(keitai-l) Re: Microsoft and the JavaPhone? [BIZBUZ]

From: Ben Hutchings <ben.hutchings_at_roundpoint.com>
Date: 03/20/01
Message-ID: <JGEMKINHOOBEFEDLJPKOMECECBAA.ben.hutchings@roundpoint.com>
Hubert Hung-Hsien Chang wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Mar 2001, Michael Turner wrote:
> 
> > More recently, I retracted this speculation,
> > albeit hesitantly.  Microsoft isn't so interested
> > in JavaPhones, it seems, and might not get
> > involved until it's too late.  And there *is* such
> > a thing as too late, even for Microsoft.  Just
> > look at the Palm OS vs. WinCE.

PalmOS is currently the clear winner in the PDA market, but WinCE is
meant for a much broader range of applications.  It's a lot more
modular, versatile and sophisticated than PalmOS.  Microsoft doesn't
use the name very much any more (e.g. they changed the name 'Windows
CE for Palm-size PCs' to 'Windows for PocketPC' for the new version)
but that doesn't mean the OS has failed; it's more a failure of the
brand.

> They have .Net initiative and #C and they probably don't
> need Java anymore. At least that is probably the strategy
> I can tell .

Java on the desktop browser doesn't seem to be going anywhere; while
the JRE has improved a lot since Java 1.0 you would hardly know this
from the state of Java support in browsers.  Netscape 6 and Opera have
moved forward, including JRE 1.3, but since Microsoft now dominates
the browser market this is too late to revive it.

Now so far as I can see, .NET doesn't involve changing the browser; it
just provides an easy way to build distributed applications on top of
the web.  But it is likely to make a big dent in usage of Java on the
server side - it has apparently superior class libraries and not only
does it have a Java-like language, C#, which you can translate Java
code into using JUMP, but it supposedly makes it easier to integrate
code written in multiple languages.

> Also, They have 'Stinger' in place and you can program in the usual
> Win32 API for it. ( with some of the API not applicable.)
<snip>

Stinger is just another format of WinCE, like PocketPC and Microsoft
TV.


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Received on Tue Mar 20 04:21:09 2001