Science Applications International Corp’s Applied Internet Technology Group in Annapolis, Maryland, has developed a software package for creating intelligent Java agents that can be used to carry or retrieve information across electronic commerce systems. Although it had the bright idea of calling its technology Kona well before news of Sun Microsystems Inc’s Java operating system of the same name began – excuse the pun – to filter out, it is not about to start a storm in a coffee cup and will revert to calling the software an autonomous agent framework for distillation and discovery, until it comes up with another name. The software is being designed primarily for use internally and by Science Applications – SAIC – clients, including some in the government sector. The group claims the framework already provides true distribution of objects and has already proved its usefulness in sending software updates across large numbers of nodes. Before it learned of Sun’s Joe Java object request broker, Science Applications had already developed a protocol to pass Java objects to a proxy and then to a Corba application programming interface. Indeed it has prototyped other technologies, including a database gateway and work on persistent storage, quite independently of Sun’s own Java DataBase Connectivity and Java persistent storage developments. Science Applications believes its framework will provide a rapid development environment for building electronic commerce agents that will take advantage of precisely the type of Java client- server offerings Sun is expected to unveil shortly, plus the bevy of proposed low-cost Internet access terminals. It is waiting for the Sun people to add robust encryption to propel Java into electronic commerce uses. Science Applications says it has not decided to commercialize its framework yet.
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