Word: java
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...Microsoft not only owns the operating system that runs 8 out of 10 desktop computers, but it dominates the market for most other software as well, from application programs (word processors, spreadsheets, encyclopedias) to programming languages to a wide variety of programming tools. All this would be undermined should Java catch on. "Java," Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told a gathering of businesswomen last month, "is there to overthrow what we've done...
That would not necessarily be a bad thing in the minds of many programmers, who are always on the lookout for what they call a "new platform" on which to write new, hot-selling software. The virtual Java machine represents, as Sun co-founder Bill Joy puts it, "the lightest-weight platform we've ever had"--made not of metal, plastic and silicon but of a few thousand lines of code...
Programmers who find the market for Windows software increasingly crowded and unprofitable see fresh opportunities to make their mark in Java. "The geeks are buzzed," says Dave Winer, a Silicon Valley-based programmer and self-described geek. "It's like a whole world just opened...
That battle came to a head the first week in December, when Sun and Microsoft staged competing press conferences. Sun went first, announcing a long list of companies that had agreed to endorse Java, including IBM, Apple, DEC, Adobe, Silicon Graphics, Hewlett Packard, Oracle and Toshiba. Everybody expected Microsoft to strike back, reaffirming its commitment to its own Java-like Visual Basic. But at the last minute, Gates changed his mind, announcing that he too would license Java, while also promising somewhat menacingly to "extend...
...masterly stroke, allowing Microsoft to wrap itself in Java's aura while at the same time puncture Netscape's over-inflated stock balloon. The market reacted strongly. Sun's stock price jumped sharply; Netscape's fell more than...