SAN FRANCISCO (12-05-95) - Netscape Communications Corp. vice president Marc Andreessen used his keynote address at the first Web Innovations show here yesterday to launch a cut-down version of the Java programming language -- and take a few potshots at Microsoft Corp.
As expected, Netscape and Sun Microsystems announced JavaScript, an object scripting language for the World Wide Web (WWW) available as part of Netscape Navigator 2.0 and available on the Web now in beta form.
JavaScript is designed to make it easy for the ordinary Web designer, without programming experience, to create interactive Web content. Instead of writing code, the designer uses a scripting language similar to the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) used in today's Web pages.
"We think Java is emerging as the language for the next 10 years, and hopefully the next decade. JavaScript takes Java and makes it accessible to people who are working in HTML today," said Andreessen.
Netscape and its partners hope that the combination of ubiquitous, open browser technology and the Java programming language will create an entirely new software industry.
"Everyone is going to shift away from traditional PC operating systems to the Internet. Java is going to go head to head with Visual Basic as Microsoft tries to retrofit Visual Basic for the 'net. We think over the long term Microsoft will adopt JavaScript -- but it will take a while," he said.
In later remarks to the press, Andreessen said, "There's industrywide support for a new platform. In this new world there's not going to be a single, dominant company."
Microsoft is expected to announce its plans for the Internet at a briefing later this week.
Conference attendees seemed to welcome the challenge to Microsoft.
"This is the first real high-visibility opportunity to find a chink in Microsoft's armor. That's why the whole industry is excited," said Brad Cain, director of product development at Asymetrix Corp., based in Bellevue, Wash.
"I have to say JavaScript seems just like a simplified Java," he said.
"I'm not a big fan of Microsoft. To me, their operating system is like the Death Star in `Star Wars' -- awkward and over-extended," said Paul Hufflett, a market analyst with the New Zealand Post Office, based in Wellington, New Zealand.
"With JavaScript, to me it's still unclear how you'd author with it," said Hufflett.
For one user, Java's ability to present video images and create live content was very attractive.
"A lot of what you see with delivery of live content is very interesting to us. Video is very exciting. It's no longer static images on a page," said Dean Chamberlain, multimedia designer with The Phelps Group, a marketing company with several music industry clients, based in Los Angeles.
Netscape, of Mountain View, Calif., can be reached at +1 (415) 528- 2619. Sun, also of Mountain View, is at +1 (415) 786-8199.
[Copyright 1995 IDG News Service, International Data Group Inc. All rights reserved.]