Microsoft: The Tonya Harding of technology
Microsoft's next version of the Internet Explorer browser, set to ship with Windows XP, will no longer include a Java Virtual Machine. That means that Java applications will no longer run in the browser without the user downloading additional code. Additionally, Microsoft will treat mobile Java code the same way it handles viruses in IE and Outlook.
In other words, Microsoft is playing monopoly once again by taking its browser ball home.
Microsoft's intent here is clearly to blunt Java's momentum. The company hopes IT managers will now perceive Java as having one more obstacle for deployment on a client PC, and developers will perceive Java as losing a place on the desktop, which may diminish the demand for Java programmers. This is an attempt to retard Java while Microsoft completes its .Net implementation. Microsoft is desperately trying to turn back the clock and erase Java's six-year advantage. Can it do that? Only if anti-trust laws are meaningless.
Microsoft's act may kill the casual use of applets for advertisements, navigation, and Web animations. But Sun Microsystems has been pulling away from applets ever since they were launched and is pushing alternatives like Web-deployable applications (Web Start), Java plug-ins, and dynamically generated HTML interfaces via Java Server Pages, as in the Java Server Faces graphical toolkit.
Microsoft is using every trick in the book to persuade developers that their rightful home is Windows. They appeal to greed (make more money with us), to capitalist principles (the GPL is communism), to the vanity of widespread application deployment (we're number one), to the ease of development (wizards will do everything), and finally to uncertainty (better to stick with the safe horse).
IT managers should see through the FUD and understand that software, like hardware and networking before it, is now becoming a commodity. Microsoft loved this when it worked against IBM, but hates it now that it is working against them. In its early days, Microsoft even fueled this trend with Visual Basic. Visual Basic created commodity client applications through its integration of third-party commodity components. As the Halloween documents revealed, Microsoft now has changed its tune against commodity software. Commodity protocols (like HTTP) allow unrelated software and hardware to exchange information. Commodity operating systems blur distinctions between a workstation OS and a server OS. XML creates commodity data.
Java, open source, and XML are integral components of the move to commodity-based software architectures. For an IT manager, this is an acid test. If a vendor's technology supports software-as-a-commodity, use it. If it doesn't, dump it.
To effectively counter Microsoft's move, Sun needs to revise the Java Community Process to include more individual developers. Sun should also ask its partner AOL to make Netscape, which includes a pre-installed Java Virtual Machine, the default browser in its online service.
The worst thing Sun can do is to pretend C# and .Net will have no impact. Microsoft is playing two key cards: multi-language support and submission to a standards body. Sun must compete in these areas by examining the JVM bytecode support for other languages and submitting Java to a standards body. Sun has to move Java firmly in the open source and open standard camps. Yes, free it.
Microsoft's decision should not impact enterprise Java development. Windows developers should ask themselves one question: Is Microsoft interested in the pursuit of technical excellence or is it just using you? If you are a Visual Basic programmer, do you blindly follow Microsoft on its quest for world domination by switching to Visual Fred? I believe developers aren't so gullible or greedy.
Michael C. Daconta is the director of Web and technology services for McDonald Bradley, Inc., where he conducts training seminars and develops advanced systems with Java, JavaScript, and XML.