IBM calls on Sun to hand Java to standards body By Dana Gardner InfoWorld Electric Posted at 5:23 PM PT, Dec 7, 1998 Adding more fuel to a fire building around Sun Microsystems to open up its Java technology, IBM executives on Monday called on Sun to hasten its handing over of a least part of the technology to the International Organization for Standardization, commonly known as the ISO. The call came as attendees were gathering here for the Java Business Expo, and it would be but a piece of the puzzle that Sun faces in quieting factions within the Java community who have complained about its handling of the would-be cross-platform standard. >From the high-end Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) specification to the low-end embedded Java technology, Sun is facing an ever-more antsy crowd. Sun has found itself in an atmosphere where none of the people affected by Java are happy all of the time. Sun seems to be working to try and make some of the people in the Java universe happy some of the time. In such a vein, Sun in November said it would open its Java licensing policy to allow nonlicensees a say in how aspects of Java's definitions are created. However, those comments came only after Hewlett-Packard and several other vendors said they were splintering off from Sun on creating standards for embedded Java. To try to quell anxious developers working on EJB-compliant application servers on the high end, Sun on Wednesday is expected to roll out an EJB reference platform for developers to test to and adhere to, said sources close to the company. Sun at the same time is in under mounting pressure from some of its most important allies to improve the process behind making Java more than a popular language. The goal that unites the far-flung Java universe is to craft Java into a soup-to-nuts enterprise platform technology that binds together disparate systems and jump-starts the adoption of reusable object-oriented software in mainstream corporate computing. As part of Java's ongoing promise the make Java into such a holy grail of computing, Sun is holding a coming out party for its Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.2 this week. However, the arrival of the JDK 1.2 may be more symbolic than helpful. Major vendors are not expected to make JDK 1.2 technology enter all of their server and middleware products for as much as a year, said David Gee, a Java marketer at IBM. And it is in things such as the JDK that Sun's role should lie, say its critics -- to foster the cutting edge of Java. And then Sun should leave the overall maturation to outside institutions, they say. "We won't be happy until the Java standards are in the hands of an international standards body," said Ian Brackenburg, a Java researcher and evangelist at IBM's Hursley Centre, near London. As early as February, IBM wants Sun to follow through on some earlier promises to open the Java standard, Brackenburg said. "We're on a good track for creation of standards. Stewardship is another thing," Brackenburg said Monday. "We're going to put on the pressure." Not all players are advocates of opening Java to such standards bodies, saying the process could be slowed and play into the hands of Java rival Microsoft. "I'm more in Sun's camp on this one," said Robin Retallick, president and CEO of ActionWare, a maker of customer-relationship management software in Emeryville, Calif. "I think a standards body would slow it down, and that would play into Microsoft's hands." In many respects, however, opening the Java process will do little to effect the practical application of Java technology by the leading Java vendors such as IBM, Novell, Oracle, and Sun. Instead these company's are walking a tightrope between what aspects of Java they license and implement for cross-platform benefits and which technologies to develop and optimize on their own to differentiate themselves. It is just such a quandary that led IBM on Monday to refer to Java in one breath as an enterprise-class solution from top to bottom and in the next as a "prepubescent pixie" of a technology, in the words of Patricia Sueltz, general manager of Java at IBM. These vendors tend to love Java for its baseline, common-denominator facets while quietly pursuing ways of extending their advantage in the market based on their product mix. Already, a dueling technologies "co-opetition" is brewing between IBM's reference platform for run-time EJB, announced Monday as part of the arrival of WebSphere Advanced Edition, and other EJB products expected from Sun. "Sun will come out with its EJB server and IBM will, and both will get their commonality by searching through standards," said Tim Sloane, an analyst at the Aberdeen Group in Boston. "At the same time they will differentiate themselves through business logic ... and go after the hearts and minds of developers." That leaves other makers of Java-compliant products guessing as to how much Java to add to their products -- and when. IBM feels that the use of the ISO to keep the Java standard widely understood and monitored is a prudent step. "This protects the assets of what you build," Sueltz said. "We're a stick in the side to them to be good stewards," Sueltz said of IBM and Sun, respectively. "We'll push on Sun to be open to all the new ideas. If HP has good ideas, let's take a look at them." IBM Corp., in Armonk, N.Y., can be reached at www.ibm.com. Sun Microsystems Inc., in Mountain View, Calif., can be reached at www.sun.com. InfoWorld Editor at Large Dana Gardner is based in New Hampshire. From MAILER-DAEMON@cs.depaul.edu Mon Dec 7 21:31:35 1998