At ESC, Java hype gives way to reality
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1 1999 11:52 PM EST
Oct. 01, 1999 (Electronic Engineering Times - CMP via COMTEX) -- SAN JOSE, CALIF. - Java got mixed reviews from developers at last week's Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) here. Many saw good news in the release of two real-time specifications, the hiring by Sun Microsystems Inc. of a respected Java executive and talk on the show floor of a torrent of design starts. The majority of embedded experts, however, say hype has given way to reality and a more measured pace of growth lies ahead.
"We had 30 or 40 design wins last quarter," said Jerry Fiddler, chairman of embedded software-tools vendor Wind River Systems Inc. (Alameda, Calif.). "You know, Java's not going to go everywhere. But it's real and it's building slowly."
"The embedded stuff is clearly a much longer haul than the Enterprise was," said James Gosling, one of the original developers of Java at Sun.
Nowhere was embedded interest more obvious at ESC than in the emerging arena of downsized devices, which connect to the Web and are intended to spark electronic commerce. In that regard, Hewlett-Packard said it will ship in volume next month a thin client equipped with the company's "Chai" Java Virtual Machine (JVM) running on top of Linux. Other products previewed at last week's show included a wireless personal digital assistant from Mitsubishi and several smart-phone projects from Japan.
Perhaps surprisingly, most of the cutting-edge efforts aren't being engineered in the United States. "Asia is ground zero for Java right now," said Paul Zorfass, president of market researchers First Technology Inc. (Boston). "There also seem to be more projects under way in Europe than domestically." There, Seimens has played a leading role.
"Internet appliances are creating a shake-up," added Chuck Boesenberg, president and chief executive officer of software tools vendor Integrated Systems Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.). "Everybody in the embedded world-both hardware and software makers-is scrambling to find partners. Every CEO wants to talk to every other CEO."
That urge to merge is based upon two factors. First, both OEMs and systems developers want to be sure that their processor of choice will be supported by cutting-edge software tools. Indeed, Motorola's recent acquisition of Metrowerks had sent embedded developers into something of a panic over the possibility that their tools provider could be swallowed up by a chip vendor intent on promoting only its own silicon (see Sept. 20, page 30). Motorola is assuring its customers, however, that Metrowerks won't be limited to Motorola products.
Second, partnering is seen as one of the few ways smaller vendors have of making money in the Java market. Garnering a positive revenue stream is hard because so many vendors have entered the business of providing JVMs and related development tools.
Real-time wrestling Amid that backdrop, the other significant issue that simmered at ESC was the ongoing conflict between Sun and Hewlett-Packard over a real-time Java specification.
Those differences first surfaced a year ago, when Sun corralled a group of its licensees and began to develop a spec of real-time extensions. Unhappy with what they felt was a heavy hand by Sun in its control of that effort, a competing collection of Java vendors led by Hewlett-Packard formed its own group, known as the J Consortium.
Both parties wanted to control extensions that have to be added to the Java Virtual Machine to enable it to support real-time operation. The extensions help ensure that a given Java implementation can deliver guaranteed responses to interrupts-a tenet of real-time operation.
At ESC last week, both the J Consortium and Sun released their respective specs for preliminary review. (That is, each will assess criticisms and suggestions from qualified parties.)
Interestingly, according to experts, the specs themselves seem to have taken widely divergent approaches. Sun's spec is loose, in that it gives developers lots of leeway in how they implement required features. In contrast, the J Consortium document is much more specific as to mandated practices.
"The garbage-collection behavior is very much unspecified by Sun," said a high-level engineer at a Java company who requested anonymity. That could lead to charges that the Sun spec does not strictly mandate determinism; that is, all implementations hewing to the document would be embedded, but some would be more "real-time" than others.
At the same time, there have been countercharges that the J Consortium document is more restrictive than some developers would like and specifies features in too much detail.
Despite the technical chasm between the two specs, both groups appear to have grown weary of the constant conflict between them, sources said. Indeed, all parties seem to be looking to Sun's new hire, Pat Sueltz, as the one person best positioned to forge a rapprochement between the two camps. Sueltz, the highly respected manager of IBM Corp.'s Java operations, was snared by Sun to spearhead its efforts. Her official title at Sun is president of the software products and platforms division.
"I have a lot of respect for her," said Jim Bell, head of HP's embedded efforts. "She knows what moves she'd have to make to unify all the supporters of Java."
Sueltz is expected to start work at Sun within the next month and to greatly streamline the company's marketing efforts and to focus its diverse Java technology efforts.
As for HP, Bell said the company is committed to a unified standard. In the other camp, Greg Bollella, an engineer at IBM who leads Sun's real-time spec effort, said, "We think we can still get one real-time spec."
For such reasons, embedded experts contacted at the show said that the two camps might yet come together.
Making money Moving forward, most Java supporters believe the language is entering an adolescence from which it will emerge with renewed vigor.
"It's always been a 'pull' phenomenon," said Sun's Gosling. "Developers have been extremely excited."
"The evolution has gone from development tools and reference platforms to actually seeing commercial platforms out there," said Mal Raddalgoda, senior marketing director at Espial (Kanata, Ontario). "I think we're going to see these platforms being successful first in vertical markets and then in the broader commercial and consumer space."
According to HP's Bell, there are currently 1.8 million registered Java users. "I think people's hype filters are on," he said. "They're trying to sort out who has [embedded Java] technology that meets their needs and who doesn't."
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