_______________________________________________________________ - - OS/2 WARP FM Transmitting 100% Pure Java Energy _______________________________________________________________ - ________________________________________________________________ VOLUME 2 OS/2 WARP FM November/December 1998 http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/warpfm ________________________________________________________________ What's Queued Up? Perspective: A Development Manager's View of Java Interview: Growing Up with Java on Wall Street On the Air with Pat Sueltz Jeff Smith Talks about Tivoli and OS/2 FM Featured Application: Zydacron Video Conferencing Solutions Press Point Industry News Information Briefs Perspective: A Development Manager's View of Java In the Netherlands, there's a saying, "It all happens in Amsterdam" because no matter what service, product or art is found elsewhere in the country, it also can be found in Amsterdam. Similarly, according to Jan Monsuur, Software Development Manager for ASM Europe, "In the next two years, it will all happen in Java." Impressive Results Mr. Monsuur has good reason to be so up on Java. As the software development manager for one of the top equipment suppliers to the fast-moving semiconductor industry, Monsuur is under continual pressure to deliver error-free code quickly. At the end of 1997, a pilot project converting a supervisor program for ASM's custom-made manufacturing systems yielded a number of promising results. The graphical parts of the Java software ran "much, much faster" than the corresponding pieces of Visual C++ code. A superset of the supervisor was implemented in about 12 man-months as opposed to almost 24 for a more basic C++ version. The number of lines of code (LOC) decreased dramatically. For example previously, network links required pages and pages of complex code, with Java, only a few programming lines. The leaner software simplified error detection. Based on the success of the pilot and the need for speed in their many one-time engineering efforts, ASM programmers continue to work in Java. In a follow-on conversion effort, Monsuur's team restructured an application to take advantage of Java's graphic capabilities in about nine months; whereas, the original effort took approximately 18 months. Most of the savings came from the reduced testing time based on a 60-70% decrease in the number of programming errors. "The reduced error rate stems from the fact that the Java syntax is easier than the C++ syntax," Mr. Monsuur explains. "Java does not use the terrible C pointers -- the curse of every software manager. Plus Java takes care of garbage collection." Aside from the productivity gains, Java is one of several reasons that ASM is gaining a competitive edge. The company is using Java to improve the look and feel of its products with graphics showing reactors, mass flow controllers, and valves as well as temperature and pressure gauges. Customers on the manufacturing line notice the improved, more intuitive graphical interface and it's much easier to add graphical features with Java than it is with C or C++. In a recent customer satisfaction survey by VLSI Research Inc., ASM came out number one. The company expects the upcoming deployment of Java-based ASM products to contribute to the already-good results in the area of stability. In the software service category, where based on comments from his customers Mr. Monsuur expects Java to contribute in the near future, ASM topped the number 2 competitor by 1.5 points on a ten point scale -- the largest difference seen in any category. The Power of the Language In addition to the positive results, Mr. Monsuur attributes Java's power as a development platform to its elegant setup and practical implementation. His experiences with Java led him to the following conclusions. - Pure Java is truly platform-independent. Consequently, ASM's efforts to develop versions for OS/2, NT and UNIX have lessened substantially. - The syntax is clear and simple. C and C++ are more obscure and usually difficult to read. The semantics and syntax of Java more accurately reflect the way human beings think. - The class libraries within the Java Foundation Class are large and cover an enormous application area. ASM reuses many classes; therefore saving a great deal of time. - As opposed to C++, network communication is completely integrated into Java. - Java's integrated development environments not only make it easy to use but also can contribute to accurate version management through consistent archiving of the various modules. - Java includes techniques for multithreading and synchronization. This makes building an application with several threads exceptionally easy. - The ComponentWare concept is very powerful: JavaBeans are visual components that can be used on different platforms and within various development environments. This hot programming capability lets programmers simply drag a bean to a graphical development environment where it starts working immediately. - Over time it is becoming more and more obvious that Remote Method Invocation, Object Serialization, and/or the combination of both are absolute high points. They are the reason why Java deserves a position as a dominant programming platform. The Transition to Java With their experience as C and C++ programmers, Monsuur's team found learning Java a refreshing challenge. They quickly saw the advantages of Java over C++. But there were a lot of classes to learn and unlearn. Overall, the team came up to speed with Java in three months. Mr. Monsuur is quite optimistic about the future of Java both inside and outside his company. On the Internet he sees lots of Java programming activity. He plans to make good use of the Java statistical process control programs that he can acquire on the Internet as ASM extends their Java efforts into this area. In fact, Mr. Monsuur is so confident in Java that he expects it will be used in other areas, including parts of the embedded world. Interview: Growing Up with Java on Wall Street Eric Lehrfeld, Director of Business Development for Java consulting boutique Random Walk Computing, gives WARP FM readers a glimpse into a company that has essentially grown up with and because of Java. FM: How would you describe your company? EL: A consulting boutique specializing in distributed object computing on Wall Street, emphasizing Java and CORBA technologies. We offer everything from pure consulting on strategy, architecture, and design to outsourcing of development, project mentoring, training, technology transfer and systems integration. We're very focused on making distributed computing work for the Wall Street enterprise in an efficient way. As such, we are laser-focused on this market and position ourselves as the elite external source of expertise for financial enterprises to turn to for their distributed computing needs. We want to do what we do and only what we do. And we want to do it better than anyone else. As a company, we're very methodology driven. From the experiences of the people we've hired -- sort of a "Who's Who" of distributed object computing gurus on Wall Street -- we've compiled a set of philosophies, practices and checklists that address the te chnology-neutral problem of project management in the Wall Street space. We've codified these best practices, bringing a rigorous set of methods to each project. It's a key part of our value proposition. FM: How was Random Walk conceived and born? EL: Random Walk was founded in 1995 by Joel Scotkin and Jim Lowe shortly after Sun Microsystem's initial release of Java. The concept was to create a service company to promote Java as a better tool than C++ for developing the kind of systems that Wall Street likes and needs to build. Prior to creating Random Walk, both, Joel and Jim, had worked as consultants on Wall Street developing distributed object-oriented systems. They also attended Brown University together. Joel, in particular, was involved in building several major trading systems and with some of the earliest Web work on Wall Street. With this background, Scotkin was immediately able to recognize the value of Java to the Wall Street development community. He knew that every firm on Wall Street had spent millions and millions of dollars trying to work out the bugs associated with garbage collection and memory management in C++. He was aware of the long development cycles often brought about by language quirks that lead to extended debug and quality assurance phases. He understood the long-term problems of maintaining parallel code bases for multiple operating systems. In short, he recognized the tremendous efficiencies that Java would bring -- shortening project life cycles, improving system maintainability and extensity, and reducing overall cost. Today all this may seem obvious. But in '95, many people in the industry viewed Java only as a better "ShockWave". It's potential impact as an efficient development tool for the enterprise was overshadowed by its use as a multimedia tool for making Web sites sing and dance. At the time, promoting Java for enterprise development was a bit of a gamble. The language was so young and certain things had to happen to make it a viable, robust, and reliable choice for solving programming issues within an enterp rise. Fortunately for us, those things did happen. FM: So how did the company grow a business from two to 30 employees by evangelizing Java -- in effect taking it from infancy to adolescence? EL: Joel, by virtue of his reputation, was able to go to his first customer and convince him that Java was an important, emerging technology. He recommended that they start a Java research group to keep track of this technology and let him do a few prototypes. These included some basic data visualization applications and a re-engineering of an existing C++ program into a three-tiered thin-client system. This initial success lead to larger and larger projects, eventually gaining Random Walk a good reputation on the Street. In turn this led to more business where we would build a prototype to demonstrate that Java was leading edge, not bleeding edge, and c ould be relied upon as an enterprise tool. We would then leverage the success of the prototypes into subsequent work. In the second year we were able to take on real Wall Street projects instead of the more experimental ones. For example, we built the complete global trading network infrastructure for one of the largest asset management companies in the world (See http://www.randomwalk.com/publications/jtiwhitepaper.html). Our approach was similar to that of IBM's San Francisco project -- layers of CORBA services on top of one another, implemented in Java, where as you move up the layers the functionality gets more specific, that is less horizontal, more vertical. Under a framework we created building blocks to provide functions like Dynamic Actions. We built lower level generic services such as entitlement, audit, etc. Simultaneously, we trained their developers how to use the framework to implement their more busines s-specific services such as pricing, booking, etc. With this foundation the company's own developers are building equity trading services and GUI's. This enterprise, which by the way manages over $200 billion in assets, now has the strategic linchpin for all its future development. And this project only took Random Walk 3.5 man-years over a nine-month period. Today, our business is diversified across the New York financial community, working with many of the area's largest banks, broker dealers and data vendors on projects ranging from one to 18 months and from two to seven people. FM: What does the future look like for Random Walk? EL: We plan on aggressively growing the company throughout the course of 1999, staying with the Java/CORBA distributed object model and focusing on the financial enterprises. Both Java and CORBA are maturing as technologies right now, so we feel our growth pattern is sustainable for a few years. Geographic expansion is likely next year as well. We're currently looking at other cities where we could open up a second office. Expansion into another vertical market has also been discussed. For the longer term, we're always looking at all the new technology that's out there. We've got our eyes peeled for the next Java -- the next great technology that will provide large-scale efficiencies to the enterprise. From the point of view of our bus iness plan, we want to be consistently ahead of the curve on these technologies -- invest in the ones with potential and see if we can make them work for our customers and live up to their promise. FM: What do you look for in these new technologies? EL: Well, first we look at the technology itself. Is it a good idea? Is it open and interoperable with other technologies? Does it solve any problems that we've seen in the real world? We're not interested in a technology that's elegant to an engineer but not useful to our customers. The second thing we look at is the source of this technology. We like to see things either supported by a standards body such as the OMG or an industry coalition with players such as IBM, Sun and Microsoft backing it. Support of that nature indicates in vestments of time and money, which bode well for a technology's long-term stability and evolution. And finally, after we're confident that the technology is fundamentally good and has substantial backing in the industry, we need to make sure it solves problems better than any other technology. It's got to be the best tool for the job. For more information visit the Random Walk Web site at http://www.randomwalk.com or contact Eric Lehrfeld at lehrfeld@randomwalk.com or 1-212-480-5820 extension 224. On the Air with Pat Sueltz As 1998 draws to a close, it appears that the media around the world is showering a disproportionate amount of attention on three main topics: - the effect of Monica Lewinsky on Bill Clinton's presidency, - uncertain global economic conditions and - the readiness of the world's computer systems for the Year 2000. While I can't do anything to affect the first two items, I can help with the third. We've established a goal that 100% of our confirmed enterprise OS/2 customers are either Year 2000 ready or have risk mitigation plans in place. I'm sure this must sound like a huge undertaking and to be quite frank, it is. So let me share with you our plans for accomplishing this mission. Well, we started off easy. We broke down the Year 2000 readiness migration into four phases: - Not ready - Considering options - Migrating to Year 2000 ready products - Year 2000 Ready. The next step is to contact each of our confirmed enterprise customers to find out where they are in the process and their plans. We've already made initial contact with about 60% of our customer set either through the account team or a telemarketer. So far we've found: - 30% are still considering options, - 49% are migrating and - 21% declared themselves to be Year 2000 ready. Most of our customers are acutely aware of what's necessary to ready their systems and have already begun the transition to a Year 2000 ready platform. Our contact is to help assure the successful completion of their Year 2000 readiness activities. Periodically we will call customers until they declare that they are operating in a Year 2000 ready environment. The purpose of this is to offer a single point of contact within IBM who, if needed, can help with the Year 2000 migration. And although we do offer some fee-based services, this is not a sales initiative. If a customer chooses to remain on a non-ready OS/2 platform they lose product support since all non-ready products have announced an end-of-service dates no later than June 30, 1999. Despite the sometimes gloom and doom portrayal, the change of a millennium is incredibly exciting, especially in our industry. Java and all the latest network technology innovations are completely changing how we live, play and do business. Our Year 2000 ready products bring more than just protection against failures, they offer opportunities. They lay a foundation for progress. For more information on Year 2000 see: The OS/2 Year 2000 Readiness page at: http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/solutions/and/y2000/year2000.html and the IBM Year 2000 Home Page: http://www.ibm.com/ibm/year2000/. The software and hardware groups recently announced a new Year 2000 Web page for small and medium businesses at: http://www.ibm.com/IBM/year2000/pcs/. Jeff Smith Talks about Tivoli and OS/2 I have been been working closely with Tivoli since 1996, when it became a wholly-owned IBM subsidiary. In September of this year, Tivoli released a new version of its systems management software, Tivoli Enterprise, along with four related products: Tivoli Decision Support, Tivoli Service Desk, Tivoli Workload Scheduler and Tivoli Output Manager. Included in the announcement was the fact that OS/2 has been upgraded to a system that Tivoli can leverage as part of its three-tier management infrastructure. Since that time, I have been very pleased to tell customers that we have completed the next step in the OS/2 migration from the Systemview series of tools to Tivoli Enterprise software. Tivoli's support of OS/2 has occurred in phases. The first step included supporting OS/2 as a managed system, where Tivoli managed software distribution, performed inventory scans and managed accounts for OS/2 users. OS/2 was also supported by Tivoli Ent erprise Console (TEC). This next phase addresses OS/2 as a server. Within the Tivoli architecture, OS/2, connected to the top tier, can now serve as a gateway fanning out distributions to and gathering information from the bottom tier systems. OS/2 customers now have the ability to take greater advantage of Tivoli's policy-based management approach. By automating administrative tasks such as inventory scanning and systems monitoring, Tivoli can reduce the manual workload in an IT shop. More importantly though, it provides pertinent information that can help IT run more effectively through decision support features that help companies align systems management capabilities with their corporate goals. Tivoli Decision Support, a data analysis tool, lets customers periodically review what's been going on in IT through graphical and inituitive reports. For example, a CIO can look at the number of software distributions for patch upgrades and the number for new functionaliy. He can see how many failures were averted and their level of potential impact. By comparing this information to the service level agreements he has in place, he can assess whether he is expending his resources correctly. Another of Tivoli's strengths is in the area of applications management. While many systems management packages notify technicians or administrators about hardware servers going down, Tivoli's applications management capabilities keep the IT staff aware of problems by application. For example, if a New York file server fails, with a run-of-the-mill software package, administrators may have to scramble to find out what applications are affected. On the other hand, Tivoli's Global Enterprise Manager (GEM) lets the IT staff know that Notes is down because the New York file server has failed. Since applications are more closely linked to a company's goals than specific pieces of hardware, application management is just one more way that Tivoli keeps IT aligned with a company's goals. Tivoli has been in the systems management business for more than 9 years, offering integrated products that serve as the backbones of IT operations. One of Tivoli's goals is to allow OS/2 customers to reap the benefits of the complete set of Tivoli functions. These latest announcements bring us a lot closer to that vision. The OS/2 team will continue to consult with Tivoli and participate in development until the OS/2 migration is complete. For more information on these and other recent announcements from Tivoli, see:http://www.tivoli.com/millennium/index.html. FM Featured Application: Zydacron Video Conferencing Solutions In this age of e-business, there's more than just the Web available for digitizing operations and minimizing geographic distances. Since 1992, Manchester, New Hampshire-based Zydacron has been creating video conferencing solutions to help companies lower travel costs and offer alternative ways and places to conduct business transactions. Its OS/2 offerings have allowed banks --- many in Germany -- to set up unmanned branches that provide more services than a typical Automatic Teller Machine (ATM). Video conferencing provides another electronic means to help lower costs; yet, it offers more intimate contact than a telephone, e-mail or Web transaction at a similar level of convenience. Some transactions, such as negotiating a loan or complex travel a rrangements, lend themselves to this greater level of intimacy. Since most consumers homes are not equipped with video conferencing equipment, banks can place this capability in a kiosk located in a mall or other high traffic areas. Norman Graves, Director of European Operations sees video conferencing making sense in many business situations. "It's especially useful for short meetings between people located between 50 and 100 miles or kilometers apart. If two engineers attend a one -hour meeting 100 miles away, they can spend nearly a full day on something they could complete in one hour." Graves warns, "But video conferencing is not a toy. You need to justify it with a sound business case." Users just double click on the icon for a video window to pop up. From the built-in phone book, users double click on the number they want to initiate a call. Once in process, callers can exchange files by dragging and dropping the file on the video window. The application also enables callers to type messages that appear on the screen during the call as well as hands free audio calling. By employing standards compliant decoding, Zydapp2, the solution for OS/2, can accept incoming calls from other conferencing programs. Although decoding is based on standards, Zydacron's proprietary encoding techniques produce high quality video with less blurriness, faster frame rates, better color rendition and better lip synching than its competitors. Although Zydacron does most of its business through other equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and resellers, it has gone to great lengths to simplify installation for its end users. The set-up program walks the user through the steps for installing the camera card as well as the application. It includes diagnostics to ensure that connection between the card and the phone line works correctly. For more information on Zydacron products, see http://www.zydacron.com. Press Points InfoWorld Electric: Special News Report - The World's Oldest Start-up by Ed Scannell, 10/26/98 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In a very complimentary article describing IBM's reemergence as the world's oldest software startup, author Ed Scannel offers up WorkSpace On-Demand along with Notes 5.0 as one of the vital anchors in IBM's e-business strategy. The next to the last paragr aph states, "Another possible desktop hit could come from IBM's WorkSpace On-Demand server, which serves up Java-based customized desktops to users from central servers." Computer Reseller New: IBM Pass OS/2 Turning Points by Stuart Glascock, 10/21/98 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article heralds the release of WorkSpace On-Demand 2 to manufacturing as well as OS/2 Server for e-business moving into the large-scale beta testing phase. Mr. Glascock portrays these events as turning points because of the positive response to the WorkSpace release and the overwhelming demand to participate in the OS/2 Server for e-business beta. Computer Reseller News - IBM aims releasees at installed base -- Preps New Version of OS/2 Warp Server, WorkSpace On-Demand by Stuart Glascock, 10/13/198 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article previews a few highlihts of the newest OS/2 Warp Server release (OS/2 Warp Server for e-business) such as the Logical Volume Manager and the inclusion of Netscape Communicator 4.04 for OS/2. It also mentions the fourth quarter delivery of the WorkSpace On-Demand release 2, which has the ability to deploy Windows applications from OS/2 servers. Infoworld Electric: OS/2 Warp Server Update Due this Week by Ed Scannel, 10/13/1998 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This on-line report started off announcing that the next beta of OS/2 Warp Server for e-business will ship by October 16, 1998 and that WorkSpace On-Demand 2.0 will ship two weeks later on October 30,1998. The article mentioned the delivery of the "long-promised" Journaling File System. Mr. Scannel also neatly explained the benefits of the Logical Volume Manager, "which allows network administrators to balance file requirements across a network without having to take the server down." He also mentions that this release will include "for the first time" IBM's WebSphere Application Server 1.1 as well as device driver support for Intelligent Input/Output (I2O) architecture. VARBusiness: Annual Report Card -- Network Operating System -- IBM take first despite price/product concerns, 10/12/98 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- OS/2 Warp Server came in first of four in this annual survey. VARBusiness attributed the win to IBM's emphasis of e-business and network computing for its larger customers. IBM led in the areas of support and partnership but lagged in product pricing. The article quoted Ian Bonner, vice president Lotus and IBM worldwide partner marketing, "The rating is a testament to last year's alignment between IBM's NOS and network computing strategies in conjunction with an emphasis on customers who need robust, scalable and reliable solutions." Computer Weekly (UK): Bank weighs up OS/2 for thin-client move, 10/98 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- England's Midland Bank is making the first steps toward "thin-client computing" by deploying OS/2 Warp V 4.0 to 30,000 desktops in its branches. The article also reports that the bank may take advantage of OS/2 Warp's inherent Java virtual machine to run new Java applications alongside its OS/2 ones as well as leverage IBM's WorkSpace On-Demand technology (although the article referred to it as "Workplace On Demand). InfoWorld Test Center Report on Java Server Performance: No More Mr. Slow for Java, 9/14/98 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This complimentary report boldly states that "if Java is supposed to be slow, someone forgot to tell IBM". To support this statement, the article points to Java performance on OS/2, which except for the first data point, tested two to three times better t han Windows NT. Industry News IBM Press Release: IBM Releases First Java Speech API Implementation, 10/26/98 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Building on its success as a leading worldwide developer of speech technologies, IBM announced support for the Java Speech API with the immediate availability of the first implementation of the 1.0 specification. Additionally, IBM intends to ship a toolkit for the Java Speech API 1.0 in Q1'99. With IBM's implementation of the 1.0 specification and tools, developers can take advantage of the inherent strengths of the Java technology - platform independence - potentially saving time and resources developing speech applications for multiple platforms. "Availability of the Java Speech API, announced today by Sun, is a major milestone in our = industry effort to make speech recognition a pervasive technology for desktop, mobile and enterprise solutions," said W.S. "Ozzie" Osborne, general manager of IBM Speech Systems Business Unit. "By pairing IBM's award-winning ViaVoice speech recognition technology with the leading platform-independent solution, Java Speech API, our partners will have a rich environment for developing speech-enabled applications." PC Week Online: OBI is Open for Business, 10/20/98 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- At the recent Internet Commerce Expo (ICE) held in Los Angeles, California a number of major companies, including IBM, Netscape, Microsoft, and Home Depot demonstrated the implementation and interoperability features of the Open Business on the Internet (O BI) specification. This year-old standard can help companies conduct busines _______________________________________________________________ - Thank you for your interest in OS/2 WARP FM To unsubscribe send the following 1-line message to: - listserv@mail.software.ibm.com - signoff warpfm For additional information visit the OS/2 Warp Home Page at: - http://www.software.ibm.com/os2warp/ _______________________________________________________________