Re: The great Java showcase (re: 2nd historic mistake)

["James P. White" <jim@pagesmiths.com>]

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Bertrand Meyer wrote:
> ...
> http://192.215.107.71/wire/news/aug/0817corel.html
> for the full text):
> 
> ...
>         Corel now plans to use home-grown technology, code-named
>         Remagen [...]
>...

There's another thing which illustrates how the reporters totally missed
the point, Remagen is implemented in Java!  It is Corel's network
centric (or as they say with the current marketing buzz - "enterprise")
application server technology.

For those who actually care about what Corel is doing, you can go to
their home page <http://www.corel.com>.  They have a link on their front
page pointing you directly to  documentation of their current efforts
and product roll out plans for their Java technology.  One of the pages
there (updated to dispel the misinformation from that article) is
<http://www.corel.com/javastrat/commitment.htm>, which begins:

>    Corel's Commitment to Java�Stronger Than Ever
>    100% Pure Java on the Desktop 
> 
>    With the development of the prototype Corel Office for Java product, 
> Corel has pioneered the use
>    of Java in the implementation of mission-critical business applications. 
> Network-centric computing
>    has rapidly emerged as the dominant new direction for the enterprise. 
> Corel's new Java-based
>    solution creates a bridge to existing Windows applications and legacy 
> files, and also empowers
>    the emerging Network Computing (NC) paradigm.
>...

So while I understand your glee at the prospect that your prediction
about Java's eminent failure had already received the confirmation of a
major casualty, you will have to accept that Corel is anything but.  In
fact the whole point of their announcement was that their early efforts
confirmed their strategy and that they are now expanding it into the
next stage of both technology development and deployment.  

So Corel continues as the Great Java Showcase and I predict that they
will consequently have considerable success in the marketplace for
corporate office software, an area in which they  (the WordPerfect
product they bought from Novell) were about to fall into oblivion.  

When Corel's success with their office software in Java is examined
several years from now, it will be understood simply as the normal
process of competitive pressure leading an innovative company into
creating a new technology to out compete the dinosaurs who are stuck
with the old paradigm (unfortunately for Corel, Microsoft has also
demonstrated that Bill understands the future of Java too by having
dropped their previous strategy for network dominence - Blackbird - in
favor of Java only weeks after JDK 1.0 was released).

Also, the next time you start another one of these cross posted
monsters, please use comp.lang.java.advocacy instead of
comp.lang.java.tech.

jim
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James P. White                        Netscape DevEdge Champion for IFC
Director of Technology Adventure Online Gaming http://www.gameworld.com
Developers of Gameworld -- Live Action Role-Playing and Strategic Games
jim@pagesmiths.com        Pagesmiths' home is http://www.pagesmiths.com