Sun Microsystems Inc is developing several Java application programming interfaces for use in Internet-based real-time process control applications in conjunction with manufacturing system and software vendors, including ABB Systems Control AB, Baan Co NV, Echelon Corp, Elsag Bailey Inc, Fastech Integration Inc, Siebe Plc’s Foxboro Co, Hewlett-Packard Co, Honeywell Inc, Intuitive Technology Inc, SAP AG, Toshiba Corp and Valmet Automation Inc. The application programming interfaces are due in the second quarter of next year. Meantime, Baan Co, Ede, the Netherlands has spent the last two years re-working its proprietary language tools environment to support full object-oriented functionality and ntier client-server working, and is doing a whole bunch of the work in Java, including development of distributed, networked application components. Sun has also licensed some of Baan’s technologies to extend Java Enterprise application programming interfaces.
