FRAMINGHAM (11-10-95) - Hoping to challenge Microsoft Corp.'s control of corporate desktops, Sun Microsystems Inc. this week said it plans to have a wide range of applications and tools available when it formally launches its Java language system in January.
To bolster that effort, Sun also announced it has added Borland International Inc. and Spyglass Inc. to the list of vendors that have licensed Java to build it into their products.
Unlike conventional software, applications written in the Java language are designed to be downloaded from a network and run on any computer equipped with a Java-enabled World Wide Web browser.
More than 10,000 users and developers have registered interest with Sun since a free test version was released in May. And 400 applications have been written.
"Technically, [Java] is clean, and it's a good idea," said Mark Shirley, a researcher at Xerox Corp.'s Palo Alto Research Center in Palo Alto, Calif.
A program written in Java can be downloaded and run on any computer with a Web browser that supports the language. This means corporate applications created in Java could be centrally stored and managed on servers and downloaded to desktops as needed.
Some organizations already use this centralized approach with corporate applications. "We store our applications on multiple servers, even things like Microsoft Office," said Kent Podvin, director of information systems strategic planning and re-engineering at Rite Aid Corp., a drugstore chain based in Camp Hill, Pa.
Still, users figure Java may take a while to brew. "I think it will take a year or two until you see it on everybody's desktop," said Mussa Khiar, a network administrator at Raychem Corp., a chemical and materials company in Menlo Park, Calif.
In the meantime, Sun is encouraging the development of programming tools and finished Java applications from third-party vendors. Evidence of that push includes the following:
--Borland in Scotts Valley, Calif., will create Latte, a rapid- development tool set for building Java applications. The tool set will ship by the middle of next year and will resemble Borland's Delphi or Microsoft's Visual Basic language.
--Applix Inc. in Westboro, Mass., has developed a Java-based spreadsheet, dubbed Espresso, that can import data updates while a user views the spreadsheet on-line.
--National Semiconductor Corp. in Santa Clara, Calif., demonstrated an application that lets customers find information about 30,000 products via the Web.
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