Original SunWorld Online page[1]
IBM, Sun collaborate on Net application architecture
IBM licenses Joe, and Sun licenses IBM's MQ Series class libraries
San Jose, CA -- IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. will co-develop
technology to link enterprise applications to the Internet and intranets
through joint licensing of products and the adoption of industry
standards.
Under the terms of the agreement, IBM will license Sun's Java client
connectivity product, called Joe, which enables users to gain access to
existing corporate applications and databases through a Web browser. Sun
will license IBM's MQ Series class libraries, which manage the
communications between applications running in different computing
environments on a network.
"A whole system isn't needed to migrate network computing to the
corporate intranet," said Janpieter Scheerder, president of SunSoft.
Instead, we need a set of connectivity tools which work across all
platforms so that Internet clients can access existing data stores and
servers, he continued.
"Joe's role is to connect any Java-based application to any backend,"
Scheerder said.
Essentially a sophisticated Java applet, Joe is automatically available
to users implementing a Java-enabled browser when they choose to
download it on an as-needed basis.
"Joe is more a standard than a commercial product, but it's both," said
Steven Mills, general manager of software solutions for IBM, who expects
most common object request broker architecture (CORBA) vendors to adopt
Joe in the coming months. SunSoft said that it is currently in
negotiations with other vendors interested in licensing Java, but would
not comment further.
Analysts and users see the alliance as a step in the right direction
towards interoperability.
"I am very positive that these two large players will define a new
standard," said Steve McClure, director of object technologies for
International Data Corp. "Any other players in this CORBA connectivity
market will be minority players."
"Joe has a lot of potential," said Frank Fabbrocino, a program analyst
at UCLA's Data Mining Lab, which has been implementing a beta version of
Joe to build multi-dimensional satellite images since March. "While it
isn't a mature product yet, it makes accessing CORBA applications really
simple," Fabbrocino said.
CICS and Solaris
IBM will also make class libraries freely available to enable Java
programmers to access IBM's CICS server, which will be made available on
the Sun Solaris operating system by the fourth quarter of this year. The
CICS server provides communications and networking management features
for heterogeneous networks, including networks combining PCs and
mainframes.
The companies will also work together to come up with a common naming
convention for their implementations of the Object Management Group's
CORBA naming service so that Sun and IBM customers have a consistent way
to access information.
"The world is no longer homogeneous. With this alliance, IBM and Sun
will ensure interoperation between legacy and newer Internet-derived
applications," said Christopher Stone, president and CEO of OMG.
In other news, Sun announced plans to release version 2.0 of its Neo
object oriented client server competing software. Neo 2.0, scheduled for
release in January 1997, will allow users to link software objects from
other vendor environments using the CORBA 2.0 IIOP.
Sun also announced that it will integrate technology developed by IBM's
wholly-owned subsidiary, Taligent Inc., into its Java development
environment.
Using the Taligent-class libraries, which implement the unicode
international character set, developers can create multilingual
applications in Java. The libraries also adapt dates, currencies, and
numbers to fit a country's format. Among the languages are German and
Japanese, as well as English.
Joe is currently available for download on Sun's Web site and will be
bundled commercially with CORBA offerings from IBM in the first quarter
of 1997. --by Kristi Essick, IDG News Service, San Francisco Bureau
Resources
* "Sun and IBM Join Forces to Define Internet Application Architecture"[2]
, an IBM press release
http://www2.ibmlink.ibm.com/cgi-bin/master?xh=uNut9pKjV84UR10USenGn???&request=pressreleases&parms=P%5f96082101&xhi=pressreleases%5e
* What's new with NEO?[3] , a SunSoft page devoted to NEO news items
http://www.sun.com/sunsoft/neo/external/neo-whats-new.html
* SunSoft Neo whitepapers
http://www.sun.com/sunsoft/neo/external/whitepapers/FamilyNEO-front1.html
* SunSoft's home page[4] http://www.sun.com/sunsoft
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[1] http://www.sun.com/sunworldonline/swol-08-1996/swol-08-ibm.html
[2] http://www2.ibmlink.ibm.com/cgi-bin/master?xh=uNut9pKjV84UR10USenGn???&request=pressreleases&parms=P%5f96082101&xhi=pressreleases%5e
[3] http://www.sun.com/sunsoft/neo/external/neo-whats-new.html
[4] http://www.sun.com/sunsoft