Vendors Forge Java Standards For NCs
(01/20/98; 3:21 p.m. EST)
By Mary Hayes, InformationWeek
Vendors vying for a piece of the NC market met last week to develop industry standards to ensure interoperability among myriad NCs and servers. Java emerged as the glue to bind them together.
The group of more than a dozen companies -- including Sun Microsystems, IBM, and Oracle -- will collaborate on client software specifications, including Java System Database, which will serve as a platform-independent interface to different kinds of servers, meeting participants say. NCs from various vendors include proprietary technologies that can create interoperability problems. For example, some vendors' server-based NC management software cannot manage NCs from other vendors. Java System Database is likely to be included in the Java Development Kit.
IBM and Sun are promoting the JavaOS as a standard platform. A readied version of the operating system isn't expected to be available until next month, when Sun plans to ship its JavaStations.
"If we had a common operating system, then we could have common device drivers," said Howie Hunger, director of marketing for IBM's Network Station. The Network Station uses a Unix-derived OS, but IBM said it plans to ship JavaOS systems this summer.
A Microsoft official attended the meeting and took notes, but did not participate. "We sent a representative down there to find out what's going on," said Shannon Perdue, Windows NT product manager. "We feel the NC model is flawed."
NC users disagree. "Every NC I've put in just snaps into place," said Joe Greulich, IS manager at Roberts Express. The Akron, Ohio, delivery firm is buying 250 Network Stations to access data from IBM RS/6000 and Sun UltraEnterprise servers.
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