Java ISO standards battle rages

Electronic News, Jan 26, 1998 by Amy Zuckerman

Special to Electronic News

An acrimonious battle to make the Java platform specifications an interna- tional standard has moved into round two with the approval of Sun Microsystems as the standards submitter to the International Organization (ISO) for Standardization in Geneva, Switzerland.

At stake is not only the future of Sun Microsystems, but the question of who will provide access to the World Wide Web. Also on defacto trial are non-profit international standards bodies such as ISO, which high-tech giants like Microsoft and Netscape both have charged with being ineffective in producing standards of this type.

Last November Sun Microsystems won the right to become a standards submitter over the fierce, and sometimes mud-slinging protests of competitors such as Microsoft, Intel and Digital Equipment Corp. Microsoft, in particular, chal- lenged the right of one company to serve as the submitter of an international standard, claiming that this approach offered unfair market advantage.

Despite Microsoft's protests and intense lobbying efforts, members of JCT1 last fall voted 20 to two, with two abstentions, to allow Sun Microsystems to develop an international standard based on the Java platform. The United States and China provided the two "no" votes. California-based Sun Microsystems now has two years to submit a standard for international vote before the full ISO membership.

Sun Microsystems is the creator of the Java platform, which includes the Java language, the virtual machine and the application programming interfaces. Java allows for development of platform-independent codes or applications, which means it can be read on any operating system. It is most commonly used as a connector to the Internet. (For another story on Microsoft and Java, see page 58.)

A Matter of Survival

From Sun Microsystems' perspective this battle is not merely a standardization issue, but a matter of the company's survival, according to Jim Mitchell, VP of technology and architecture at JavaSoft, a division of Sun Microsystems."This is a strategic issue," explains Mr. Mitchell. "If Microsoft hijacks Java, they'll lock Java into their platform and we're out of busi- ness." On the other hand, Mr. Mitchell agrees with outside assessments that if Sun Microsystems manages to promote the Java Platform as an international standard, it effectively "derails Microsoft's efforts to derail the Java plat- form."

Mr. Mitchell claims,"It levels the playing field. No one operating system has a lock-in if Java becomes the worldwide standard. That means that when someone builds a Java application it will run on a Mac, Windows, IBM AS400...."

But taking defensive measures against Microsoft is only one reason Sun Microsystems is pursuing international standardization of Java. There are also enormous marketing implications for Sun Microsystems. For example, if the Java platform is accepted as the international norm, Mr. Mitchell says it will become tied into the government procurement process. Being part of that pro- cess makes any product a defacto requirement for doing business in the United States, with spin potential worldwide.

Although competitors, such as Microsoft, have been creating their own Java clones, Mr. Mitchell says they would have to "stick with the Java standard" as approved internationally. In other words, other companies would have to use the Sun Microsystems version of Java. Moreover, Sun Microsystems operates a Java certification process, which could also then become an international requirement for companies wanting to use this technology.

Despite these sort of advantages, Sun Microsystems may have to cede over its intellectual property rights and patent rights to Java if it wants to make the platform an international standard. The company also faces issues over whether ISO will allow the company sole control of maintaining the standard as tech- nological changes in the Java platform force revisions to the standard.

These are some of the main issues Sun Microsystems faces as it moves into the two-year standards development process, which will culminate in a full ISO membership vote if the submission is made. And not surprisingly, these are the very issues Microsoft--as well as other members of JCT1--have pressed during the debate over whether Sun Microsystems could be what ISO calls a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) submitter.

Microsoft Questions International Process

Charles Fitzgerald, group program manager at Microsoft and a prime player dur- ing the round one PAS submitter debate, argues that what is at stake with the Java issue is the value of the international standards process itself. He says Microsoft may choose to cease its involvement in the international standards process if the company feels there is no value to participating.

"Microsoft isn't only concerned about the particulars of this particular issue, but the precedent taking place in the international standards system. If they're (ISO/JCT1) going to be in the business of endorsing arbitrary ran- dom products, we'll re-evaluate the amount of time we spend in the interna- tional standards arena. We'll just build great products. It's not clear the value this international standards body provides."