It's been a year since I started with this column on Net-related events and developments. When I started, the media was just catching on to the Net and it's stellar growth. In the past week, Net-related stocks, like NetScape Communications Corporation, have roller-coasted - up $21.5 one day, down 28 the next.

The Net has become the hot ticket for Wall Street. It seems that EVERYONE wants to try to make a profit on companies with P/E ratios well into the triple digits.

Nowadays, it's as common to see a URL (the address of a Web site) on a television commercial as it is to see an "800" number. Even "800" numbers have Web pages.

Oddly enough, however, the people who spout statistics on the growth of the Net - and I'm thinking of the media here - seem to be locked into the number of 30 million people, even though they have been using that number for at least a year, and citing a growth rate of 10 percent a month. The only definite thing we can site accurate statistics on is the number of people citing statistics on the growth of the Net.

One Spin on Net Stats comes from Michael Neubarth, Editor of "Internet World" magazine, sites the following statistics in the Jan., 96 issue: "For the third year in a row, the number of registered computers on the Net doubled--from 3.2 million hosts in 1994 to 6.6 million in 1995. Reliable estimates of the number of people using the Net worldwide now range from 40 million to 50 million, with projections of 200 million by year 2000. A recent CommerceNet survey found 22 million Internet users in North America alone. In two years, the World Wide Web has grown from 100 sites to 100,000 sites that house more than a million home pages."

In the midst of the hype and hoopla, you have players like Microsoft, who continue in their attempts at world domination by launching their own online network (MSN). Plus, you have the other three main OLSP's: CompuServe, Prodigy and AOL, who continue growing at truly unbelievable rates, but they only represent the tip of the iceburg, which, as any Iceburgologist knows, is less than 10 percent of its mass.

Putting the hype stats aside for the moment, let's deal with some "official" stats from the New York Times newspaper, who recently stated that there were 32 million copies of NetScape's Web browser in use today, with 8 million of them being used on the Internet. So where are the rest of the copies being used? Hold on, here it comes. They're on the InTRAnet. Got that? Take a sip of your coffee, and for God's sake, don't spill it in your lap - this publication can not withstand a million dollar settlement for lap burns.

The Intranet dwarfs the Internet. It is an almost countless network of "local" networks within companies, all of whom can use Web browsers to reference local Web pages within the organization. Keep in mind that it is VERY easy to train someone how to use a Web browser. If you can use a mouse, then you can use a browser. Plus, browser technology supports input forms, so they (the browsers) can easily be adapted to doing data entry and maintenance. Judy Allen, one of our principal Internet Associates, observes that we were teaching "Intranet" long before it was fashionable.

The next giant-killer application is from none other than Sun Microsystems, with their Java language. From Sun's "Java White Paper":

Java: A simple, object-oriented, distributed, interpreted, robust, secure, architecture neutral, portable, high-performance, multithreaded, and dynamic language.

Here's what the New York Times recently had to say about Java:

San Francisco, 3 Dec -- Hoping to steal a march on the Microsoft's Corporation's Internet strategy, which will be disclosed this week, a number of Silicon Valley companies plan announcements on Monday that together constitute an anti-Microsoft campaign. The most noteworthy: A plan by Sun Microsystems Inc. and Netscape Communications Corporation for a user-friendly version of the Java software technology for the Internet's World Wide Web.

Moreover, Microsoft is apparently in some internal turmoil over what strategy it should take with respect to the Java language.

The program, which was originally developed by Sun and is being licensed widely and inexpensively, will in the future allow developers to write one version of their programs. This version will then run on a variety of different computers without special translation -- regardless of whether they use UNIX, Windows 95, or Macintosh operating Systems.

The strategies being announced this week represent opening skirmishes in what may be the next great standards battle in the industry.

Microsoft was the clear winner in the contest over operating system standards, thanks to the company's overwhelming marketing muscle. But operating systems could play a less dominant role in the future, with increasing numbers of computers plugged into the Internet.

The Internet connections have the potential to change the industry's balance of power. If the use of the Java langage in programming becomes widespread, computer users would not necessarily need to rely on operating systems as the prerequisites for word-processing, spreadsheet or other programs.

Instead, the programs required to perform these functions could be delivered over the internet. A user would need only a stripped-down system connected to the Internet.

Such developments could seriously erode Microsoft's current dominant role in the industry.

There are now competing camps within Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash., debating whether the company should license Java according to several executives familiar with the debate. Those who argue against licensing Java are trying to consolidate support for Microsoft's competing language, Visual Basic. Those who argue for licensing say it will make Microsoft's programs more popular.

A spokeswoman for Microsoft said the company had no comment today on the Java debate. But Microsoft is planning its own Internet-strategy briefing session on Thursday. The software company has been positioning its Visual Basic language as an Internet development tool to rival Java, but in recent weeks Microsoft seems to have been losing the war of words and is in danger of being perceived as losing the allegiance of software developers who are producing advanced products.

The challenge to Microsoft is that it may find itself losing control of the basic software standards driving the computer industry.

"What's becoming fairly clear, is that the real story here is the Internet vs Microsoft," said Mark Andreessen, vice president of technology at Netscape. "It's a steamroller at this point. There are thousands of developers who have switched away from the Windows API."

Sun and Netscape are announcing a new version of Java that is intended to make programming more accessible to noncomputer experts. The version is known as a scripting language, Javascript, and is based on a simple programming language already developed by Netscape. The idea is to make program development possible by people who are experienced computer users but not programmers.

"We're trying to get the Internet to move forward with everyone moving together," said Eric Schmidt, Sun's chief technology officer.

Netscape and Sun, both based in Mountain View, Calif., appear to have created a formidable alliance of almost 30 companies that will endorse the technology, including Apple Computer, Digital Equipment, AOL, AT&T, Computer Associates, Silicon Graphics, HP, Oracle, Informix, Intuit, Macromedia, Novell, Toshiba, and Borland.

Got that? Operating Systems no longer important?

... and here's what NetScape has to say about Java:

Netscape Navigator 2.0 supports Sun's Java, a new programming language based on C++ and designed for secure two-way, real-time interaction. Using Java, developers can write custom mini-applications called Java applets. When integrated into Web pages, Java applets allow expert graphics rendering, real-time interaction with users, live information updating, and instant interaction with servers over the network. Java applets are downloadable from any server and run safely on any platform. Java is designed to provide maximum security on public networks, with multiple safeguards against viruses, tampering, and other threats.

Using Java, developers can write custom mini-applications called Java applets, which will provide Internet sites with a huge range of new functionality: animation, live updating, two-way interaction, and more. Java applets allow cross-platform programmability and can be embedded right into HTML pages.

People, this is very likely the next great standards battle. Java runs on EVERYTHING. "It's not an 'overnight compile'", as my friend Henry Eggers, puts it, "It allows building standalone applications. This is REAL client/server. There is NO local. All the dotted lines have been cut out. We're talking REAL OS independence. It has arrays. It's object-oriented. It's designed for networked environments. It's interpreted (like Pick/BASIC). It's robust. It's secure, using public-key encryption. It's architecture-neutral. It's machine-independent. It's multi-threaded. It's dynamic. It's late-bound."

It's time to go buy some books on Java.

After this column was more or less completed, Microsoft announced that it has signed a letter of intent with Sun for a Java technology source license and that Sun and Microsoft are working through the licensing details. In addition, Microsoft has agreed in principle to provide to Sun Microsoft's reference implementation of the Java virtual machine and AAPI (applet application programming interface) for Windows. Microsoft plans to use Java in its Explorer browser, and also has indicated to Sun that they plan to support JavaScript in Explorer.

It seems like just last week that the whole computing universe orbited around Microsoft...

See you on-line.

Jon Sisk
www.jes.com

Original article for Computing News & Review, December, 1995

Copyright © 1995 Jonathan E. Sisk.