Sun Microsystems Inc’s Scott McNealy is said to have been urging telecommunications executives to build the Java language into telephones and to provide high bandwidth for video conferencing over the Internet. [The telecommunications companies] have core competencies in server rooms and in billing gazillions of transactions every day and I want them to apply that strength to data networks, he told an Arthur Andersen & Co gathering in Scottsdale, Arizona: the telephone should have an IP address. McNealy said that the industry should also be able provide what he called data-tone access from central switches over ISDN and asynchronous transfer mode data lines to personal computer and workstation clients, much the same way they provide dial-tone access to telephone customers today. Meantime, Sun’s JavaSoft group has published its Java DataBase Connectivity application programming interface specification for public review. The specification describes a standard SQL database access interface designed to provide Java programmers with a common interface to relational databases. JavaSoft expects that Java DataBase Connectivity will provide a common base to build higher level tools and interfaces. A revised specification should be frozen around mid-June. It is also readying a reference implementation of Java DataBase Connectivity on the Microsoft Corp Object DataBase Connectivity interface in June that will enable Java DataBase Connectivity applications to run using Object DataBase Connectivity drivers. SunSoft says its Joe Java object request broker will be ready two months from now. Its full-featured ‘Crescendo’ OpenStep implementation of the NextStep user environment on top of its NEO object environment is now expected in July and America Online Inc has licensed Java from Sun. The two firms are to examine further cross-licensing and development agreements and America Online says that as a result, it may now work with Sun to build tools that enable its developers to write Java applets that can be included in America Online services for animation and calculation purposes.
