Where will Java show up next?

10 years on, the popular technology keeps making more and more inroads

It's a technology that a decade ago was built to power digital cable TV, a concept which was ahead of its time, but is now poised to power that industry. Java,which becomes 10 years old today, has been undergoing constant changes and upgrades and it which have revolutionsed the way technology is viewed.

Says James 'Father of Java' Gosling: "Every day, I hear about new and cool uses for Java technology""and yes, one of them today is in digital TV. Looking back, it all worked out beautifully. I wonder where Java technology will show up next."

India, being a global focal point of software development activities, is witnessing a major increase in the breadth and depth of projects being executed across country. Most of these projects are programmed on Java and their number is on the upswing.

Another key development has been the growth of several homegrown organisations such as MindTree, Nucleus Software, Pramati Technologies and Paradox Studios who are developing next generation products, technologies and tools on Java, which could find valuable niches across global markets.

At present, Java is making strong headway as it is being increasingly used for a range of applications, specifically in wireless devices, which are becoming more and more intelligent. The proof of the pudding can be had from the fact that India now boasts of 19 Java User Groups.

All along, developer interest in the platform has been amazing. It is a religion for scores of developers and today the men of this religion are in millions around the world, and that's the real story. According to independent reports, globally Java drives more than $100 billion of business annually and all these factors together have led to the vast growth of the Java developer community across the world.

By virtue of its multi-platform support, Java has become pervasive across a number of devices. Its architecture is such that programmes written in Java are able to run in large super-computers at one end and the mobile phone at the other.

Whether it's a cell phone, a PDA, an embedded chip in a car's navigation system or a device which controls which TV programme you may want to record, Java has the ability to bring richness of functionality and user interface to such devices. Since Java programmes are supported on different hardware platforms like Sun, HP, Dell to IBM and others, they can be more easily scaled to serve the growing demands of consumers.

Here's how it all unfolded. In the early 90s, engineers from Sun Microsystems squirrelled themselves away in an unmarked office and emerged months later with a hardware-independent software platform. Sun's vision at that time was to gain a foothold in the digital cable television industry. Because Java technology was built around networking, Sun believed set-top boxes and video-on-demand applications were a natural fit.

The cable TV industry wasn't ready for Java technology . The Internet was becoming the network Sun believed the cable companies should build, and it became obvious that Java technology and the Internet were made for each other.

The early demos brought animated objects and dynamic content to life within browser windows for the first time. From its early days, Java has enjoyed a tremendous following among 'techies' who find its architecture and philosophy compatible with their view on how software should be designed, developed and distributed.

All of these aspects have enabled Java to serve a changing environment much more easily. It has shaped how businesses view technology as an enabler to meet consumer needs and not just as a necessity to serve internal processes.

Says Kamran Ozair, an acclaimed expert on Java and referred to as 'The Saint' at MindTree Consulting where he is the CTO: "Overall, it won't be far-fetched to claim that Java has been one of the major forces that have shaped usage on the Internet and brought dynamism and agility within the enterprise."

He feels that "business is more aptly equipped to serve changing consumer behaviour and demands across a wide range of platforms and devices due to the virtues of Java. It enjoys tremendous following and support amongst the developer community leading to continuous innovation and enhancements on its core technologies."

Java has also enabled easier propagation of software within the enterprise as well as on the Internet. By enabling a thin-client architecture, whereby most of the changes on a software are centrally done on a server, business can more easily adapt to the changing needs of its environment and consumers. The list goes on.

Java enables development of modular software. Through its support of object-oriented programming and technologies like Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs) and Web Services, it enables development of software that is more easily extensible and maintainable. With the recent releases of NetBeans 4.0 and 4.1 (currently in Early Access), the industry is witnessing fresh interest in the platform.

It is not as if the platform does not have any drawbacks. Says Ozair, "A criticism that has been lobbed against Java is in the area of performance. It introduces some inherent inefficiencies when a programme is executed. However, a number of advances have been made in 'run-time' environments of Java to remove these inefficiencies."

Similarly, there is criticism over the time it takes to develop Java programmes when compared to similar programmes in Visual Basic or other visually oriented technologies. "Even such criticism is being addressed by the industry defining and developing better tools for Java development," he adds.