Java Computing in the
Enterprise Whitepaper
(Postscript Compressed
141KB)

Java Computing in the
Enterprise Whitepaper
(Acrobat 124KB)

Enterprise Computing Today

Some of the characteristics of today's enterprise computing environment include:

Infrastructure

Fat clients with unnecessarily complex operating systems and incompatible interfaces.
Servers in a variety of configurations, each networked in various ways to a subset of the clients.
A variety of network topologies serving different subsets of the enterprise and having limited interoperability.
Decreasing enterprise functionality and reliability as the complexity of the network infrastructure increases.

Applications

A large body of legacy applications on a variety of platforms that cannot be immediately replaced.
Server and client applications written in different languages that run on incompatible platforms and operating systems.
Multiple -- and often incompatible -- client applications residing at various points on the network (e.g., incompatible word processing and spreadsheet packages).
Multiple versions of network applications like e-mail that are either incompatible or do not interoperate properly.

Data

Multiple and incompatible databases holding corporate data.
Lack of a standard method to access corporate data uniformly, regardless of source.

Support

Users who customize their local fat client with personally preferred applications that are not always compatible with network applications and may reduce enterprise reliability and/or security.
Escalating support costs and a never-ending effort to keep clients and servers uniformly updated across the network.
Large and dispersed support organizations dedicated to providing client on-site support.
A possible migration to yet another version of Windows and WindowsNT that yields a near-zero return on investment .
A big "Year 2000" investment challenge that yields a zero return on investment.

This chaotic environment, which spells a short tenure for many CIOs, is one that Java Computing is uniquely positioned to remedy. Java, together with the widespread adoption of intranet technology and standards, provides a way to simplify enterprise computing without scrapping existing investments.