Gilder Article In Forbes, Q>
January 25, 1999
Java breaks out
By George Gilder
It was a hot time in the paradigm last month with
the emergence of Sun Microsystems' Java
platform and programming language as the
disruptive force behind a reordering of the
Internet economy. Java continued its stream of
successes in unexpected venues and markets
outside the dominant Wintel regime.
First, Northern California's Federal District
Court granted Sun a complete victory in its suit
against Microsoft's proprietary Java extensions,
giving Microsoft 90 days to get the offending
code out of Windows 98. Then, America Online
and Sun gobbled up Netscape. Sun's role in the
transaction was to take over Netscape's server
software business and to supply Java-based
Internet transaction, animation and wireless
access technologies. AOL sees Java as a way of
delivering its services to the new generation of
digital cellular phones full of Javatized computer
features.
Java is really breaking out in Europe. A
delegation of magnates from the EEC's digital
video broadcast project arrived at Sun
headquarters in late November to seek rights to
a Java subset for set-top boxes, wireless devices
and other consumer systems. A key to Java's
versatility is the "Java virtual machine," a generic
software computer platform included in
browsers, set-top boxes, handhelds and other
devices that often lack Windows but want to
view the Worldwide Web outside. "We want to
upgrade to the Java virtual machine," explained
Jean-François Jezequel, head of marketing for
France's Canal Plus, which has shipped some 3
million set-top boxes with a proprietary system.
Since cable TV giant TCI has already adopted
Java for U.S. cable applications, the European
initiative gives Sun an opportunity to make Java
an international standard for digital TV.
Reordering the Internet
As cable modems spread and AOL delivers its
services to digital cell phones, Java usage will
soar.
Meanwhile, Intentia, the Swedish enterprise
resource-planning software company (see
"Intentia's intentions"), used Java to blast its way
out of its gilded ghetto of AS-400 IBM
minicomputer technology. AS-400 is a stable but
vulnerably mature IBM platform used by
mid-sized businesses that are not sufficiently
fun-loving to relish the surprises in Microsoft's
NT. An ambitious software company such as
Intentia needs an escape valve from the
minicomputer corral, and Java is providing it.
Intentia announced that it would soon introduce a
Java-based version of its popular Movex ERP
package.
The dominant ERP program is SAP's R/3, a huge,
largely integrated package that entails prolonged
and arduous customization. (Harvard professor
Clayton Christensen points out that Andersen
Consulting alone earns $3.5 billion a year
customizing SAP programs mostly for the world's
biggest companies.) For most of the market, SAP
constitutes technology overshoot. Intentia offers
a far more modular alternative, optimized for the
larger universe of small and mid-size companies
with global reach. Java gives Intentia software a
route to easier portability to these diverse
company environments.
At the same time Intentia hailed Java's
compatibility with the wireless Internet access
devices that the Gilder Technology Report has
long hailed as the dominant PCs of the next era.
In Europe most of these devices are based on
the GSM (global mobile system) cellular standard.
But the most impressive by far of these uppity
cellphones are coming from San Diego,
California-based Qualcomm. Early bet for the
most popular handheld computer product next
year is the stunning pdQ phone with a Palm 3
operating system and wireless modem scalable
to two megabits per second. Among many
convenient features that have made 3Com's Palm
the most popular personal organizer, it gives your
cellphone e-mail and Web access and a phone
book from which you can make one-click calls.
Qualcomm has already begun mass production
of pdQs in São Paulo, Brazil.
Although Microsoft hopes that all wireless
devices will run Windows, Qualcomm will not be
making any Windows CE pdQs unless Microsoft
can get this cumbersome system up to scratch
for cellphones. The pdQ is now exclusively
dedicated to 3Com's Palm, which is a moving
target just upgraded to Palm VII with new
Internet browsing features and Java. Of course,
the GSM entente is trying to get a proprietary
European solution under way. Nokia is now
using Geoworks OS in its popular 9000 teleputer,
but the Finnish titan is now joining with Ericsson
and the other Europeans in a collective move to
Symbian, the palmtop OS introduced by Psion of
the U.K. Grasping that this Tower of Babel is
not susceptible to the usual Windows über alles
strategy, Microsoft turned to Qualcomm to help
spur the still sluggish arena of wireless Internet
access and groupware services.
The Microsoft move reflects a general yearlong
upsurge in the CDMA (code division multiple
access) spread spectrum paradigm. The highlight
was CDMA's adoption by the Europeans for the
next generation of GSM. In 1998 Qualcomm
doubled production of handsets, to a total of 7
million, and the CDMA virtuoso Koreans hiked
deployment from 6 million to 12 million phones.
In an upset, Motorola, long a laggard, surged
into the lead in the list of top suppliers of CDMA
infrastructure, with major contributions to Sprint
PCS facilities.
Motorola has also announced a new Java
disruption in the networking space. Watch out,
Nortel and Cisco. The only limitation is that the
networks cannot reach farther than 5 meters.
Called Piano, the wireless system uses Java to
enable e-mail, Web browsing and a host of
Internet and intranet functions within what they
call the "personal network space." Included are
file exchange, financial transactions, checkoutless
retail purchases, wireless printing and automatic
ticketing or check-in at hotels, airlines and
theaters.
If Motorola doesn't watch out, it will become a
telecosm paradigm company again.
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By George Gilder
Technology
From January 25, 1999 Issue
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