BOSTON (10-30-95) - The rapid growth of the Internet will fundamentally change the economic model that now underpins the software industry, said Sun Microsystems Inc.'s chief technology officer Eric Schmidt in his keynote address at the Internet World '95 conference today in Boston.
Now, applications are locked into a particular platform and user interface, Schmidt said, "and everyone wants to be the next Windows API [application-program interface]." But applications written with Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which is used to format pages of text on the World Wide Web, can be viewed on a variety of platforms. In essence, "content is king," he said.
"It's less important which platform you use and more important which application you use," Schmidt said.
The Internet paradigm will also lead to the growth of a new computing device, which Schmidt said has been called a "netsurfer," an "Internet applicance," or an "impersonal computer." The device - essentially a dumb terminal -- would be able to read HTML documents, send electronic mail, and the like. But all the software and the data would reside on the server.
Oracle Corp.'s CEO Larry Ellison has highly touted a similar class of products -- a $500-range Network Computer -- as the future of the consumer computer market. Schmidt today said he sees a strong future in the business market for such a device because it would save money for users.
Schmidt also predicted that software would be sold not as a "monolithic application" with dead content, but as a monthly subscription service with hyperlinked content, with people purchasing only the tools they need.
Schmidt also took the opportunity to promote Java, Sun's machine- independent programming language that can be used to create snazzy, animated Web pages.
[Copyright 1995 IDG News Service, International Data Group Inc. All rights reserved.]