SINGAPORE (10-31-95) - Attendees at a keynote address here at the Comdex Asia show last week glimpsed Sun Microsystems Inc.'s vision of how networks will shift the balance of power in the computer industry.
"We're watching something equivalent to the shift in the early 1980s when the microprocessor arrived," said John Gage, director of Sun Microsystems science office. "Because of the network we are suddenly seeing things that are not possible to do in any other way," he said.
In the current paradigm of computing, single companies -- namely Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. -- control the way users compute by dominating desktop and system architectures.
Sun's future vision, expressed for years in its old slogan, "The Network is the Computer," has it that users with low-cost, bare-bones hardware can download from the Internet the applications they need when they need them.
Though this will take some time to happen, said Gage, the first shot will be fired this December when Netscape Communications ships the latest version of its popular browser software, Netscape 2.0.
Built into the browser will be a piece of Sun's recently announced Java programming language, which will enable Netscape 2.0 to receive over the Internet "applets," or small special-purpose applications.
As an increasing number of software vendors release Java-enabled applications like Netscape 2.0, a universe of other developers will then begin to build applets many of which will mimic pieces of current applications such as Microsoft's Excel and Word, he explained.
"That changes the distribution of money and power in the computer industry and that's the idea -- decentralize, let everyone play," he said.
[Copyright 1995 IDG News Service, International Data Group Inc. All rights reserved.]