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Netscape drops development of Java virtual machines
Sun and IBM left to pick up the slack

Although hundreds of Java software application developers depend on a Java virtual machine (JVM) to run the applications they create, Microsoft Windows dominance has winnowed out most of the large JVM developers -- once known as the anti-Microsoft coalition -- willing to help build JVMs.

Browser leader Netscape is the most recent JVM developer to leave the fold. The company has now officially killed its pure-Java browser project and turned it over to the Mozilla freeware community.

"Java on the client doesn't work, and we at Netscape have done an about-turn on client-side Java in recent months," Marc Andreessen, Netscape's vice president of products, said last week.

"But on the server side, Java is taking off quite quickly," Andreessen added.

Such sentiments strike analysts and the Java community as self-serving and myopic.

"Netscape doesn't have the resources to do Java client development, but that doesn't mean that Sun or IBM or ISVs are not able to and will continue to," said Amy Wohl, editor of The TrendsLetter, in Narberth, Pa.

For its market-leading browser, Netscape's plans to add bug fixes to its JVM for Communicator 4.5, entering beta testing this month, and for an as-yet-to-be determined JVM to be available in Communicator 5.0, due in beta release by year's end, according to officials at Netscape.

The job of developing the next Java clients most people will use has fallen to Java owner Sun, IBM/Lotus (which cooperate with Sun on JVM work), and the freeware development community, which is organized loosely under the Mozilla effort.

For ISVs, however, Netscape's lack of interest in its JVM, which many consider a poor competitor to Microsoft's, is essentially a moot point.

Sun's Java Plug-In 1.1, formerly called Activator, is allowing a new breed of powerful Java applications to run strongly on either Netscape's JVM or Microsoft's Internet Explorer ActiveX Control, giving them the cross-platform benefits of Java despite the muddied JVM waters.

"Today, in order to meet customer needs, you need to give them access to all devices. [Sun's Plug In] is totally excellent. You need to have good JVMs across all platforms," said Rod Hodgman, manager of the marketing department at NovaSoft, an ISV in Burlington, Mass.

"It's a pragmatic issue," Hodgman said.

The server is where the new Java action is, Hodgman said, crediting Sun with covering the JVM field sufficiently to allow that focus.

JVM players Sun -- Owns Java; develops a Java software developer's kit, HotSpot JVM, Activator, new JavaStation and OS IBM/Lotus -- Builds Java suite, helps Sun's JVM effort but uses Microsoft Internet Explorer control in Notes Microsoft -- Optimizes its JVM for fast-growing Explorer browser; being sued by Sun for it Netscape -- Ships Sun's JVM in latest free browser; out of Java client development Oracle -- Seeks Java across all tiers; out of client development Novell -- Optimizing JVM for NetWare; otherwise out of Java client development.

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