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Java
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Market 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 Javas toolset, and is just one many improvements being
developed for the language.
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