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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: taxman who wrote (24143)	6/14/1999 6:15:00 PM
From: William Hunt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Thread ---June 14, 1999 Microsoft-Backed Firm Clones Key Parts of Sun's Java Program By LEE GOMES Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL A small company funded by Microsoft Corp. has cloned key elements of Java programming technology, another headache for Sun Microsystems Inc. as it tries to maintain control over a software movement that seems to be struggling. Transvirtual Technologies Inc., a closely held six-person start-up in Berkeley, Calif., said it is introducing a product called "Kaffe" that runs programs that take advantage of variations introduced into Java by Microsoft. The additions from Microsoft allow programmers to write Java software that will run only on the Windows operating system. Sun, trying to weaken the appeal of Windows, has been promoting Java as a way to write programs that work on any operating system. Transvirtual's technology, which also runs programs written for Sun's version of Java, was written independently without using software from either Microsoft or Sun, said Tim Wilkinson, Transvirtual's chief executive officer. Microsoft is hampered from developing such technology itself under rulings in a long-running legal battle with Sun. Microsoft's public-relation agency is helping to spread the word about Transvirtual's technology, which is being announced Monday on the eve of a Sun-sponsored conference called JavaOne. Sun officials insist that support for Java continues to grow. The Palo Alto, Calif., computer maker is expected to use the JavaOne event to unveil initiatives to make Java more useful both to corporate computer users and to companies building new kinds of consumer devices, such as "smart" pagers. Originally promoted as an alternative to Microsoft's technology on personal computers and the Internet, Java has had more success among companies developing complex software for centralized machines called servers. Even there, however, Java's momentum seems to be flagging. Clay Ryder, an analyst with Zona Research Inc. in Redwood City, Calif., said that in his company's regular survey of corporate software development projects, Java's popularity actually declined slightly from last year to this year. According to Mr. Ryder, Java remains in a distant fourth place as the preferred language of corporate software projects. Sun has been making gains in the courtroom, where a federal judge in San Jose, Calif., ruled that Microsoft violated its 1996 license with Sun when it made certain modifications to Java. But the rulings have left an opening for a company such as Transvirtual, which has no Sun license, to independently develop technology that makes it easier to use Microsoft's Java variations. A Sun spokeswoman said that as long as Transvirtual -- or any other Java clone maker -- didn't violate any of Sun's intellectual property, Sun would have no legal complaint against them. But the spokeswoman also said that creating such technology independently would be very difficult, considering the complexity of the Java language. Jim Mitchell, a Sun vice president, added that programmers continue to express a desire for a unified Java. BEST WISHES BILL