In your recent issue of Network World (Jan. 7), you have an article about the trials and tribulations that Sun is having with Java.
Java has established itself in the market as a technology that is extremely portable and powerful. Rather than Sun take the full onus of future development of the product, they should spin it off.
A similar case in point would be 3Com with its Palm product. Palm has now announced an IPO and 3Com has a nice little investment. The problems of managing the future of Palm rests on someone else’s shoulders. The fact
that major players such as Motorola, Nokia and AOL want to have stakes says something for its future.
IBM has major plans for the Java platform itself. Look at the WebSphere product. IBM has ported it to NetWare for the 5.1 release. I’m sure that IBM has other plans for the technology through such vehicles as its Global Services arm, otherwise they wouldn’t have made a public statement about being miffed.
Standards are nice and provide stability to the technology market. Java in itself is an established technology and Sun should step back from the plate and let someone else run with the ball. Let this new entity find
its own standards and thereby its feet. Sun can still keep a piece of the action and move on to developing other technologies. SUN will still come up with other products that will become industry standards. Look at NFS as an example.
The old adage about, “If you love something, set it free,” comes to mind.
Doug Hoover
DRH Enterprises
Carleton Place, Ont.
