Downsizing Java for the desktop
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Sun Microsystems has always played the role of `Godfather' to Java system, touting its central role in evolving an Open programming environment. Now as Anand Parthasarathy discovers with the new Java Desktop version, customers are b eing made `an offer they can't refuse'.
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Sun's CEO, Scott McNealy, holds up a spoof `protest' placard at the launch of the Sun Java system. Right: Screen shots of the desktop, office suite and browser tools.
HARD ON the heels of the global launch last month, Sun Microsystems unveiled its new Java system for the desktop environment in India, even as it announced an unusual pricing model for its enterprise customers.
For the first time, corporate users of rival desktop environments are being wooed with an all-in-one solution (formerly and colourfully known as the `Mad Hatter') which is based on a SUSE Linux kernel, and includes five key elements:
the Open `Mozilla' 1.4 browser, the `Star Office' productivity suite, Ximian Evolution 1.4.4 for email, Gaim 0.66 for instant messaging and the `Genome' desktop. While the `Sun Java Desktop' seems to be directly targeting Microsoft's Windows environment, it offers interoperability with the latter's core applications including all elements of MS Office.
Indeed, the look and feel of the Java-based combo appears tailored to reassuring hardcore Windows users. Indeed this would appear to be the only sensible course of action: the sheer ubiquity of Microsoft products — the various flavours of Windows — on corporate and consumer desktops dictates that any challengers must first pacify potential customers by saying: `Not to worry! It'll feel similar to what you're used to.." before slipping in the corollary: " ... only better!"
Star Office has been simultaneously upgraded to Release 7 and among the new features in this release is the rather neat ability to directly save documents and graphics as PDF files or Flash animations without having to invest in the respective creation tools — Adobe Acrobat or Macromedia. For those who don't want to pay good money (around Rs 4000) for Star Office, there's always the option of downloading the free Open Office, which is usually only one release behind.
`Enterprising' Java
Hand in hand with scaling down Java for the desktop, Sun has also released an Enterprise System version integrating dozens of Java-based components that the company, earlier marketed separately for network, portal and security applications.
In a departure from industry-standard pricing practices, Terence Ng, Director, Sales, Sun Software Asia South, announced in Bangalore that the Java enterprise version would be priced at a flat $ 100 per employee per year while the desktop Java would be similarly priced at $ 50 — regardless of the number of customers who might be enabled to harness the Java-based tools.
Both Java tools are part of what is being renamed the Sun Java System, an umbrella whipping together over 250 separate Sun products and scalable from embedded software for smart cards to full fledged supercomputing platforms.
Internationally, PC vendors like Acer, HP, Dell, Samsung, Toshiba and Gateway, are known to be readying desktop Java platforms starting this month; one can expect leading Indian PC vendors to follow suit.
The Sun Java system runs on all x86 (that is Wintel family— Intel chip and Windows software) systems as well as on Sparc-based machines using either the Solaris or the Linux Operating system. Last week Sun also announced that its new Java desktop would also support the new 64-bit AMD Athlon processor.
As of now Sun is not targeting the consumer desktop market because, being in essence an Open Systems offering, there was probably no easy way to price the product or control its proliferation. But once the Java Desktop becomes available to the corporate sector, you can bet it will trickle onto the desktops of the more computer-savvy lay user, with a little help from our ever-helpful indigenous assemblers.
The company is positioning its new Java System as ``the first viable alternative to Windows in 15 years''. It would appear to be making customers an offer with a double whammy: a reassuringly familiar look and feel in the desktop environment and an asking price that is lower than that of Microsoft's current operating systems. Some early converts to the Java environment, quoted on the Internet, speak of anticipated savings of around 70 percent in total cost of ownership. It remains to be seen how compelling the option will appear to Indian corporates.
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A first cup of Java
HERE IS a beginner's guide to Java extracted from the `Computer Desktop Encyclopedia'.
Java is an object-oriented programming language designed to generate applications that can run on all hardware platforms, small, medium and large, without modification.
Java was modelled after C++, and Java programs can be called from within HTML documents or launched stand-alone.
When a Java program called from a Web page runs on a user's machine, it is called a `Java applet.' When it is run on a Web server, it is called a `servlet.'
When it runs as a stand-alone, non Web-based program on a user's machine, it is a `Java application'. Java is royalty free to developers for writing applications. Unlike HTML, Java is a full-fledged programming language like C and C++.
It allows for the creation of sophisticated applications. Java applications have been mildly successful at the client side, but server-side Java applications have become very popular.
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