Sun hopes Jini will answer corporate wishes

It's not just about gadgets you know

Sun Microsystems says its much-hyped Jini software is finding a new use in nuts-and-bolts business applications, rather than in networks of futuristic consumer gadgets as the company originally intended. Last week, the Jini Community - a group of companies working to further the technology - released its first standard for building Jini-based systems, which could make the software far easier to work with. In addition, Sun announced that a number of business software companies are using Jini within their applications. That's a key step for the based tech giant in its attempts to reposition Jini for business use. These adopters are using Jini to help connect complex business systems that are delivered over the internet and that change frequently - a stark contrast to Sun's earlier ambitions for Jini to be a force in consumer electronics. Sun also is targeting the software for applications in flexible computing systems. "The trend toward on-demand, or utility computing - where you shift resources from one machine to another - that flexibility is driving an increasing need to manage change and that's what's driving people to use this technology," said Jennifer Kotzen, a Jini marketing manager at Sun. Such "distributed systems" can be difficult to manage, said Kotzen. The ability of Jini to allow pieces of an application to communicate with each other across a network - even if those pieces are frequently changed or moved - is one of the technology's strongest attributes and can simplify the building of complex systems, according to backers. The software's transformation to a business tool took a step forward last Wednesday when the Jini Community introduced a specification for putting a standard user interface on Jini applications - regardless of the hardware on which they run. That could make the Sun tool more appealing to developers looking for a one-size-fits-all distributed technology. Sun's new plan for Jini is the latest chapter in a long saga. The technology, unveiled with great fanfare in 1999, allows software and hardware components to discover each other over networks and to use each others' services. Unlike current computing devices, a Jini device broadcasts an electronic instruction manual - or its own "driver" - describing how to use it. In early demonstrations, Sun executives showed how the software could be used to let a consumer device detect other compatible devices on a network. In this way, a digital camera, for example, could wirelessly send a photo directly to a printer. But Sun's vision for Jini has greatly outpaced reality. The wireless technology needed to make it work wasn't initially available, and few companies sold consumer devices with enough computing horsepower to support the Jini software. Consequently, while many manufacturers initially showed interest in the Sun technology, few ended up shipping products. In 2000, Sun recognised that its original plan for Jini was overambitious and said it would simplify the Java-based programming model to promote its popularity with developers. Now, Sun says the initiative finally is catching on, thanks to improvements in connectivity and in processing power, and to a need for software that can be easily modified to fit new system architectures. There are about 150,000 developers and about 100 commercial licensees that are using Jini, according to Sun. Kotzen noted that it is being used in both Java business applications and embedded in devices that run the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) software, such as smart cards, and in far-flung systems such as that used in the space shuttle. Sun's new emphasis on business applications makes sense because Jini's greatest - albeit limited - success so far has been in connecting distributed computing systems, said James Governor, an analyst at RedMonk. In addition, Jini-based software has the potential to manage workloads across different servers and storage devices, he said, which could be a boon for companies looking for more flexible systems that adapt easily to change. Sun does not sell a commercial product based on Jini; instead, it promotes its use as a way to further sales of its servers and its own software products. Acceptance of Jini may be fuelled by the popularity of web services technology, which seeks to solve many of the problems that the Sun software is well-suited to handling, according to analysts. "In terms of this notion of distributed systems management and how applications talk to each other, (a decentralised architecture) is an important part of the puzzle, and Sun can potentially play in that area," Governor said. Martin LaMonica writes for News.com