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Interview: 'Java and Jini will be in everything'
Sun Chief Strategy Officer Bill Raduchel talks to IDG about the future of Java and Jini -- and Y2K
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April 9, 1999 -- In the decade to come, computer users will no longer use their PCs as their main way of accessing the Internet. They will be tapping into the Net through their cell phones, their fridges, their televisions, and their cars. They'll be surrounded by a wide range of Internet-related devices, many of them bearing the Jini logo.
This is part of Sun Microsystems Inc.'s vision according to the company's Chief Strategy Officer Bill Raduchel, who is also a member of Sun's executive committee. He heads up the vendor's planning and development efforts, including all mergers and acquisitions. It was Raduchel who signed on Sun's behalf the three-way agreement with America Online Inc. and its latest purchase, Netscape Communications Corp.
Raduchel was in Hong Kong yesterday at the end of an eight-day visit to Asia where he met with Sun customers here, in Japan, the Philippines, and Singapore, giving them Sun's perspective on the Net.
In a wide-ranging conversation with IDG News Service here yesterday, he talked about how Sun's Java and Jini technologies are likely to develop and also gave his take on the year 2000 (Y2K) issue.
IDGNS: Was Scott McNealy (Sun's chairman, chief executive officer, and president) serious when he said at the CeBIT show in March in Hanover that one of his goals is to put Java in every car made in Germany?
Raduchel: He was serious. Java will end up in all cars. It'll cost tens of US dollars to connect to the Net in your car. That's why the Net will explode as the cost of access devices goes down. For example, Electrolux bringing out the first Net-enabled fridge. It's a novelty now, but in 10 years as costs go down, it'll make sense then. Even if you use it a few times a day, like a bulletin board, saying "Kids, I'm going to be home late, make dinner," it's worth it.
Both Microsoft At Work and Novell's NEST [earlier failed embedded systems initiatives] tried to go down too low. Java leaves most of the existing software stack to the device. The real different thing about Java is that it makes a layer you can put on many different operating systems.
Java and Jini will be in everything, but that doesn't mean that the user will ever know, 90 percent of them will never know. Everything is to do with economics. Technology doesn't drive change, economics drives change and that change in turn drives technology.
As we learn the economics of all devices below PCs, we discover that the PC model doesn't work very well. With the devices' very sophisticated engineering, it's not very easy to rip out one operating system and put in another. At the same time, all markets can't be different, there is a need to have a common layer so that you can use the same services such as stock tickers and e-mail notification in every device.
IDGNS: What about criticisms of Java? Is Sun working on a slimmed-down version of the Java virtual machine for use in embedded systems?
Raduchel: Our PJava [personal], EJava [embedded], which is a subset of P, and KJava [originally meant kernel] for use in the smallest devices, are all out in beta now.
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