and functions to the language at a stunning pace compared to the years it took to gradually develop established languages such as C, C++, or Visual Basic."
Quote from Kelly Nordham, the prinicpal analyst at Freddie Mac: "It's the first time we have a chance to get off the Microsoft treadmill and have some options."
Quote from Ken Harris, CIO of Pepsico: "Java is going to be very strategic for us as a way of communicating with our customers and partners electronically. It allows us to work outside the office without having to worry about what architecture they are running."
Part II
"The first and most significant commitment the Active Platform label represents is Microsoft's inclusion of ActiveX components to give Windows users their accustomed level of client-side performance while adding many of the benefits of executable Web page content that were pioneered by Sun Microsystems Java initiative."
"ActiveX, one of Active Platform's critical technologies, lacks the fine-grained security features of Java, whose execution environment can precisely tailor the runtime privileges of applets based on thier origin or any other criterion. An ActiveX control is either allowed into the environment, perhaps based upon a cryptographic certification of its origin with a trusted provider, or it is excluded entirely. ActiveX lacks any notion of a "sandbox," to usethe label for the limited-privelege environment of a Java-capable browser. For these reasons, Website developers should not abandon the notion of using Java applets and server side Java applications supported by servers running Windows OSs to deliver active content. This strategy offers advantages that ActiveX is inherently unable to match, such as fine-grained security and mature, scalabe Unix host environments. The only disadvantages of this scenario, such as slower performance or more limited graphical interface options, are already diminishing with time."
In short, Microsoft is trying to straddle both sides of the fence. First they are trying to set their own standard and hope the world accepts it, but at the same time keeping abreast of JAVA, just in case.
Its interesting to note the irony of the authors of Part I & II. The article on JAVA was written by Michael Moeller while the Active Platform Article was written by Peter Coffee.
Up, Up, & Away! (Go Java Go)
Scott
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