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Technology Stocks : Microsoft - The Evil empire -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (233)	11/10/1997 4:56:00 PM
From: Robert Winchell	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1600

To Gerald - Thank you for your response. >Why is Java the future? Because it's internet-centric, not desktop-centric. Developers are starting to develop applications for the net. Developers are writing more and more network-aware applications, this is true. But a lot of technologies and languages can take advantage of that. I think you are wrong here. Yes, it's true that people would like an alternative to Microsoft. Microsoft is so big that corporations, who are afraid of having their critical business functions and products so uttlerly dependent on one supplier, are afraid of it. This is part of what I don't understand - Sun controls Java. Period. Why are people deciding they would rather Sun control their destiny than MS control their destiny? Also, why force all you developers to use the same language without exception? But the more important point about Java is that it promises "write one -- run anywhere." For businesses, that means no having to junk millions of dollars in investments in order to have networks that run together. It means that businesses can communicate with suppliers and customers, without having to worry about what OS they are running. You've hit on an important things- "Promises" write once-run everywhere. This is simply not going to happen. Think of all the different Java Virtual Machines, on all the different hardware, with different processing power and hardware. It just isn't going to happen for any complex application. Java has big advantages for businesses in efficiency and cost savings. This is a long way from proven. You are basically asking every developer to work in a single language with a single set of technologies that cannot be extended in any way to take advantage of the individual power of the machine. That being said, I think Java is an excellent language, and an excellent solution for many applications. If you are writing an app and have no idea what clients are going to be accessing the server, you write a least-common-denominator application in Java for the client. This is an excellent strategy for web-based apps and simple data entry. However, if you are writing something complex, such as 3D graphics applications or the like, you are going to want to be able to take advantage of clients that may have 3D accelerator boards or specialized hardcopy devices. This really isn't a feasible solution in Java.

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (233)	11/10/1997 5:28:00 PM
From: Kal	Respond to of 1600

>>"Microsoft has had an opportunity to play by the new Internet rules - come up with its own version of Java, run with it, and grow with the Internet," Robb says. "But they've opted not to do that - they've locked down instead, while they still have control of the OS. It's good for them in the short run, but in the long run it's going to destroy them." I'm tempted to say: AMEN. But let's give Microsoft the benefit of whatever's left of the doubt (none in my case, but then Billy always has some surprises up his sleeve), at least short time (say 6-9 months) Otherwise, and if no change happens, then, AMEN to Microsoft's destruction in its own hands. #1

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (233)	11/13/1997 11:00:00 AM
From: Patrick Gainer	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1600

>>Why is Java the future? >Because it's internet-centric, not desktop-centric. >Developers are starting to develop applications for the net. That's no answer, that's just a bunch of buzzwords. Java has some people excited because the non-MS folks have perpetuated the idea that Java frees us from any given OS by running unmodified on any system. But big deal! If everyone is using Windows anyway (and 80% of all computers are using Windows) then Java doesn't free us from anything. We already have software which runs everywhere and it is anything which runs under Windows. Java is Sun-centric. Pat