With Java in Palm, will companies bite?
Published: 16 Jun 1999 07:59 BST
Sun Microsystems Inc. and 3Com Corp. used the opening of the JavaOne developers conference in San Francisco Tuesday to introduce Sun's Java programming platform on the Palm V hand-held. The Palm is the best-selling handheld device in the market.
"3Com has to do this if it wants to get into corporations," said Diana Hwang, an analyst at International Data Corp. in the U.S. Hwang said corporations are just starting to look at ways to develop applications for handheld devices, and supporting Java broadens the potential market for the Palm.
Since Java was first launched in 1995, Sun has touted it as a language that developers can use to write an application once that will run most kinds of computer systems. Hwang noted that 3Com rival Psion PLC has already built support for Java into its handhelds, and Windows CE also supports Microsoft's Java virtual machine.
So far, though, while Sun has announced many deals for Java-based consumer wireless devices or set-top boxes with companies like Motorola Inc. and set-top box makers, Java is mostly being used in corporate computing as the glue to connect many diverse computing systems. "We have not had any implementation of Java on Palm Computing devices or other wireless devices like cell phones or two-way pagers," said Alan Baratz, now president of Sun's software products. "We needed a smaller version of the Java platform that fit into a smaller device."
A common complaint among Sun developers is that Java is too big and memory-intensive for designing applications for smaller devices. Indeed, Donna Dubinsky, who ran Palm before leaving to become president and CEO of Handspring, which makes Palm applications, said that Java hadn't made sense when she was at Palm.
Now, though, "The advantage of Java is that enterprise developers like it. They like the idea that making a common set of applications," said Donna Dubinsky, CEO and president of Handspring. Dubinsky said with Java on the Palm, companies can "stop thinking about Java as a language working on the Web, and instead look at it as a way to move data over the network." She said companies might now use Palms with Java applets for their sales forces, though it is still unclear that Java will be the right path for that. At JavaOne in March 1997, Sun launched a version of Java that was supposed to answer those needs, called Personal Java, targeted to the developers of applications for network computers, smart telephones and television set-top boxes.
Baratz said Personal Java, which he said was designed for stand-alone computing, would now be incorporated into industry-specific profiles that can be used in Java 2 Micro Edition -- for example, a version for a set-top box maker.
Sun said a beta version could be downloaded onto a Palm Pilot starting on Tuesday and Java would be integrated into the next version of the Palm device.
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