Java support dropped in Microsoft XP.

[Rob Levo]

Just heard this on the news. Does this mean that JSP's and Applets are history on IE? What are the ramifications here?
Thoughts please.
(Microsoft is feeling real good about doing anything after the court ruling.)

[Tony Alicea]

Browsers like IE and Netscape don't "do" JSPs.
These receive pure HTML or XML from the server. The HTML and XML may have been generated by JSPs but the browser would never know.
What the abandonment of Java by MS in IE 6 means, is that it won't even bring internally a 1.02 JVM much less a 1.2 JVM much less... etc.
So IE6 won't execute any Java applet no matter how primitive.
That doesn't mean that other companies can't make Java plug-ins for IE6.

[Tim Holloway]

Where'd you hear that? Actually Microsoft "dropped" Java quite a while back - you have to explicitly download the (approx.) 5.5 MB Microsoft Java Machine. Or, as many of us did, download, download again, download again, etc. as Microsoft kept losing court appeals and had to pull "features".
Since neither Microsoft nor Netscape support recent Java (e.g. Swing), it's a small loss. The Sun plug-in's much more powerful.
So far as JSP's go, a browser doesn't need any Java support at all, anyway. It would make some interesting explaining to the anti-trust courts if JSPs no longer worked with IE. But I sincerely doubt Microsoft ever even considered such a thing.
If by "Java" what you really meant was J++, well J++ hasn't been a safe bet for a long time anyway. There was never much hope it would have been a J++.Net, and once the Sun/MS lawsuits were settled, that pretty well killed what was left.

[Alan Watts]

Hi there,
Here are some excerpts on the subject that I produced for our company on the subject. They include some randomn quotes from newsgroups. The only thing I would add to it is, that as I understand it, the deficiency is with Windows XP (not the browsers) ie. the java runtime environment normally came bundled with the Win98 system and such like, rather than the browser per see. Also, it seems that Sun is just as guilty as Microsoft on this one.
Cheers
Alan

Windows XP is now for sale, and IE6, which will come bundled with this, is now available for beta testing):

"..the terms of settlement between Microsoft and Sun
do not allow MS to include a JRE with future versions of Internet
Explorer(i.e., MSN Explorer and Internet Explorer 6). As far as I can tell
by next year the only browser with built-in Java support will be Netscape
(Mozilla, Opera and the text-based browsers don't appear to support Java...
....As you can probably guess, this means the usefulness of a Java based
client is probably going to be limited in the future...."

Or see the following:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2678702,00.html

The only resolution to this kind of problem is for the enduser to download a plug-in Java Runtime Environment (jre) which would allow the applet to run properly. Actually, there is a suggestion that IE6 will auto-prompt to download an entire jre when encountering java sites. Given the popularity of Flash maybe this isn't a big deal.
If we go ahead and build applets into the various websites, then in the near future (as Windows XP (with IE6) starts leasing) we will be faced with the prospect that some users may not be able to properly interact with our websites, and for some of them, a plug-in will be an unnacceptable download on dial-up connections.

[Jason Menard]

I personally think this is good news. Finally maybe people will be forced to download the Sun JRE/Plugin and we can start doing applets in Swing. Now all we need is for Netscape to drop their JRE and we'll be great. Installing the Java Plugin is no more of a problem for users than installing the Flash or PDF plugins.
Jason

[Alan Watts]

Jason,
I would tend to agree with that point on Swing, but I suppose the difference between the Flash plug-in and the Java RE plug-in is that with Flash you don't have all these millions of incompatible installations out there in the market.
I suppose as a rule if you were building Swing applets, then you would ensure that it prompted for a plug-in in cases where an old JRE was detected.
Cheers
Alan

[Marcus Green]

The versions of java built into browsers is an utter, utter pain. I have a nice example on my site at
http://www.jchq.net/applets/GridBagDemo/GridBagDynamic.htm
If you look at it with Netscape, fine and dandy, Look at it with the Java Plugin fine, look at it in IE doesn't work properly.
This kind of thing just gets Applets a bad name, if you write for the plug in you have one consistent platform, write for the browser and you are just about on your own.
Marcu

[karl koch]

hi,
do you think they dropped java without a replacement ?
there surely will be MS C#-applet like things aiming to replace the java-applets.

karl

[Glen Tanner]

Originally posted by Jason Menard:
I personally think this is good news. Finally maybe people will be forced to download the Sun JRE/Plugin and we can start doing applets in Swing. Now all we need is for Netscape to drop their JRE and we'll be great. Installing the Java Plugin is no more of a problem for users than installing the Flash or PDF plugins.
Jason

I find this to be a problem, that is, the downloading and installation of the JRE Plug-In. I recently (within the last year) developed a couple of Swing Applets for my employer. Unfortunately, the majority of our customers have complained because their network config's won't allow the installation of any software on employee machines. So now I'm faced with rewriting these applets into something more browser independent. I have to say that this whole issue has become a big pain in the ass for me.
By the way, Netscape 6 includes Sun's 1.3 JRE in it's full installation.
[This message has been edited by Glen Tanner (edited July 18, 2001).]

[Rehan Malik]

We're forgetting the key thing about Microsoft's possible subscription plan. There are NOT many users out there who WILL pay for a copy of Windows XP on a monthly basis. They will stick with what they have until they have no choice (with Linux around, I doubt that they will be too hurt).
Microsoft's choice to not bundle itself with Java technologies is Bill Gate's plan of making sure that it doesn't lose against Sun. Lets face it, Microsoft is sore at Sun Microsystems for winning its court case so it wants to be a baby and try to get back at Sun Microsystems.

[Rob Levo]

I do not think that MSFT is trying to be a baby.
It's just business and they are trying to make as much money as possible, as they should be.
The SUNW-MSFT rivalry is always interesting and I believe it is healthy for the industry overall.
I am sure Scott and the boys have many counter attacks in their business plan. They have the best management team and always seem to be thinking way ahead of most others.