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Java

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James Gosling with Duke, the Java MascotMarket Influence?

Oak, which by one account was named after the tree that Gosling could see from his office window, was introduced with the potential to revolutionize the computing industry.  Due to Oak's capability to create interactive programs, the most obvious target market of the new technology was digital cable television and video gaming. 

Marketing the new technology, however, proved to be difficult.  The initial response to the new technology was positive with both Time-Warner and the video game manufacture 3D0 showing interest.  However after years of talks with these and several other companies, the Green Team was distraught as negotiations fell through one after another.

The Internet

James Gosling was reliving a nightmare. Prior to working at Sun, he had worked with IBM who, not seeing the importance of his work, did not produce it. It looked like the story was being rewritten, with this new technology being dismissed as too far ahead of its time.

In 1994, however, the precursor to the World Wide Web was opening its door to reach potential consumers. Gosling realized that this was the perfect vehicle for Oak, which was renamed Java. Java enabled programmers to create programs called applets, which could be transmitted and run over the Internet. Applets could be any of a wealth of applications, even an entire word processor, allowing users to create more interactive web pages.

The Future

In 1995, Java was introduced to the Internet, and has remained an online fixture ever since. Java continues to be improved upon, with new versions in the works. Currently, in 2003, David Pereira, another University of Calgary alumnus, is working on one element called Jackpot, which was originally conceptualized by Gosling. Jackpot will be an improvement to Java’s toolset, and is just one many improvements being developed for the language.

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