Keeping up with the Javas

Was it Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison or Sun Microsystems chief executive Scott McNealy who first coined the phrase 'the network is the computer'? Both were banging on about robust NCs and Java back in 1996, lauding them as a much-needed alternative to the client/server PC architectures dominated by Microsoft and Intel.

Not surprisingly, that autumn, both Microsoft chief executive Bill Gates and Intel chief executive Andy Groves took the stand at Comdex in Las Vegas to denounce these would-be usurpers, pointing out that users would still insist on localised manipulation of data, rather than downloading Java applets across congested corporate networks.

So far, Gates and Groves appear to be right: where NCs are in evidence, they're replacements for dumb terminals. But, at Comdex Spring, we will be hearing yet more about the network being the computer, although this time with the emphasis on Jini - son of Java - and with the battlefield shifted from the office to the home. But there's still a sense of deja vu (or should that be 'de javu') about it all.

Previously, those who held their ground in the NC camp - IBM, Hewlett Packard et al - stood to lose the most if NT achieved dominance in the client/server area, ousting Unix and the proprietary systems. But as the convergence of computers and telecoms brings the viability of wireless networks ever nearer, so thoughts have changed towards how the next generation of handhelds, smart phones and pagers can interact with electronic devices.

Enter the fray, then, Jini - Sun's new platform based on Java for network-enabling a range of products, from PDAs to kitchen appliances. Devices can talk through a home's existing electrical system, or use wireless communications, with the idea that they can automatically announce themselves and their capabilities to the network, then take it from there.

As Ed Zander, chief operating officer at Sun, recently posited at the launch of Jini, PCs based on Windows were no longer at the centre of the computing universe. In a few years, he declared, non-PC Web-enabled devices would outnumber PCs by two to one. That the Symbian cellular consortium of Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson and our own Psion has put its name to the list of early Jini licensees gives the Sun campaign some powerful momentum. Perhaps more pertinent to the home front is Jini support from Philips and Sony. And yet Microsoft continues to push a model where Windows could permeate all computing environments.

Who will ultimately win through? My money is on Microsoft, if only because it is so single-minded and whose technology should, in theory, soon be able to integrate everything, from smart phones and corporate servers to those ubiquitous dishwashers.

McNealy might crow that the King is dead, though he's done that before.

But users will continue chanting long live King Gates for many years yet.

Dave Evans is a freelance IT journalist.