In Software Development, a True Ardor for Java nytimes.com
Offhand, I'd say this is the article of the day from the NYT. Not that the the issues haven't been discussed here before.
The common view is that Java will either live or die depending on whether it is able to subvert Microsoft's control of the personal computer. Thus, much ado has been made of the disappointing start of the network computer, which is touted by some as an alternative to the PC.
The real picture is more complicated -- and conceivably an even more pernicious trap for Microsoft. Acutely aware of the threat, Microsoft has been busily attempting to "embrace and extend" Sun's version of Java in a direction that Microsoft can control.
. . .
The enthusiasm for Java on the part of the software development community appeared to take even some longtime Java supporters by surprise.
"I was shocked," said Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Novell Corp. and Sun's former chief technology officer. "I went in expecting to see a sullen crowd, and what I saw instead was clearly a rock concert."
Schmidt said he had previously been swayed by news reports of bitter infighting over control of the language and had been surprised by the genuine grass-roots display of ardor at the show.
"It showed that every once in a while the press can be wrong," Schmidt said.
I guess the press was just off trying to sell advertising. Whose ad dollars could they have been gunning for there anyway? All those stories couldn't have been coming from some other "grass roots" campaign, could they?
Before the Internet, dozens of proprietary online services, like isolated islands, each offered information, communication and community, and all tried to lock their users into an isolated environment.
Like the telephone network, the Internet proved to be seductive because it offered ubiquitous any-to-any communication. One by one, the proprietary islands were forced to build bridges to the global computer network.
This is also true for Java. Built into every Java environment is the ability to use the Internet to exchange information with any other Java device, whether it is a computer, a server, a cell phone or one of the Java rings handed out by Sun's chief executive, Scott McNealy, each containing its own tiny computer.
. . .
This in no way suggests that William Gates and his $14 billion company are in any immediate danger of being swept away. Just as the mainframe business of the 1970s and 1980s has continued to chug along at a comfortable if mature pace, so too personal computing is virtually certain to remain a Microsoft realm.
But Gates' vision of Windows everywhere is more precarious. While the last generation of computing is never devoured by the next, the new sweet spot of explosive technology growth is going to be in a consumer electronics world that will never be as neatly homogenized as the PC business.
And in a heterogeneous world, Java still holds all the cards.
Embrace and demolish that, Bill. Not that he won't keep trying, but sounds like he's got an uphill battle on the hearts and minds front.
Cheers, Dan. |
