Java holds the promise of caffeinating the Web, supercharging it with interactive games and animation and thousands of application programs nobody’s even thought of. At the same time, Java offers Sun and other Microsoft foes renewed hope that Bill Gates’s iron grip on the software business can be pried loose. Microsoft rules the desktop, but as networking expands its role, says van Hoff, Java could turn out to be “the DOS of the Internet.”
Predictor: Bank, David
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, David Bank scrutinizes the development of Java software at Sun Microsystems, telling “the inside story of bringing Java to the market.” Bank writes: ”With three minutes to go before the midnight deadline in August 1995, Sun Microsystems engineer Arthur van Hoff took one last look at Java and HotJava, the company’s new software for the World Wide Web, and pondered what his colleagues call Arthur’s Law: Do it right, or don’t do it. Satisfied, the Dutch programming wizard encrypted the files containing the software’s source code, moved them to an Internet site, and e-mailed the key to Netscape Communications Corporation, Java’s first commercial customer. Five years after the project was launched, Java was done – with a minute to spare … While today’s Web is mostly a static brew – a grand collection of electronically linked brochures – Java holds the promise of caffeinating the Web, supercharging it with interactive games and animation and thousands of application programs nobody’s even thought of. At the same time, Java offers Sun and other Microsoft foes renewed hope that Bill Gates’s iron grip on the software business can be pried loose. Microsoft rules the desktop, but as networking expands its role, says van Hoff, Java could turn out to be ‘the DOS of the Internet.’ Indeed, Sun is rushing to make Java a de facto standard on the burgeoning Web. If Sun succeeds, even Microsoft will have a hard time muscling in.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Language/Interface/Software
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: The Java Saga: Sun’s Java is the Hottest Thing on the Web Since Netscape. Maybe Hotter. But for All the Buzz, Java Nearly Became a Business-School Case Study in How a Good Product Fails
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.12/java.saga_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney