News and New Product Briefs (2/27/98)

RSA’s Java encryption enhances performance, BSAFE integration

RSA is now shipping JSAFE 1.1, the newest release of its Java-based security component toolkit. Version 1.1 offers enhanced performance and better integration with BSAFE, RSA’s security toolkit for C.

JSAFE 1.1 has been designed for high-performance security operations and offers more than double the performance of JSAFE 1.0 — thanks to a newly optimized math library. In addition, the interface with BSAFE allows developers to ability to combine Java with native code — providing access to faster C operations within JSAFE. RSA also added an improved memory management system that increases the efficiency of Java applets and applications.

JSAFE is fully compliant with the Public-Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS), the industry standard for cryptography. JSAFE also includes implementations of the government standard DES algorithm.

JSAFE 1.1 is available now with an SDK price of 90. Runtime licenses for products using JSAFE are available to ISV and enterprise developers on a royalty, per-seat, or annual fee basis, beginning at 5,000.

Through March 27, RSA is offering a special promotion to its existing BSAFE customers. Customers can license JSAFE for their Java products under the same terms as their BSAFE license, with an initial fee of 20 percent of what they paid for BSAFE.

• Product info: http://www.rsa.com/rsa/products/jsafe

• Upgrade offer: https://www.rsa.com/rsa/products/jsafe/html/offer.html

Applet contest from Java Boutique and Symantec

The Java Boutique and Symantec announced the Java Boutique Applet Contest, an applet development contest that will run through April 15, 1998.

The categories developers can enter their applets in include:

• Educational
• Visual
• Text
• Audio
• Utility
• Games
• Overall

Winning applets will be showcased on the Java Boutique, with special award buttons for each category.

Winners in each category get Symantec’s Visual Café Professional Developers Edition. The overall winner will receive Symantec’s Visual Café Database Developer’s Edition. Developers can enter as many applets as they wish. Get coding!

• https://javaboutique.internet.com/contest.html

IBM makes San Francisco frameworks available for AS/400 developers

By the ides of March 1998 (or maybe a day later), IBM plans to make the San Francisco Project foundation layer, general ledger, and common business objects software components available for IBM AS/400 developers, extending the components’ reach beyond just the NT and AIX platforms, adding another 475,000 systems (AS/400’s installed base worldwide) to the total.

According to IBM officials, 98 percent of Fortune 100 companies have AS/400 systems installed, not to mention the number of small and medium-size companies that use the system as a scalable alternative to PC/LAN servers.

• San Francisco Project: http://www.ibm.com/java/San Francisco
• AS/400 information: https://www.as400.ibm.com

IBM offers XML tool for Java

IBM is now offering an alpha version of its new XML for Java on the alphaWorks Web site. The XML tool, developed at IBM’s Tokyo Research Lab, is an XML processor written in Java that allows developers to parse, process, and craft XML documents. IBM officials think it will be a good resource for developers to acquaint themselves with XML.

XML (eXtensible Markup Language) 1.0, recently approved as a standard by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), is designed to allow developers and webmasters exchange data with more precision than HTML, theoretically making it a better language for network applications. Certain types of data information can be identified by tags within the documents.

• https://www.alphaWorks.ibm.com/formula/xml
• W3C’s XML page: https://www.w3.org/XML/

Looking for Java beta testers

Data Representations is looking for few good beta testers to give Simplicity for Java, its RAD tool for Java 1.1, a test drive. Simplicity for Java lets developers drag-and-drop Java layouts, AWT components, third-party JavaBeans, and the software’s components into applications. Java source code is executed on the fly, which allows developers to execute class declaration, constructor, method, and event code while they are designing the application. Each change made to source code is instantly integrated into the program model. Simplicity’s Code Sourcerer feature asks questions of the developer to determine what should happen in response to events, and then writes the Java source code to do the job, making it useful for both experienced and new Java developers.

Simplicity for Java has already been through preliminary testing on Windows 95/NT (both the JDK 1.1.5 and the MS SDK 2.01), OS/2 Warp 4.0 (IBM JDK 1.1.4), HP-UX (HP JDK 1.1.4), and Linux (i386 JDK 1.1.3). The company is looking for beta testers who have experience in a large range of hardware and Java VMs, including testers with different levels of Java development experience. Those selected for beta testing will receive a free copy of the released product.

• https://www.datarepresentations.com/beta.htm

CTCBridge T27 for Java gets new GUI

Core Technology’s newest release of CTCBridge T27 for Java 1.2, a full T27 emulator delivered through a Java applet, is available with a new, optional GUI.

The new GUI makes the emulation more browser-like, with 3D buttons and text fields, making it easier to navigate than the traditional terminal screen look. The emulator functions suffer no changes, and you don’t need to make any alterations to host programs.

CTCBridge T27 for Java 1.20 also includes:

• Enhanced printing options (including printer pass-through, HTML screen print, and JPrint screen printing)
• Button bar control
• Support for European characters
• Cut, copy, and paste functions within the applet
• An optional, site-controlled Station Interface Module (SIM) log to monitor user sessions
• More control over the number of simultaneous window environments
• An optional Web environment

If you’re a CTCBridge T27 for Java customer (with support coverage), you get your upgrade free.

• https://www.ctc-core.com/products/bridge.htm

Bean programming course

Object Computing Inc. (OCI) is offering a two-day course, “JavaBeans Programming,” to teach developers about JavaBeans capabilities and how to craft to beans.

The hands-on course also examines how to integrate beans with ActiveX controls. The first offering of the class is scheduled for April 6 and 7, 1998, as part of a Washington University (St. Louis) program. Additional dates are being planned.

OCI is developing two new Java courses, “Developing Graphical User Interfaces using Java” and “Developing Distributed Applications using Java,” planned for May 1998. OCI’s existing Java courses include “Introduction to Java,” “Java Programming,” and “Advanced Java Programming.”

Courses can be taken at OCI’s St. Louis training facility or at a client’s site.

• https://www.ociweb.com/training/index.html

Netroscope delivers Java quarterly scorecard

Netroscope announced that it will be issuing a quarterly Java Product Scorecard, a report that will provide accurate, updated information on Java products, solutions, and market trends. The quarterly publication will be an analysis report on a wide range of Java products. It will also identify market trends and issues.

Netroscope founder and president Natalie Shaheen said, “As an early Java developer, we recognize the need for a ‘scorecard’ to lend legitimacy to Java as a language and platform for enterprise solutions. Java Product Scorecard‘s success depends largely on Netroscope’s ability to determine the appropriate data to capture regarding Java products. Netroscope seeks requirements and feedback of organizations interested in development and deployment of Java products.” At press time, no date has been set for the first issue.

• https://www.netroscope.com/

Getcha Java Foundation Classes!

JavaSoft announced that the Java Foundation Classes (JFC) software is now available at its Web site.

The JFC incorporates GUI components and foundation services to the JDK so Java developers can design applications that fit the look and feel (and behavior) of the various platform operating systems on which the apps will run. The JFC will also include the following foundation services:

• The Java Accessibility API, to make Java apps accessible to people with disabilities
• The Java 2D API, designed for creating sophisticated scientific/business apps
• Drag-and-drop capabilities among Java apps and between Java and native apps

With JFC, developers can also create customized application interfaces and change the look of an application on the fly.

• Download the JFC: https://java.sun.com/products/jfc
• Read more about JFC and Swing components in JavaWorld:
  • http://www.javaworld.com/jw-03-1998/jw-03-swinggui.html
  • http://www.javaworld.com/jw-03-1998/jw-03-howto.html

Sales Vision offers Java sales automation product

Sales Vision is releasing Customer Café, an object-oriented, Java- and component-based sales automation tool designed to let developers quickly assemble and deploy customized sales and marketing automation applets within the enterprise.

Customer Café, which you access through a Java-capable browser, includes Java source code classes and supports Sybase, Oracle, and Informix databases, as well as Microsoft’s SQL Server. It comes with 75 business objects that allows users to manage data on accounts, products, forecasts, team selling, competitors, and sales territories. Each object can be layered into an application and deployed incrementally, according to user needs. The product has an integrated security architecture, territory manager, and business modeler that lets managers grant different levels of access to various users.

Sales Vision sales/marketing VP Mark Logan said that with Customer Café, “Sales representatives can leverage ubiquitous or unlimited access to information through the Internet. To IT management, Customer Café through Java provides unlimited flexibility to create and then evolve a sales-automation solution that meets a business’s exact need, or exact selling process.”

Customer Café is priced at ,000 per user.

• Product info: https://www.salesvision.com/Cafe.htm
• Original article: https://techweb.cmp.com/iw/newsflash/nf668/0213_st3.htm

SuperCede offers IDE with JavaBeans for free

SuperCede is offering a free version of its SuperCede for Java 2.0 development environment (announced at the recent Software Development West ’98 show in San Francisco) with 60 JavaBeans. Get it while you can!

The SuperCede 2.0 Java development tools offers support for JDK 1.1, drag-and-drop database connections, and an ability to call existing C++, ActiveX, and Visual Basic programs. How long the free offer will last, well, SuperCede officials won’t say.

After the free offer expires, pricing for the single-user Standard Edition is expected to be 9.

• https://www.supercede.com/prodserv/form1a.html

AccuSoft offers Java document and image viewer

AccuSoft Corp. released NetVue/JAVA, a Java-based document viewer applet that makes it easy to add an inexpensive, fast way to view documents to Web applets.

NetVue/JAVA uses an Internet-specific architecture to allow users to view multipage TIFF documents, JPEG and GIF images, thumbnails, and annotations. By optimizing code with multithreading and background processing, NetVue/JAVA provides a platform-independent way of viewing these online documents at a fast speed.

Some of the advanced features of NetVue/JAVA include:

• Support for displaying annotations
• A small footprint with minimal memory use
• Scale-to-gray display enhancement for quality and readability
• A thumbnail browser for multipage documents
• Zooming and scrolling options
• A simplified user interface

Check with the company for pricing information.

• https://www.accusoft.com/netvue.htm

IDC Research: More adopting Java

According to an IDC Technology Integration Panel Study (TIPS) survey, “Java Adoption Jumps,” more than 45 percent of 800 U.S. companies surveyed had adopted Java in some way. That’s an 11 percent increase in three months (between Summer 1997 and October/November 1997).

Evan Quinn, director of IDC’s Java research program, said, “We consider the 11 percent increase in Java adoption in TIPS Q4 as dramatic; it may prove to be the largest quarterly leap in Java’s life-cycle.”

Quinn went on. “Despite a recent anti-Java backlash by skeptics and naysayers, it appears that in terms of corporate adoption, Java’s momentum certainly continues unabated. If anything Java has picked up steam. The publicity swirling around the Sun vs. Microsoft suits and the groundswell of support by Java die-hards helped fuel the surprisingly swift adoption rate of Java in U.S. companies of all sizes.”

The study continues by reporting that although large companies showed a rather rapid increase in the Java adoption rate (12 percent from Q3 to Q4), small and medium-size companies are really moving forward with Java (15 percent). The study authors feel that smaller companies see Java as their futures.

The study’s authors also feel that U.S. companies are adopting Java faster than in other countries because there is a high concentration of C++ programmers here.

The “Java Adoption Jumps” survey is available for purchase from IDC.

• https://www.idcresearch.com/

Talarian announces SmartSockets publish/subscribe Java middleware

Talarian announced the Java version of its SmartSockets publish/subscribe middleware, which allows developers to build Java programs that can communicate with programs written in almost any programming language on any platform.

SmartSockets offers fault tolerance and a high degree of scalability, perfect for the high transaction-demand industries such as financial trading, transportation management, satellite communications control, high-tech manufacturing, and telecommunications fraud detection.

SmartSockets’ Java class library allows Java developers to build programs that can seamlessly communicate across a LAN, WAN, or the Internet in a reliable and asynchronous way with programs written in Java, C, C++, Visual Basic, and other programming languages. The SmartSockets’ developed programs can run on almost any platform.

Among SmartSockets features, developers will also find

• 100 percent fault tolerance
• Unlimited scalability
• Hot failover capabilities
• Dynamic message routing
• Guaranteed message delivery

The Java version of SmartSockets starts at ,500 for Windows 95, NT, and most versions of Unix. It is available in an early access release now; general release is scheduled for Q298.

• https://www.talarian.com/smartintro.html

Sun licenses Ductus raster software for Java 2D

JavaSoft has licensed Ductus Inc.’s anti-aliasing rasterization technology, Ductus Clear View, to be used in the Java 2D API.

Java 2D is a Java media library that allows software developers to add a variety of media to applications. The Ductus Clear View anti-aliasing technology lets developers improve the visual quality of text and graphics for low-resolution, small-footprint, and handheld devices without taking a performance hit.

With these improvements, applications that use Java 2D will be able to offer a higher text quality for ideographic languages, better maps for GPS software, and better scaling for illustrations and text for online publishing.

JavaSoft product marketing director David Spenhoff commented, “Ductus Clear View is a technology that helps us provide superior device independence and quality for our 2D graphics. The ability to use anti-aliasing for text and line graphics without impairing performance is of great value to application developers.”

• https://www.ductus.com/

Web@aGlance for Solaris: Java rendering of animated real-time GUIs

Intuitive Technology has ported its Java-based Web@aGlance Automation Server to Sun Microsystems Solaris 2.6 OS. The software takes data requests from a browser and displays static data as tables and charts and real-time data as animated graphics.

For such industries as manufacturing, this should give people at remote locations the ability to call up historical data of, say, an assembly line, and see the trends as a table or chart. But, having the Automation Server available over the Internet or intranet, takes the ability to a new level — monitors can also view an ever-changing process in real-time, as it happens, without having to be on the factory floor.

Java allows Web@aGlance to deliver live process-graphics screens from DCS, HMI, SCADA, and other process applications to Web browsers, organized as table, charts, and as customized Web pages (using the program’s supplied wizards). The software also includes an editor and Java language VCR, so remote monitors can edit assembly processes and replay events to identify problem spots.

Broadbase Server data mart gets Java data mining features

Broadbase is adding Java-based data-mining capabilities to Broadbase Server 1.2, its data mart development package.

The latest Broadbase Server will feature Java data-mining objects for induction (predictive analysis), affinity (predicting data elements that are likely to occur together), and sequencing (analyzing customer buying habits).

Users can access Broadbase data mining through common front-ends (such as Web browsers, Excel spreadsheets, or analysis tools such as the ones supplied by Cognos and Business Objects.) Version 1.2 also includes templates for sales, marketing, and product analyses of data from SAP, Vantive, and Scopus applications. You get multibyte character support to support Asian languages.

Broadbase Server, designed to implement Windows NT-based data marts, contains OLAP and data transformation components and a Java virtual machine, all for 9,500.

• https://www.broadbase.com/L3prodOV_mn.htm

OMG finalizes IIOP comm protocols to support Java

The Object Management Group (OMG) has finalized modifications of its Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP) communications protocol to fully support Java.

Originally, JavaSoft didn’t want to support IIOP — it wanted its Java Remote Method Protocol (JRMP) to be the sole transport for the Remote Method Invocation (RMI). JavaSoft eventually responded to its developers and agreed to integrate RMI and IIOP.

In the revision, IIOP supports objects-by-value, which allows the protocol to act as an RMI transport protocol (in which methods pass arguments by value normally).

Sun’s James Gosling predicted that running RMI over IIOP would be popular among developers. “It turned out that Java developers really liked RMI because of some of its higher-level functions, while the platform people really liked IIOP for its underlying transport.”

IIOP support will be included as an extension to the JDK 1.2.

• Original article:/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?980213.whomgjava.htm

Java Commerce Client whitepaper

JavaSoft has posted its Java Commerce Client (JCC) whitepaper to its developers Web site. JCC is part of the Java Electronic Commerce Framework, which will be unveiled in detail at JavaOne in March 1998.

It includes the following sections:

• JCC FAQ
• JCC Business Perspective (presents the way the JCC addresses critical issues facing online consumers, merchants, and banks)
• JCC Architecture (a general whitepaper that discusses the design goals behind the JCC and the subsystems that comprise the Java Commerce Client)
• Java Commerce Messages (a whitepaper that discusses the format developed for conveying information from commerce servers to the JCC)
• The Gateway Security Model in the Java Electronic Commerce Framework (a technical paper that describes the permit-based security model used by the JECF)
• Security in the Java Commerce Client (a paper that places the Gateway Security Model in the general context of electronic security and discusses the GSM implementation)
• JCC Security API Usage Document (technical information concerning signing cassettes and on using tickets, gates, and permits according to the Gateway Security Model)
• Java Commerce Client User Interface Functionality (an overview of the functionality of the JCC user interface)
• JCC User Interface Components: Design Methodology (a technical document about the methodology behind the pluggable JCC GUI)

• https://www.javasoft.com/products/commerce/doc_index.html

Sun integrates Java 3D API with VRML

Sun Microsystems intends to integrate the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) into its Java 3D API with its plans to release a Java-based VRML 97 “time-zero” geometry loader and VRML browser tool later in 1998. VRML 97 is the standard for encapsulating, delivering, and playing interactive 3D graphics over the Web.

The geometry loader and browser tool will be part of a utility library that will accompany a sample implementation of Java 3D API 1.0, due out in late April 1998. This sample will use JDK 1.2 for Windows 95, NT, and Solaris.

The VRML Consortium (of which Sun is a voting member) will work with Sun to establish a working group whose goal is to integrate Java 3D and VRML. Any changes to the integration would be subject to the Consortium’s open review and voting process.

Borland releases AS/400 Java devtool

Borland International released JBuilder Client/Server Suite for the AS/400, a version of its Java development tool designed to build Java applications to run on IBM’s AS/400 systems.

The suite, which was developed jointly with IBM, provides access to native AS/400 services, contains wizards and features specific to the IBM system, and interoperates with IBM’s AS/400 Toolbox for Java. The suite outputs client- and server-side Java — the code will run on JDK 1.1-compliant Java virtual machines (in compliance with the latest IBM OS, OS/400 4.2).

Expect JBuilder/400 to be generally available shortly for a starting price of ,995. A trial version is available on site.

• Product info:https://www.borland.com/borland400/
• Original article: https://techweb.cmp.com/internetwk/news/news0217-12.htm

Jad, the fast freeware Java decompiler

Developers are invited to try Jad 1.5.3.1, a freeware Java decompiler written in C++ that reads Java class files and converts them into Java source files, which can then be recompiled.

According to the creators, Jad runs faster than decompilers written in Java (and it doesn’t use the Java runtime for its functioning, so you don’t have to make any special setup to use it). Jad also can annotate Java source code with Java virtual machine bytecodes, so developers can see exactly which bytecodes the Java compiler generates for each Java statement or expression. It also automatically converts identifiers scrambled by Java obfuscators into valid ones.

Developers can get Jad for Windows 95/NT on Intel platform; for Linux on Intel platform; for Linux (statically linked); for AIX 4.2 on IBM PowerPC platform; and for OS/2 (cross-compiled for OS/2 on NT using EMX and RSXNT packages, requiring EMX runtime).

• https://web.unicom.com.cy/%7Ekpd/jad.html

SAP and IBM prepare business apps for the Java NC

In 1997, SAP, a manufacturer of enterprise resource planning software (ERP), announced a plan to develop a Java front-end of its R/3 business software suite tailored for the IBM Network Station. SAP now intends to debut the Java client version in March 1998.

An NC-enabled Java client will give the mostly large-enterprise SAP customers the ability to migrate from their existing mainframe systems to a client/server system, without having to partition the mainframe.

Yankee Group hardware analyst Brian Murphy said that the Java client for SAP products is “extremely significant because SAP is the 800-pound gorilla in the packaged applications space, and this has all along been thought to be the sweet spot for NCs.”

SAP plans to debut the R/3 Java clients at the CeBit show in Hanover, Germany.

• Original article: /cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?980221.ehsap.htm

Magazine reader poll says ActiveX on the way out

In a recent reader poll by CNET, 72 percent of the respondents doubted that ActiveX would be around much longer.

Detractors backed up their claim by citing the fact that even Microsoft doesn’t use the term “ActiveX” when officials describe the company’s distributed computing strategy, its shoddy security, and its dependency on the “too slow,” “too complex” Windows. Other comments include:

• ActiveX is a Java copycat without the platform-independence.
• ActiveX components take to long to tweak compared with JavaBeans.
• Java may be buggy in places right now, but the design is far ahead.

Also, some respondents predicted that the COM technology (as a replacement for ActiveX, a competitor for Java) probably won’t make it either.

The ActiveX supporters mostly saw the technology surviving because of Microsoft’s marketing presence and prowess. They also cited that you only have to download the technology once (instead of each time you need a new component) and that the underlying COM technology is widely used and understood, and entrenched user habits.

Oracle products to support Enterprise JavaBeans

Oracle recently detailed its plan to integrate support for Enterprise JavaBeans and distributed components into all its software products — business apps, devtools, app servers, and databases.

Support for Java should start appearing with the next release of Oracle’s DBMS, Oracle8.1. 8.1 will include support for Java-based stored procedures and its own Java virtual machine.

Version 5.0 of the company’s Application Server should also sport the integrated support in the form of asynchronous messaging. Expect this to debut early in 1999, since version 4.0 has to come out first, and it’s planned for April 1998.

Also, the upcoming versions of application modeler Designer/2000 and application builder Developer/2000 should support distributed components, as well as soon-to-be-released AppBuilder for Java 1.0 (planned for April 1998). AppBuilder should be able to create Java or CORBA components for the Application Server 4.0, then the generated components would become unnecessary when the server supports Enterprise JavaBeans (version 5.0). Oracle also has plans to implement Java within Oracle Applications.

Oracle tools product marketing VP Jeremy Burton said, “The main area we’re focusing on is the use of the same component model and repository.” He also noted that some of these concepts were originally from Oracle’s object-based development tool project Sedona (which was dropped, partly because its relationship to Java was so weak). Burton went on to say that by the end of 1998, Oracle intends to have Java integrated into Oracle clients, the middle-tier application server, and database products — all the way from the front to the back.

Oracle officials plan to unveil the official product schedule in March 1998.

Intel offers Java performance-tuning tool

Intel introduced VTune 3.0, a Pentium-based Java code performance-tuning tool, at this month’s Software Development West ’98 conference.

VTune stops the CPU at specified periods to collect data on instruction addresses that have moved through the system. Then, the software relates the addresses to the high-level source code and creates a graphic highlighting CPU-time spent on each section of the program, allowing the developer to spot the sections of the program that takes up too much CPU time. It uses a hot-spot viewer to identify the problem areas.

Because Java is not compiled directly to machine code (it gets interpreted into intermediate bytecode), it is harder to correlate performance hits between the program and machine code. So, how does VTune overcome the problem that the relationship between application software and the Pentium’s low-level machine code is not clear? VTune engineering manager Sri Sridharan said, “We hook into the Java Virtual Machine and the compiler to find out where the code is being generated in memory.”

He added, “The way we collect hot-spot data is through a kernel-mode driver that takes processor-event interrupts every 1 millisecond. Before we begin sampling, we analyze the source-code modules and create a memory map. We hook into the operating system and let the OS tell us where the modules are being loaded, and then we create from this a processor-address load map.”

Sridharan continued. “We look at all the addresses we have collected [during sampling] and correlate this with the module data to find the hot spots. So, for example, when we find that a particular event generated a lot of cache-misses, [it] would tell us we’ve found a hot spot.”

VTune 3.0 works with Pentium, Pentium Pro, and Pentium II system, and it can analyze software written in Java, C, C++, Fortran, and Visual Basic. It also supports the development of object-based software components. Developers should be able to get a free beta starting in March 1998.

• Product info: https://developer.intel.com/design/pertool/vtcd
• Beta (March 1998): https://www.developer.intel.com/design/perftools
• Bill Day’s SD98 overview includes a look at VTune: http://www.javaworld.com/jw-03-1998/jw-03-sd98.day.html

Java/Microsoft wars: Prelim injunction hearing starts

Friday, February 27, 1998, is the day that Sun Microsystems and Microsoft face each other in a federal court, as Sun seeks a preliminary injunction to keep Microsoft from using the “Java Compatible” logo. The injunction would prevent Microsoft from using the logo until the Sun-filed lawsuit (that alleges Microsoft breached is Java licensing contract) is concluded. That trial has not started yet; it is expected to begin later in 1998.

District Court Judge Ronald Whyte may rule on the injunction immediately after both parties finish their 20-minute oral arguments, or he may rule at a later date.

HP licenses Tower Technology Java compiler

Hewlett-Packard has licensed Java compiler technology from Tower Technology, with the goal of assembling a high-performance HP-UX-based enterprise environment in which Java can run. HP expects to integrate this compiler with its other Java technology.

HP Internet/App. Systems Division marketing manager Gina Cassinelli said, “We continue implementing our strategy to provide the best enterprise environment for running Java by developing and acquiring technology as appropriate. After evaluating available third-party Java technologies, we were impressed with Tower’s leadership in the area of object-oriented-specific optimizations. By licensing technology from Tower, we will be able to improve the performance optimizations we perform on large enterprise Java applications.”

Austin, TX-based Tower Technology is the maker of TowerJ, a Java-app performance enhancement product.

• https://www.twr.com/

ErgoTech’s delivers industrial JavaBeans

ErgoTech Systems has released Real-Time Industrial JavaBeans, bean components that allows developers to automate and enhance computer-guided industrial processes.

ErgoTech’s JavaBeans let Java developers create dynamic instrument panels and other user interfaces for factory automation and industrial control applications, interfaces that can display live or simulated, real-time data.

The ErgoTech beans include:

• Strip Charts (Scroll Graph): The Scroll Graph, or Strip Chart, delivers a general interface able to display a wide range of data. The chart can scroll the data on a configurable time base.
• Meters: The Meter beans can be customized into a vertical or horizontal layout with various background panels, optional color tic mark bands for data ranges, and needle styles.
• Knobs: An input/output bean that you click on to update a data source. It also displays the current value of a data source and you can change both the starting and ending angles and the high and low values. It will also force the values it generates to be stay within the current range.
• Seven Segment Displays: The Seven Segment bean allows your application to show any number of digits and decimal places, with the ability to shadow various cells.
• Annuciators and Fillable Shapes: This collection comes with the Box (Bar), Circle, Polygon, and the Rounded Box, allowing developers different looks to display a data source’s current value. The beans can be filled from any edge, not filled, or continuously filled.
• Active Button: An input/output bean that displays the current data server value with configurable true (on state) and false (off state) strings.
• Active Scrollbars: An input/output bean, horizontal and vertical, with customizable incremental values.

The Java 1.1-compatible components are sold as a package for a special introductory price of 99 (for email orders only).

• https://www.ergotech.com/JavaBeans.html

Informix, Sun, and Creative Healthcare craft a rural health-care system

Informix, Sun, and Creative Healthcare Systems (CHS) have joined to create an Internet/intranet system to connect Community Memorial Healthcare’s (CMH, of Marysville, KS) health-care providers.

The CHS system, expected to be completed by June 1999, will be based on Informix’s Dynamic Server and Java. Health-care workers will be able to access and manage patient records accounting online. It will connect the Marysville hospital, its six clinics, a long-term care facility, and the area home health unit in a paperless system over a 10/100baseT Ethernet network — covering a potential 12,700 people (the current population).

CMH CEO and president Harley Appel said, “We were looking to replace all our existing information technology in the hospital, long-term care clinic, and our rural health clinics with a Year 2000-compliant solution that would encompass all our patient information and organizational needs.” Besides CHS’s MedGenix Health Information Network software (for records and accounting management), CMH will also be integrating laboratory, pharmacy, and radiology software packages from Creative Computer Applications (CCA).

The system, as currently planned, has 70 Dynamic Server licensed seats, a Sun four-CPU Enterprise 3000 server, JavaStation thin clients, plus the above mentioned software packages.

Contigo Java conferencing system makes its move

Contigo Software announced that several industry vendors have contracted to use customized versions of Contigo’s Internet Conference Center (ICC) turnkey data-conferencing delivery and organization system. Contigo also announced its new Java-based document conferencing center.

ICC acts as a central meeting place for a company’s internal and external data conferencing. ICC accepts native PowerPoint or Corel Presentations 8 slides, which are automatically converted to HTML and uploaded to a secure site for presentation to remote users. ICC can read and display most word processing documents, too. And ICC also provides a tracking and billing system that makes it easy to manage ICC teleconferencing usage.

Corel, Oracle, Digital, and Financial Relations Board are using ICC to create a link from their companies to Contigo’s Internet Conference Center for product launches, managers’ meeting, product training sessions, sales people, and business partners.

ICC should ship on March 1, 1998 and pricing is based on the level of features and integration the customer desires.

• https://www.contigo.com/

MCS debuts the Calypso Communication Server

Micro Computer Systems (MCS) announced the Calypso Communication Server (CCS), a Java software system that allows any IT application to automatically send email and transfer data files over the Internet.

CCS lets users automatically send computer-generated messages to pagers, as well as decreases the response time for order processing and system status monitoring. It easily integrates with existing DBMS (such as those from Oracle, Informix, OpenIngres, Sybase, or DB2) and information applications. Multiple applications can access the CCS system at the same time.

MCS marketing director Gary Phillips said, “CCS opens the doorway of Internet electronic communications to any application and any company.” He added that the CCS system can be easily installed and administered. It generates log files with status and error messages, and alerts the system administrator of any return receipts, errors, or undeliverable mail or files.

Evaluation copies are available.

• https://www.mcsdallas.com/

OS/2 gets new Java virtual machine

IBM is integrating a new version of the Java virtual machine (VM) into the latest OS/2 operating system and WorkSpace on Demand. The latest OS/2 is also getting enhancements to its kernel and video subsystems.

The Java 1.1.4 VM will be integrated into the OS/2 server, clients, WorkSpace on Demand, and into the OS/2 version of Netscape Navigator, so no matter what you’re using, you get the same JVM. The package comes with a utility to switch to an earlier version of Java, if you need to.

Steven King, IBM product manager for Warp Server, said “The core of our network computing strategy is built around Java solutions, and Warp Server is a premier Java server.”

• OS/2 Warp: https://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/warp-client/b2.html
• WorkSpace on Demand: https://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/workspace/d2.html

PowerSqribe Java-based OLAP server

Sqribe Technologies released PowerSqribe, a Java server application that uploads online analytical processing (OLAP) applets to browser users, applets that help users analyze data.

PowerSqribe delivers analysis functions to users, so they can perform interactive analysis, drill down into data, modify graph formats, and design the way information is presented. It uploads these analysis tools to the client, but access to the data (in databases) is performed on the server side (through a JDBC driver), making these OLAP tools quick, according to Sqribe VP John Schroeder.

PowerSqribe includes a Java application server, a PowerSqribe server, and a client-access Java component. The software integrates with the company’s other products — ReportMart, WebSQRIBE, and SQR software.

PowerSqribe runs on any server (Unix, NT, mainframe) that sports a Java virtual machine. It costs 9 per user.

• https://www.sqribe.com/PRODUCTS/pwrsqrib.htm

JavaHelp draft spec available

Sun has posted the JavaHelp draft specification for free public download. The JavaHelp spec defines an API designed to let developers incorporate online help into apps, components, and Web pages.

The JavaHelp help system will run on any platform/browser that supports the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). It will be offered as a standard extension for JDK 1.2-supported platforms.

JavaSoft product marketing director David Spenhoff said, “The JavaHelp technology ensures that developers can provide a high quality, platform-independent help solution for their Java applications, components, operating systems, appliances, and Web pages that will be intuitive and easy for end users.”

• JavaHelp information: https://java.sun.com/products/javahelp
• Draft spec download: https://java.sun.com/jdc

Netscape puts Javagator browser on hold

Netscape has decided to put the development of Javagator, its pure Java browser planned with input from Sun, IBM, and Oracle, on hold.

According to Netscape client products VP Jim Hamerly, the company has decided to “put the project on hold as we re-engage with our partners. We are looking for confirmation and concurrence that the plan we have [for Javagator] is the right one.” Hamerly was quick to caution that “This is not a setback for Java. It’s simply an acknowledgment that we have to be more open and dependent on partners to be successful.”

Netscape’s Javagator partners didn’t seem to have a problem with its “back-burner” status. Currently, Sun has (or almost has) two products that fit the bill for it — the HotJava 1.1.2 browser (almost all Java) that is slated to ship with the JavaStation NC and a lightweight, small-device version of the HotJava browser it is developing with Spyglass.

IBM’s Lotus division is also not hampered by the delay, since its eSuite product already incorporates Sun’s HotJava browser.

• Original article: /cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?980226.whjavagator.htm

Software AG’s Bolero: Create Java components without using Java

Aiming at the high end of the e-commerce-component programming market, Software AG announced Bolero, a Java-based software that employs a proprietary (and reportedly easier-to-use) language to create Java electronic-commerce components.

Software AG chose Java for Bolero to make sure that it was portable across various platforms, so software manufacturers and users can integrate Internet apps with custom and standard software apps.

With Bolero, developers can simply choose (and set) the class attributes they desire for their components. They write components in the Bolero language, then set class attributes for with JavaBeans or DCOM. Software AG expects add CORBA and IIOP support to Bolero by early 1999.

Other features developers will find in Bolero:

• Persistent storage of objects in RDBs (object-relational mapping)
• A syntax check for Object Query Language statements at compile time, avoiding data-access errors at runtime (OQL is a subset of the SQL3 standard)
• A compiler that generates JDK 1.2-compliant Java bytecode.
• Integrated Java class libraries
• Three application integration methods — DCOM, Java Beans, or RMI
• A GUI programming tool

The company expects Bolero to ship Q498 for Windows NT (development platform — supported deployment platforms include NT, Solaris, and OS/390). Expected pricing is estimated at ,000 for each developer seat. If you happen to be at CeBIT98 in Hannover, Germany in March 1998, stop by the Software AG booth for a demonstration.

At press time, the Bolero information on the company’s site is restricted to a press release.

• https://www.softwareag.com/corporat/press/feb98/bolero-e.htm

IBM offers Java developers to boost JavaOS

IBM is offering Sun (with Sun’s approval) its 2,400 Java developers to help put the finishing touches on the JavaOS and get it shipping.

By IBM throwing its considerable market presence here, the move is heralded by some as not just technical assistance, but as a public relations boost to Java and the network computing concept. It also helps counter the notion that Sun has a proprietary stranglehold on the JavaOS, and it gives IBM a leg up when it introduces its JavaOS-based Network Station.

Besides cleaning up some JavaOS features (such as security, device drivers, servicing, and OS administration), the joint teams are expected to develop tools and services and work out educational and certification services for software/hardware manufacturers. And both companies with jointly market the operating system.

Schlumberger joins EU project to develop Java cards

Schlumberger announced that it would participate in SCARAB, a European Union-sponsored project to develop Java-based smart cards that people could use to securely access services in a projected future of open telecommunications.

SCARAB, part of the EU ACTS 30055 project, will define a smart card as a device that gives users very portable, almost universal access to upcoming, seamless telecommunication services. A funding proposal has just been accepted that would allow development to start in March 1998.

Schlumberger expects to fit well in this proposal by using its existing Cyberflex JavaCard technology as a well-developed starting point to craft this universal programmable token. Cyberflex marketing manager Fabien Thiriet said, “Tomorrow’s telecommunications environment will offer an incredible array of voice and data services to customers. The SCARAB card provides the ‘key’ to unlock the benefits of that environment, making it secure and simple to use for individuals. This project has the potential to benefit literally billions of people worldwide.”

Other companies involved in the ACTS 30055 project are:

• Alcatel Bell NV, Belgium,
• Alcatel Business Systems, France
• Centro Studi e Laboratori Telecommunicazione SPA, Italy
• Politecnico di Torino, Italy
• GMV SA, Spain
• Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain
• Royal PTT Netherlands NV, Netherlands
• Universitet Gesamthochschule Siegen, Germany