IBM Expands Value of Java for Enterprise Customers, Delivers New Resources for Software Developer Community
Announcements Made at JavaOne Worldwide Developer Conference
SAN FRANCISCO (March 24, 1998) – IBM today detailed new plans for providing Java** support in its key enterprise software server products and announced a number of offerings to help developers effectively build the next generation of e-business applications.
The announcements, made at the JavaOne** Worldwide Developer Conference, include: support for Enterprise JavaBeans** technology across IBM software middleware and application servers; an innovative Web search facility from IBM Research that hunts down Java resources; additions to IBM San Francisco*, an industry initiative for creating components that are used to build applications for small and medium businesses; and availability of new software from Lotus* Development Corporation and the IBM S/390* Division.
IBM is demonstrating many of these solutions at JavaOne in Booth 619, joined by customer Charles Schwab, the world’s largest discount brokerage firm, which is making extensive use of Java in its traditional and on-line trading systems. Camelot IS-2 International, a provider of supply-chain management software, will also be in the booth, demonstrating its work with IBM San Francisco.
“These new offerings reinforce IBM’s commitment to provide Java tools, technologies and solutions that help customers, business partners and developers capitalize on the benefits of network computing and e-business,” said Patricia Sueltz, general manager, Java Software, IBM. “We clearly see Java’s advancement into the enterprise as a major plus for customers and developers seeking easier ways to harness the benefits of cross-platform computing.”
Announcement Highlights
IBM Software to Support Enterprise JavaBeans
Enterprise JavaBeans is a new Java specification that is being widely adopted in the industry because of the flexibility and productivity benefits it provides to customers building complex, bet-your-business Web applications. IBM has announced it is adopting Enterprise JavaBeans as a unifying component model across its software middleware and application servers to make it easier for customers to build, deploy and manage the new generation of e-business applications on a platform that best meets their requirements. With Enterprise JavaBeans, companies can move forward to the cross-platform benefits of network computing with Java without needing to modify their existing systems.
IBM was a major contributor to the development of the specification for Enterprise JavaBeans. The IBM solutions that will support Enterprise JavaBeans range from a simple, lightweight offering on up to enterprise-strength servers that deliver high-transaction-rate performance. They include IBM Component Broker* distributed object software and IBM TXSeries* distributed transaction processing software. IBM’s VisualAge* for Java enterprise development tool will also support this new standard.
ServletExpress Turns Web Servers in Java Application Servers
ServletExpress is a new software plug-in from IBM that extends existing Web servers to be Java application servers, which are an effective platform for deploying and managing Web applications across a network. ServletExpress works with a wide range of Web server products, including Lotus Domino Go* Webserver, Apache**, and offerings from Netscape Communications Corp.** and Microsoft**. This provides customers with tremendous flexibility in Java-enabling their Web applications.
IBM views servlet technology as a key contributor to the maturation of enterprise Java and plans to enable Enterprise JavaBeans support in ServletExpress in the future. A beta version of ServletExpress is available now for download from the Web at http://www.ibm.com/java/servexp.
jCentral Searches Web for Targeted Java Information
For the Java development community, IBM is announcing jCentral, the Internet’s most comprehensive search engine for locating and sharing information like Java code, applets, JavaBeans**, newsgroup articles and tutorials. This targeted information is intended to help programmers speed up development cycles, improve time to market and expand networking and marketplace opportunities by leveraging the resources of the online Java community.
Written primarily in Java by members of IBM’s Research team, jCentral consists of a Web crawler, search engine and database tool that currently contains more than 100,000 distinct pieces of Java information. jCentral is available at no charge as a new feature on IBM’s Java Web site, http://www.ibm.com/java.
New Component Frameworks Added to IBM San Francisco
The second release of IBM San Francisco will provide developers with the framework to rapidly build order processing and warehouse/inventory
management applications. San Francisco provides developers with business process components to more quickly create customizable, server-side applications.
In addition, the new release of San Francisco provides developers with national language support, performance enhancements and support for additional deployment platforms and data formats. To assist developers in growing accustomed to working with application frameworks and business process components, IBM has also created new San Francisco Technology Centers and is providing San Francisco specialists in selected IBM Solution Partnership Centers around the world. (More details are provided in a separate press release.)
Lotus Ships eSuite* DevPak, Lotus Domino Toolkit* for Java and Details CORBA, IIOP Support Plans
Lotus Development Corp. today announced that the Lotus eSuite DevPack, a set of programmable Java-based business productivity applets and development tools for Web application developers, will ship this week. The eSuite DevPack enables developers to more quickly build robust, interactive intranet and extranet solutions that can leverage existing applications and enterprise data.
Lotus’ eSuite family of products, comprised of the eSuite WorkPlace and eSuite DevPack, is a new class of business productivity solutions built specifically for the network-centric computing environment — including network computers such as the IBM Network Station*. The eSuite applications are designed to reduce the cost of computing while increasing productivity and speeding deployment of intranet and extranet applications.
Lotus also announced the availability of the Lotus Domino Toolkit for Java and future support for distributed computing via Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) and Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (IIOP). Developers will leverage these capabilities to rapidly create and deploy Java-based applications for the Domino Web application platform.
A number of leading Java tools, including IBM VisualAge for Java, will be able to exploit the toolkit, thereby extending the value of these Java integrated development environments to Domino. In Lotus Domino Release 5, Lotus will enhance Domino as a Web application platform by implementing support for CORBA/IIOP.
IBM Updates Java Developer Kit for OS/390*
IBM will ship in April the Java Developer Kit (JDK) 1.1.4 for the OS/390, which will offer new enhancements to help developers build scalable applications with Java on the S/390 platform. This new offering continues to allow S/390 to participate in the write once, run anywhere Java paradigm, thus allowing Java applications to be brought to the S/390 platform. The JDK 1.1.4 will include an enhanced “Garbage Collection” component that significantly improves the scalability of Java applications and thus allows developers to take better advantage of the scalability capabilities of S/390. Scalability is a classic strength of the S/390 platform.
Using the enhanced Garbage Collection component, developers can better utilize additional multiprocessors on the platform to handle new workloads, a great benefit in the Web serving environment. Java applications do not have to change and will be better able to scale as workloads increase, thus providing an ideal technology for building intranet/Internet applications. The JDK for OS/390 is fully compliant and equivalent in function to other JDK 1.1.4 offerings. Java for OS/390 will continue to be offered from the S/390 Java Web site at http://www.s390.ibm.com/java.
Source: IBM