IBM PROVOKES JAVA FIGHT WITH SUN.IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) (stock: IBM) executives said Sun is waffling on its proprietary hold on the Java technology. Sun failed in its efforts to get Java standardized by the International Standards Organization See ISO. (ISO (1) See ISO speed. (2) (International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland, www.iso.ch) An organization that sets international standards, founded in 1946. The U.S. member body is ANSI. ). Since then IBM said it must either adopt shared standards for Java or admit it will never give up its ownership. If Sun will not surrender its hold on Java, the industry will likely move forward with a replacement technology that supports open standards because the future of the e-marketplace will not grow in value without such standards, according to IBM's Simon Phipps. Sun may not release the Java reins soon, but recently it did respond to feedback from vendors and helped form a panel to revise the Java Community Process Sun's system for allowing third parties to submit requests for new features to Java. JCP is a formal process that must be adhered to, and fees are involved. In 1999, Sun submitted Java to the ECMA standards body, but withdrew its J2SE specification later in the year. (JCP See Java Community Process. JCP - Java Community Process ). The JCP is responsible for developing Java specifications and referencing implementations and associated compatibility test suites. The panel, which includes representatives from IBM and other vendors using Java, will draft JCP 2.0, a document that will formalize how the JCP will work, according to Sun. The panel should go live with JCP 2.0 in late August, Sun said. |
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