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Technology Stocks : BORL: Time to BUY! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ED_L who wrote (9528)	3/21/1998 2:06:00 AM
From: shane forbes	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10836

If it turns out to be virtual machine implementations then I don't really care since it is not an attack on the language itself and BORL is not concerned with writing for the embedded market... ----- Sun Microsystems faces tough task with Java By Therese Poletti SAN FRANCISCO, March 20 (Reuters) - Sun Microsystems Inc. faces a tough task at its Java One conference next week, as it seeks to keep control of a programming language it conceived as a universal way for computers to communicate but is now dividing the industry into separate camps. On Friday, Hewlett-Packard Co. said that it was creating its own version of the Java for small consumer devices. It also announced that Microsoft Corp., Sun's biggest foe in the industry, will be its first licensee, as H-P's Java can run the Windows CE operating system for small handheld devices. The new strain of Java by H-P will compete directly with a new version of Java that Sun plans to release next week, targeted to the so-called embedded market, called the embedded Java API. After a public review of the specifications, the product will then be available later this year, Sun said. Java, developed over two years ago by Sun, has been touted as a "write once, run anywhere" programming language, which lets applications written in Java run on diverse computers. It has become popular in developing software for the Internet and for networked computers and is starting to be used in smaller devices. Sun signed a deal with TCI to use Java in set top boxes and Motorola Inc. will use Java in products ranging from cellular phones to other devices like pagers. "This is not a circumstance where they are going to control and dictate the market for embedded systems," Harry Fenik, an analyst at Zona Research in Redwood City, Calif., said. "It's a problem for Sun ... it signals a very large partner of theirs deciding to step away from Sun's supposed standard, which we all know is a proprietary product," he said. Analysts said that they expect more companies to follow H-P's footsteps and begin developing their own strains or versions of Java with their own capabilities. H-P does not have a license for the "light" version of Sun's Java due next week, and it said it independently developed its own version. "They said they are building a clone," said Jon Kannegaard, a Sun Microsystems Inc. vice president of software products. "I intend to beat them. It means that Java will be everywhere. I don't mind playing Intel if they want to play AMD." H-P said that it decided to develop its own version for several reasons, including its own expertise in embedded systems such as printers, and because Sun's licensing terms were unattractive. "Sun would have had the rights to include that (H-P) intellectual property to our printer competitors," said Jim Bell, a general manager at H-P. "We had a problem in terms of the freedom it allowed. Further down the list, it just turned out to be much more expensive to get it from them than to develop it ourselves." David Wu, an analyst at ABN-Amro, said that Sun has been using Java to try and become like its biggest rival Microsoft. "Sun wants to be the Microsoft of Java," Wu said. "Java is Sun's attempt to get rich and I don't think it's working too well. People like H-P who can do the software themelves say, goodbye ... I think Sun can make a business out of this as long as they don't get too greedy." Sun executives said the news of H-P's competitive product is a boon to the Java language and Sun will just work harder to make its products better. Analysts agreed that more competition is good for Java, but they are also afraid of a UNIX-like splintering of the language, with many different incompatible versions developed by different manufacturers. "Sun's ability to control it is definitely slipping away," said David Folger, an analyst at the Meta Group, in Burlingame, Calif. "I think that's basically good because it allows competition to occur." Even International Business Machines Corp., which has a biginternal Java development group, applauded H-P's move. "While speculation is circling that this represents some new kind of rift in Java, the fact is that developing virtual machines for specific devices, whether they be HP printers or IBM mainframes, is part of the job for platform vendors," IBM said in a statement. "This is not fragmentation -- it is competition." -----