With Java, Sun Sets Itself In The Consumer Market
Date: 12/2/97
Author: Michael Tarsala
Start your microwave oven from your work PC. Touch your wristwatch to someone else's to exchange files. Tune your car by making adjustments to its chips over a modem line.
Sun Microsystems Inc.'s vow to make Java work with many consumer devices means such whiz-bang functions soon might be possible, says Scott McNealy, Sun's chief executive. That means everything from hand-held computers to appliancelike devices that run with embedded systems.
At a recent company event, Sun executives touted Java as a soon-to-be-dominant force in consumer products. Java is the Internet programming language and computing platform created by Sun to work with any type of system.
Sun, though, has much work to do if it hopes to unite consumer products with Java. Some analysts doubt the market ever will need Java toasters or blenders. And there's the matter of Microsoft Corp. and its year-old Windows CE operating system for hand-held devices.
But other analysts say Sun can become a major player in such fast-growing consumer markets as embedded electronics and hand-held computing devices. Sun laid the groundwork to compete in these markets by creating its consumer technologies group.
The group was formed after Sun bought Menlo Park, Calif.-based Diba Inc. in August and Campbell, Calif.-based Chorus Systems Inc. in mid-November.
Diba specializes in chips and chip sets for hand-held computers, phones that can surf the Web and other such devices. Diba also developed software that lets people use these devices to browse the Web, access electronic mail, and keep calendars and address books.
Chorus makes operating systems for embedded devices. Its products now are the basis for Sun's Java-based embedded operating systems. The same week it bought Chorus, Sun unveiled its new Java operating system for network computers and a separate one for consumer devices.
Sun also recently introduced a line of chips designed to run Java faster than competitors' chips. Sun's new Java chips are price-competitive, says Chet Silvestri, president of Sun Microelectronics, Sun's chip division.
Another building block to Sun's consumer business will be added each time an embedded hardware or software maker adopts Java's technology.
Sun has revealed several new consumer-products partners in the past several months. Several firms plan to put the Java OS into set-top TV boxes that can surf the Internet. And Germany's Siemens AG signed an agreement with Sun in the third quarter to use Java in smart cards. The cards store such things as bank account data.
Sun isn't the first company to unite consumer electronics on a single operating system. One notable effort was Orem, Utah-based Novell Inc.'s Nest embedded operating system, says Tim Sloan, an analyst with Boston-based Aberdeen Group Inc. Introduced in '94, Nest has all but faded into oblivion.
The company has only a handful of people still working on the project, Sloan says. Novell didn't get enough partners to support it, he says.
And in the early '90s, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft first tried to develop a stripped- down version of Windows to run on hand-held computers. It was too bulky and was never released, though the company has since followed up with CE.
Why might Java succeed? For one, both Novell and Microsoft only had half the solution - the operating system. They relied on partners for the rest. Sun, though, is pushing a Java that includes an operating system, applications and chips.
And Java can take up less space than Windows CE, says Sloan.
Size could be a big selling point, especially if more and more consumer devices are hooked to a network, says Joe Gillach, director of marketing for Sun's chip division.
For example, a Java- based personal digital assistant could use the same data that run on any Java-based PC or workstation.
Taken a step further, a piece of Java hardware in a wristwatch could some day track a person's pulse and other vital signs. Doctors could upload that data to be viewed on computers in any hospital.
There are skeptics to this utopian view. ''And in the '60s, they all said we were going to be harvesting crops on the moon, too,'' said Tom Starnes, an analyst with San Jose, Calif.-based Dataquest Inc.
''That 's not to say there won't be things in the future that we can't foresee today,'' Starnes said. ''But there are some real pipe dreams of what Sun thinks is going to be connected over the network in time.''
Microsoft's CE is outpacing Java as the leading contender to unite at least parts of the consumer-devices market. Microsoft has signed more than 90 partners to make products with, or contribute technology to, CE. They include Hewlett-Packard Co., NEC Corp. and Philips Electronics N.V.
But one strong selling point for Java is that it's not Windows. Microsoft is feared in some consumer- products circles, says Evan Quinn, an analyst with International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass. They fear the largest software company can become too dominant, he says.
''The anti-Microsoft sentiment is the key, unspoken value proposition of Java,'' Quinn said. ''Sun can walk softly and continue to pick up market share.''
And with Java, even companies with a different operating system than the Java OS can use Java chips or run Java applications.
''With Java, consumers don't care what embedded operating systems their devices are running,'' Silvestri said. ''Consumer-products companies are going to decide what's best, put it in, and the consumer's not going to know the difference.''
The consumer-embedded space is up for grabs. Both Sun and Microsoft are just ''putting on their running shoes'' and preparing for the race, says Ron Rappaport, an analyst with Redwood City, Calif.-based Zona Research Inc.
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