Larry. Perhaps I should've qualifed my "Amen" to Vinod to just the last paragraph in his post (although, I would really not be telling the entire truth here by saying that).
Don's next post (looking for more of the type of things you are saying -- but in layman's terms, regarding CORBA, ORB's, OOP, REUSABLE OBJECTS/CODE, and the like, etc.) "should" be done here. As well as the "developer acceptance and marketability of same".
However, I'd like to stay away from any opinions on it (I think I might get into some dialogue I really don't want to get into).
You bring up a lot of good points, and they should be brought up. I believe there's ample talent reading this thread to [more than] handle that discussion.
See this article, and PS, you know I work for some company that owns this company, right <g>.
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Lotus' president calls for truce on competing object
models
By Lynda Radosevich and Rebecca Sykes
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 12:38 PM PT, Aug 13, 1997
BOSTON -- In a move that would have been unthinkable not long ago, Lotus President Jeff Papows used the pulpit
during an Internet Expo keynote here Wednesday to publicly praise Microsoft's Internet strategy and urge vendors to
set aside their differences and use Java to meld competing object models.
Papows -- who said he is meeting with Microsoft chief Bill Gates on Friday to discuss this and other issues -- called
Microsoft "reasonable" in its approach to offer a more granular level of Java and distributed object integration with the
Windows platform than other platforms.
Microsoft's Distributed Common Object Model (DCOM) and CORBA -- supported by IBM, Netscape, Oracle, Sun
and others -- will both be in play for a long time, so vendors should quit squabbling and define some common object
request broker (ORB) semantics in pure Java to promote interoperability, Papows said.
"If we get in our respective foxholes and throw rocks at each other, that'll lead nowhere," Papows said.
Likewise, Papows said vendors should work to create enough proximity in a subset of Microsoft's Application
Foundation Class (AFC) and Internet Foundation Class (IFC) to enable the classes to coexist at some level.
And users should heed his rallying cry and urge their vendors to cooperate in this area, Papows said.
"You need to vote with your checkbooks to make it happen," Papows told a packed audience of conference
attendees.
Some attendees were heartened by Papows' call for cooperation.
Competition "is probably natural, coming out of the nature of business, [but] I think there's too much animosity
between the players," said Robert Pellowski, an independent software consultant.
Another attendee welcomed what he said was Papows' message that large companies are not necessarily as powerful
as they may seem to end-users.
"It's very useful to have someone [from a large corporation] say things are not as monolithic as they appear," said
Michael Genovese, an independent marketing consultant. "People need to be reminded that [Lotus and Microsoft] are
some of the major players [but] what's really going on is up to thousands of companies and engineers."
But another attendee said that Papows' call for user input around ensuring Java's interoperability fit a little too neatly
with Lotus' own interests.
"An IBM or a Lotus ... wants to have Java out there to make sure that Microsoft doesn't continue to dominate," said
John Frankenthaler, president of a consulting company based in Needham, Mass.
If some attendees were cynical about Papows' message, another attendee perceived a genuine cooperative spirit, and
also pointed out that cooperation could create competitive difficulties for the companies even as he underscored users'
ultimate power.
"I realize it may cause problems for them in terms of differentiating their products," said Douglas Hunt, an
Internet/intranet developer with the Hartford Financial Group, in Hartford, Conn. "But they've got to cooperate [and] if
they don't, we're going to make them."
Edul Nakra, a graduate student in MIS at Boston University, agreed that the buck stops with users and said that
Papows' remarks were thus beside the point.
"It's inherent in the way the industry runs" for users to have a major say, Nakra said. "I think he was stating the
obvious."
As for dashing off to heed Papows' call to inform vendors of their desire for Java interoperability, most users agreed
with Hunt, who said that his participation would most likely be informal.
"I'm not sure if I will individually do anything in terms of writing an e-mail, but I will certainly talk about it to the people
in my business unit," Hunt said.
In a conversation after the keynote, Papows said he does not see Sun Microsystems' Remote Method Invocation
(RMI) as the means for linking ORBs, but he did not suggest a different mechanism.
RMI enables Java objects to talk across a network and does roughly the same job as CORBA's Internet Inter-ORB
Protocol or Microsoft's Distributed Computing Environment.
Papows' call for unity with Microsoft came two weeks after the companies agreed to bundle Microsoft's Internet
Explorer with Notes 4.6. (See "Lotus to bundle Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 with Notes.")
Papows said he and Gates will discuss Friday more granular levels of integration between Notes 5.0 and Internet
Explorer, Dynamic HTML, and Windows NT 5.0.
While Papows held out an olive branch to Microsoft, he reconfirmed that no such branch will be extended to Netscape
unless it unbundles its Navigator browser from its Communicator Web client suite, which has groupware features that
compete with Notes.
"The ball is in their court," Papows said, adding that there is less "acidity" in the Netscape/Lotus relationship now than
in past weeks.
If Netscape chooses to unbundle Navigator, then Lotus will consider bundling and integration agreements akin to the
Microsoft agreement, Papows said.
Lotus Development Corp., in Cambridge, Mass., is at lotus.com.
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Regards,
Joe...
Standard Disclaimer: My opinions and account here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer. |
