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Does Sun want to become the next Microsoft?

A little-known group within JavaSoft could make this happen

By Robert McMillan and <em>sunworld</em>, JavaWorld.com, 03/01/98

One of the lesser known facts about Sun's JavaSoft division is that it owns the source code to a complete suite of object-oriented productivity applications. Buried in a nondescript building just off of San Mateo, CA's Campus Drive is code for what has been described as a "top shelf" word processor, spreadsheet, presentation system, and even a database.

And Sun doesn't just own the code; it owns the company that wrote it: Lighthouse Design Ltd.

So is JavaSoft about to get into the personal productivity applications game? Well, maybe. The object-oriented language that the Lighthouse apps are written in is not Java -- it's Objective-C -- and the platform they run on is not the Java platform; it's OpenStep.

An acquisition mid-stride

It seems as though Sun has never quite known what to do with Lighthouse Design. In the summer of 1996 Sun's then-CTO Eric Schmidt claimed that the 2 million acquisition "further enhances our commitment to NEO, Sun's object-oriented network environment." Lighthouse seemed like a good source for software and development talent in Sun's object-oriented world.

The only problem was this: As the acquisition was going through, Sun was changing its OO focus from NEO on the server and OpenStep on the client to Java everywhere. So after some time within Schmidt's CTO group, Lighthouse was moved into the JavaSoft organization where it is now known as the Java Applications Group.

The Evil Empire?

Java Applications Group? The vast majority of Sun's Java development has been focused on the Java Platform: the Java class libraries and virtual machine (JVM) specification. But these products have not exactly been gold mines for JavaSoft. The class libraries are freely available, and the JVM can be licensed for a song. If JavaSoft wants to make some real money, it will need to sell its software rather than give it away. And JavaSoft, with its intimate knowledge of the direction of the Java classes, could do quite well for itself selling applications. After all, the Sun business unit controls a platform that runs on almost any computer you can think of. And, by the way, Java happens to be an ISO standard that is also controlled by Sun. Not bad.

In fact, it sounds familiar.

So is JavaSoft trying to become the next Microsoft -- a fearsome competitor that leverages its control of the platform (in Microsoft's case, Windows) APIs to compete as an applications vendor?

"I think the deep-seated answer to that is yes. Who doesn't want to be Microsoft?" says J.P. Morgenthal, president of the NC.Focus consultancy. Morgenthal says he doubts that Sun has any immediate plans to become a Microsoft-like corporation, but he warns that the business model that JavaSoft currently has in place is not necessarily permanent. "There are no guarantees. Sun owns Java. They can do whatever they want whenever they want. Remember that their bottom line is to report to their shareholders."

Others are not so sure. Wil Shipley, who as President of the OpenStep development shop, Omni Development, has followed Lighthouse since its pre-Sun days says "my feeling is that JavaSoft isn't really designed to make money. It's designed to sell servers." He says that the Lighthouse acquisition would have been a good way to deliver high quality productivity apps to Solaris OpenStep users, but questions whether the same can be done on the Java platform, where porting and redesign would be involved. "Sun doesn't have a really good idea of productivity apps and the way they should work."

 

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