SunRiver Corp is using its X-terminal experience to get into the Java terminal market early (CI No 2,839). The Austin, Texas company hopes to have prototypes out next second quarter, with shipments before the end of the year. Like the company’s existing terminals, the boxes will be based on Intel Corp’s 80960 RISC processor. SunRiver will be using the Mach microkernel, onto which it will implement a Java interpreter. The manufacturer obviously sees Java as the way out of an X-terminal niche and into the corporate mainstream: it will position the products as secure systems for company Intranets and business-to-business communications over the Internet. Commerce is also a big part of the company’s plans; its Tradewave division (formerly EINet) specializes in secure electronic commerce and will develop software for the terminals. Mike Strebel, SunRiver Corp’s vice- president of systems and services, acknowledges that there are precious few corporate, Java-based applications out there today, but he reckons they will be coming on stream in 12 to 18 months.
