Internet's
Java heralds dramatic change...
by Alan Zisman (c) 1995 First published
in Business in
Vancouver , Issue #315 November 7, 1995 High Tech
Office
column
One of my
first encounters
with computers came about in the mid-1970s. I had to perform some
complicated
statistical analyses, while a graduate student, using the university’s
main
frame. While the actual computer was located down at the end of the
corridor,
in a hermetically-sealed room, attended by operators in white lab
coats,
I sat, in my jeans and T-shirt, at a terminal... a keyboard and screen,
entering
in my data. When I was done, I got instant results-- a big improvement
over
dropping off a pack of punch-cards, and coming back a couple of hours
later,
to get the output.
Within a
few years,
personal computers changed all that. Suddenly, I could have my own
machine,
running software on its own drive. Businesses were often suspicious--
leery
of the lack of control if everyone ran their own software, and have, to
an
extent, retained control with enterprise-wide software standards and
networks.
New
developments in
the Internet hold out the possibility of changing everything, once
again,
and making personal computer platforms and operating systems as we know
them
(and love them?) today all but obsolete.
Sun
Microsystems has,
for years, sold high-powered workstations... fast computers with big
screens,
usually running the Unix operating system, and beloved especially by
engineers.
These have seemed on the verge of becoming an endangered species...
with
PCs catching up to them in raw power, and Unix in danger of being
replaced
with Microsoft’s Windows NT operating system. Sun, however, has found a
new
and growing niche for their products as Internet servers-- the machines
that
actually hold those World Wide Web ‘home pages’ with which it seems
everyone
wants to connect.
But the
Web is a pretty
static place... connect to a page, view the contents, maybe fill in a
form,
jump to another page. Sun is setting out to change all that, and in the
process,
change the way we use our computers. In the end this may change the
actual
computers themselves, and drastically change the whole industry built
on
building, selling, and maintaining complicated personal computers.
Sun is
pushing Java,
a programming language for the Internet. Applications produced using
Java
would be small, single-function programs... instead of a monster
application
like Microsoft Office, there would be modules for just what you want--
if
you need to spell check, you’d use a spell checker. But what’s really
new
is that the Java applications wouldn’t be on your computer’s hard
drive...
they could be half a world away, accessible over the Internet.
This lets
your Web pages
be truly interactive-- you could view stock information using your Web
browser,
while tracking the progress of your stock-picks in an ever-changing
spreadsheet
chart, all using applications found on the machine at the other end of
the
connection, rather than on your computer.
And when
that happens,
suddenly, the machine on your desktop becomes almost irrelevant. Mac or
PC?
Windows or OS/2? None of this matters... in all cases, you’re running
the
same programs in the same way, and seeing the same thing on-screen.
Suddenly,
your computer no longer needs to be a $2000-$5000 machine with lots of
ram,
a big hard drive, and the latest and fastest processor. Instead, it can
be
more like a Nintendo-- a minimal machine that does a single thing, but
does
it well. Rather than playing games cartridges, it needs to connect to
the
Net.
And like
games machines,
these Net machines could be mass-produced and distributed, for a
fraction
of the cost of today’s PCs. Maybe $200-$300. And while North American
businesses
have had a tradition of being technically innovative, they have tended
to
be much better at producing expensive, high-profit but small
production-run
products like today’s PCs. They’ve been much less successful at
transforming
those products into low-profit margin, high volume items like the
current
Nintendos and Segas.
Besides
Sun Microsystems,
this concept of the Internet ‘Appliance’ is being pushed by Larry
Ellison,
CEO of Oracle, a company specializing in software to access large
corporate
databases. Like Sun’s Scott McNealy, he is anticipating a time in the
not-too-distant
future when not only our data, but also the applications to use that
data,
come to us over the Web.
Java is
still in the
testing stage-- there are currently a few hundred Java applications to
be
found on the Net. But to run them, you need a Web browser that includes
HotJava
code, licensed from Sun. None of the current generation of Web software
will
let you do this-- but the daring have already started to download
Netscape’s
next generation prototype-- Netscape Navigator version 2.0, with
HotJava
built-in.
As well,
forget about
replacing your current applications if you’re accessing the Net using a
modem
and standard phone lines... it will take a high speed fiber-optic,
ISDN,
or TV-cable connection to get the speeds needed to make all this
practical.
And I don’t even want to imagine the security issues raised by Internet
appliances.
And how to bill users every time they run an applicatiopn over the Net.
We’re not
there yet, and
it will be a couple of years before any of this becomes practical... so
don’t
throw out your inventory of PCs just yet. But the required changes
could
be in place quicker than you imagine... bringing with it dramatic
changes
in the way we use computers in our businesses, and in the makeup of
every
business making money from computers and software.