No Microsoft Corp won’t be using Object Management Group’s IIOP Internet Inter-ORB Protocol, nor the JIIOP Java version that Sun Microsystems Inc will include a future version of the Java Development Kit, according to Redmond’s Cornelius Willis. Microsoft was incensed at any suggestion it might have to pick up and use JIIOP as part of a future Java code drop Sun will make to its licencees. Microsoft isn’t commenting its Java licensing arrangements but says that its use of IIOP or JIIOP is definitely not required and advises Sun to go away and read the agreement. Microsoft argues that all IIOP is good for is hooking up different versions of chaos claiming that HP’s implementation of Corba doesn’t talk to IBM’s which doesn’t talk to any other implementations, and so on. IIOP is of no value to our customers, Willis says. The thing that really makes this whole [JIIP] announcement so thoroughly laughable is that Java developers get COM integration today, without any extra work, just by running Microsoft’s implementation of the Java VM, the company said. This means that COM and Microsoft Transaction Server, Microsoft Message Queuing Server are the only vehicles which give Java code (applets, applications or beans) transactions, asynchronous RPC and other key enterprise services today. The Microsoft implementation of the VM is available with Windows 95, Windows NT, IE4.0, IIS, and can be included with any application. More copies of this technology are shipped in a slow week than Sun has shipped since the beginning of time. As usual those who pick the Corba path will wait. Those who pick the COM path can use the productivity of the Java language and start today. Moreover the only relevance for JIIOP is that it provides a future for the Object Management Group. Microsoft says DCOM and IIIOP will be interoperable over time – OMG is currently assessing specifications which could be used for this requirement – but says Corba is of little use without even a reference implementation or validation test suite.
Don’t use IIOP Netscape quoted as saying
The Corba camp, meantime, was doing a pretty good job of shooting itself in the foot, without any help whatsoever from Redmond. PC Week reported yesterday John Dawes, group product manager at Netscape Communications Corp – supposed friend of IIOP – saying I would not recommend using IIOP [Internet Inter-ORB Protocol] for communications between a client and a server over the Internet. After admitting last week it had pulled the Java RMI remote method invocation mechanism from its Communicator front- end due to a major bug (CI No 3,191), Netscape has reportedly failed in its first attempt to deliver a comprehensive set of Corba-based technologies. The paper says it’s pulled the Corba- based Web Application Interface from a new version 3.0 of its Enterprise Server just before release because of scaling issues. WAI is supposedly the Corba equivalent to the Common Gateway Interface or Netscape server API protocols which enable applications to plug into Enterprise Server. WAI will be released as a point upgrade this summer. Another Corba technology called GateKeeper enabling client-side Corba object request broker to talk to a server was also pulled from 3.0 because of security concerns.
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