Windows hooks up with Java

May 21, 1999 — Microsoft provided Java integration tools to developers this week so they can run Java applications on Windows platforms and integrate Java and Windows applications.

Microsoft said it will make its Java integration technologies — J/Direct, Java/COM, and Delegates — available to Java virtual machine (JVM) and compiler vendors in a new Developer Tools Interoperability Kit, royalty-free, at the Java section of its Web site (see Resources).

Designed to enable Microsoft’s Java language interoperability technologies for use in third-party compilers and JVMs, the kit includes specifications and test software so ISVs can use the technologies to build JVMs and compilers for Windows-based applications and servers.

Also, developers who employ compilers and JVMs that support the technologies can build applications that interact with Windows platforms and Windows applications written in other languages, Microsoft officials said.

“This is really fascinating. Microsoft had to address the issue of proprietary extensions to Java. And they’ve done a clever thing here to allow other tools vendors to become the channel for these specialized linkages between Java and Windows,” said Marc San Soucie, chief technology officer at GemStone Systems, in Beaverton, Oregon.

Microsoft has been reluctant to offer updated 32-bit Windows JVMs and compilers of its own, citing an ongoing lawsuit between itself and Java licenser Sun Microsystems. Microsoft says that Sun is denying it the technology. Sun says that Microsoft is free to use its license, but must interpret it to produce “pure” Java products.

Now, Microsoft is finding a way to “seduce” Java developers into writing for J/Direct, rather than the Java Native Interface (JNI), an analyst said.

“This will allow you to write Java apps that easily call Windows APIs,” said Carl Zetie, an analyst at the Giga Information Group, in Cambridge, Mass.

“It’s another way of binding your app to Windows and of seducing people away from JNI. If you write to J/Direct, you’re writing to Windows, not another Java platform,” Zetie said.

“This is to encourage people to write apps that run only on Windows. It’s classic Microsoft strategy. This is more of the same. It’s still about persuading people to write for Windows and only for Windows,” Zetie added.

The move to open the Windows-Java connectivity tools, however, comes after many vendors sought to build Windows applications that integrate Java code at a peer level with other languages. Microsoft decided to open the code rather than enlist individual licenses for the technology, a representative said.