Microsoft Corp has been shopping once again, and this time it has acquired a small software technology company, Coopers & Peters Inc, for its Java technology. No terms were revealed. Boulder, Colorado-based Coopers & Peters, a Smalltalk pioneer formed in 1989, launched its EyeOpener suite of Windows 95 components for Java back in November of last year, including such things as notebooks, tree controls, rich text, grid controls and spin buttons. The package also includes high-level office applications such as word processors, spreadsheets and charting packages with functionality somewhat similar to Microsoft’s deadly rival Corel Corp’s Corel Office for Java. The company also has an Embedded Document Framework, compatible with Sun Microsystems Inc’s Java Beans, for providing OLE Object Linking and Embedding type functionality. Microsoft believes the acquisition will help accelerate the acceptance of its AFC Application Foundation Classes among Java developers due to its increased functionality. Ken Cooper and Ted Peters will join Microsoft’s AFC development team, working on the next generation of user interface frameworks. Back in May, Microsoft swallowed up San Francisco- based Java pioneer Dimension X (CI No 3,156).
