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December 11, 1996
Presented By:
META Group Consulting
Don Ryan Director
Kip Martin Consultant ©
1996 META Group 208 Harbor Drive, Stamford, CT 06912
(203) 973-6700 http://www.metagroup.com
Java and the Evolution of LiveWeb Applications: An Overview
Java is a third-generation OO programming
language that is based on C++, with features added and removed
to allow programming ease. One of the main programming benefits
is a rich predefined class library that allows programmers to
reuse code. Java is both a programming language and an operating
system component called the Java virtual machine. It uses interpreted
code and executes on either a client or server. Java is currently
receiving heightened attention because Java:
An alternate method to frame the critical issues surrounding Java
involves Java's ability to enable the deployment of Internet technology
as an intelligent information system and network. Java enhances
the following key attributes:
META Group sees the demand by IT organizations
for "liveWeb" applications driving Java adoption through
1997. LiveWeb applications enable users to receive on-the-fly
custom responses to application requests, based on individual
profiles. As a result, Java will become the de facto liveWeb
standard by year-end 1996. We expect Java's momentum to be propelled
into the mainstream by 1997, with the arrival of Java applets
(from Dun & Bradstreet, Oracle, InsWeb, USWeb, etc.), enhanced
Java development environments (from SunSoft, IBM, Borland, Symantec,
RogueWave, etc.) and Java integration support provided by all
major technology vendors (analysis/design, development, packages,
middleware, database management systems, etc.). By year-end 1997,
Java will evolve into a broader role as a full object oriented
3GL for liveWeb development, supported by a wide array of high-level
Java development environments. Figure 1 depicts Java's
technical maturation through 1998.
The critical characteristic of liveWeb applications
is their ability to respond in a customized manner to events triggered
by the user. As opposed to the development of specific software,
which provides solutions for every conceivable combination, liveWeb
applications are addressed by a system that combines components
(HTML, business service logic, new media containers) on the fly,
based on the triggered event, knowledge of the individual user,
and contextual knowledge of the session. Their vitality is further
increased when the processing is distributed between the client
and the server in a manner that optimizes response time by minimizing
network traffic.
Java is used to create small, specialized
applications (applets) that are loaded from the server to the
client on a "just in time" (JIT) basis. As a result,
Java applets are centrally managed, but locally executed. This
structure has numerous advantages, which we expect to drive Java's
adoption as the standard for delivering liveWeb applications in
1996/97:
In 1997, IT organizations will deliver their
first full liveWeb systems. IT organizations will pursue internal
applications, built on top of existing legacy software (e.g.,
HR benefits enrollment, 401(k) investment management, customer
information systems). This approach provides the opportunity
to build core technical skills in base technologies, without incurring
the business risks associated with direct customer interaction.
"Light" multimedia content, such as images and graphics,
along with business logic applets, will be used to manage user
interaction. Media usage decisions will be based on technological
maturity, network bandwidth availability, and their role in supporting
the application. Aggressive organizations (particularly in consumer-oriented
industries) will begin developing liveWeb applications that target
both customers and consumers. These projects, typically sponsored
by the sales or marketing department, will be perceived as critical
to business competitiveness and initiated under tight time-to-market
pressures.
Java also has the potential to simplify network management. META
Group sees this as an overall trend in network management; significant
efforts are underway to enhance the network management capabilities
of all operating systems. This improvement in ease-of-use is
a critical success factor for all operating system vendor solutions
going forward to the year 2000.
Java, as an important component in Internet and inter-enterprise
computing, is receiving increasingly more attention as Global
2000 companies actively deploy it. The principal benefits driving
Java implementation include:
Java is the latest programming language to enable an application
run on any platform, allowing complete independence between the
application program, type of computer, and operating system.
Equally important, Java moves the locus of computing from the
desktop to the network.
The purpose of this white paper is to describe Java's potential
to benefit organizations along an industry supply chain, from
product supplier to IT user to line-of-business management to
customer. While we use the software industry as an example, this
analysis may be extended to most industries to determine how Java
enhances product and service delivery across that industry's supply
chain and value chain. To examine in greater detail Java's affects
on business processes, we will look at the supply chain and value
chain across the software industry, starting with software suppliers
manufacturers through line-of-business users and ultimately consumers.
For IT and business managers, Java's benefits extend beyond improved
programming efficiencies; Java's cross-platform solution downloads
applications from server to client on demand, ultimately providing
lower-cost application delivery by 2000. It is Java's ability
to distribute applications to upstream and downstream supply chain
partners, regardless of computing environment, that will enhance
business processes and make Java an important component in the
evolution of electronic commerce and the Internet. Business process
improvements can accelerate time to market, enhance customer service,
solidify business relationships, and provide opportunities for
value and profit potential across an entire supply chain. META
Group believes Java will mature quickly because it offers benefits
to all members of a supply chain; this multi-tiered constituency
will drive acceptance of the Java development environment more
rapidly than other development solutions introduced over the past
decade.
While most current benefits of Java apply to business interactions,
an equally important function enables the development of new consumer
devices, such as Web TV and low-cost network personal computers
with enhanced application access. Java has the potential to be
an underpinning that enables these new devices to expand the scope
of consumer communication and entertainment. Java has the potential
to Web-enabled consumer households by extending some of the same
functionality to consumer electronic devices currently found on
personal computers.
A secondary impact of Java allows the migration from standalone
technology to value-added network-based services. Electronic
information access and communications becomes more widespread
through a low-cost network-based application delivery. Java along
with a number of other the key Internet technologies may break
down the two major barriers to consumer computer use: difficulty
of use and high cost.
There are, however, some caveats associated with Java. Java is
an important catalyst to the evolution of the information technology
ecosystem; in isolation, however, Java is no more revolutionary
than preceding object oriented environments. A number of technology,
business maturity, and business model propositions must mature
before the benefits of Java significantly impact supply chain
management through activities such as improved customer service
delivery or electronic commerce enablement.
A key factor in this evolution is the tradeoff between performance
and cross-platform support. Proprietary operating system solutions
can deliver greater performance through tight integration with
operating systems; Java enables cross-platform compatibility of
applications. A significant issue surrounding the future success
of Java will be the value users place on cross-platform capability
versus operating system performance. Ultimately, users will choose
operating systems based on a number of factors; Java increases
the scope of these options and is one of a number of key considerations
such as network bandwidth availability, security, access control,
and applications availability
Leading-edge user organizations are actively implementing Java;
developers are moving to incorporate Java into a range of environments
more rapidly than any other language or development environment.
However, the impact that Java will have on supply chain management
and business process will be gradual. Currently, monolithic systems
form the core of most IT systems; the installation of these systems
represented a lengthy and expensive process for most corporations.
Few will be in a position to significantly modify or augment
this infrastructure within the next half-decade; additionally,
any change must leverage the current investment in client / server
and desktop-based technologies. To the extent that Java complements
with existing systems, its implementation will be smoother and
faster. Additionally, Java adoption will be significantly impacted
by other prominent Internet technologies, as well as the further
maturation of standards. All of these factors will influence
the time frame in which the benefits of Java we outline in this
paper will come to full maturity in large scale corporate settings.
By describing the individual component products, materials, and
services that are used to conduct business processes as links
in the supply chain, we can assess the impact of a new technology
according to the extent of its use in the chain. Various technologies
can be employed to manage supply chain relationships; it is these
technologies that can add considerable value to business processes,
either through increased efficiencies or direct cost savings.
Java, as a supply chain-enabling technology, can add value by
facilitating information flow and interactions between trading
partners. Supply chains, whether extending across a single organization
or an industry, play a significant role in defining value chains.
Value chain analysis offers a method of evaluating business processes
as a means of adding value to a product or service. Every business
process takes in resources with the goal of producing an end product
required by the next organization in the chain; ideally, the end
product of service is of greater value than the original components.
Those processes that add increased value along the way are value
chain components and key contributors to increasing profit, market
share and revenue. In addition to industry-wide value and supply
chains (external to an organization), there are equally important
internal value and supply chains. Internal supply chains progress
through inbound resource logistics, operations, outbound distribution,
sale and marketing, and customer support. In our analysis, we
view Java as a value chain component that enhances business process
and adds value to products and services.
The remainder of this paper provides a supply
chain analysis focusing on where Java adds value for each major
user community of interest: from software vendors through ISVs
to the end-user customer. For many of these segments Java boils
down to reduced cost in providing applications and supporting
business processes. These processes can enhance customer service
and extend electronic commerce across an entire supply chain.
Figure 2 depicts Java's benefits in each step throughout
the software industry supply chain, all of which arise from its
cross-platform independence.
The key point is that Java has benefits as both a product and
a business process solution, and has the potential to be a highly
leveraged technology because it adds potential value across every
segment in the supply chain. As with most intranet technology
development, META Group believes that to get a quick start, companies
must have in place a robust applications and network infrastructure
from which to build Internet platforms and applications. Companies
have to be object-ready; that is, actively employing programming
resources that can use object oriented programming techniques.
However, over the next two years there will be a proliferation
of tools enabling the evolution of new Java applications, reprogramming
of existing applications, as well as fostering an organizational
culture that is able to profit from an object oriented programming
methodology. SOFTWARE INDUSTRY ANALYSIS
As a proxy and model for various industries,
the software industry provides a convenient example of the benefits
of Java. Java value propositions extend across the components
of the software industry: independent software vendors and integrators,
distributors and dealers, and line-of-business and information
technology users. There are benefits within each of these supply
chain segments, as well as within the interactions between segments.
Software ISVs and Integrators Value Propositions:
We discuss here the benefits of Java for software
companies and integrators. Many of these benefits and value propositions
also apply to IT hardware infrastructure vendors as software is
an integral part of the systems they sell. Currently, software
companies sell into specific segments based on platform and operating
system constraints. The market has been characterized by mainframe
enterprisewide platforms, server-based systems and personal computers.
Software is usually not portable from one environment to another,
and as a result ISVs and integrators normally address only one
or two segments of the industry due to the prohibitive costs associated
with the production on multiple sets of code.
With Java, ISVs and integrators can develop
applications that are cross-platform, thus opening up their programs
and services to a much wider client base. Best-of-breed applications,
previously developed for one or two platforms, will now be available
on virtually all platforms, expanding the base of available software
on various platforms. Cross-platform portability will drive a
greater availability of software and a broader potential market
for all software companies and integrators; it will also enable
development companies to focus on features and functionality rather
than on platform requirements, creating applications tailor for
business processes rather than operating systems. A large integrator, Trilogy Development Group, is currently engaged in high profile Java projects for major Global 2000 companies, focused primarily on Web-based sales function automation. Trilogy is realizing a greater than sixty percent cost savings due to ease of programming in Java as compared to other development environments. They are able to write to one platform, and thus can focus more attention on customization and adding value to the business application. One of their notable clients is the Chrysler Corporation. The Chrysler application involves utilizing an interactive automobile information and configuration application over the Web and Web-based kiosks in Chrysler dealerships; this application will also enable dealers to locate and order the cars as configured by customers. This Web-based delivery will replace CD-ROM distribution of promotional, pricing, and product information, allowing for more rapid and uniform dissemination to dealers and more effective satisfaction of customer requirements and inquiries.
Figure 3
A new groupware vendor, Sanga International,
has been able to develop a Java-based product in less than six
months and is hoping to cross market segment boundaries based
on features and functionality rather than platform requirements.
This has significantly improved their time-to-market, and enables
increased flexibility in implementing updates and modifications
to the initial release.
Figure 3 shows the current structure of the
software industry, with market size and development efforts determined
primarily by platform. Java will allow vendors to address new
market segments and promote interchangeability of positions.
Existing vendors will attack new market segments, thus widening
the range of choices for software buyers. Java, by potentially
changing the dynamics of software delivery, will effect the downstream
supply chain as it expands the scope of software applications
and increases the number of solution vendors in any one business
process application segment. Technology platforms do not pose
a barrier to market extension or expansion into new markets.
The critical success factor becomes feature- and functionality-based,
with success criteria for ISVs based their effectiveness in addressing
the business needs of particular market segments (defined by both
business size and vertical market). Distributors/Dealers Value Proposition:
Java applications are operating system-neutral, allowing them
to be deployed on any client machine for which a Java Virtual
machine is available. As a result, Java applications (applets)
run on desktops whose configuration is not within a corporation's
direct or indirect control. This capability translates into a
number of supply chain and value chain benefits:
For example, R.R. Donnelly's WebDIRECT database retrieval service
uses Java as an underpinning for interactive catalog and software
delivery capability that reaches to any desktop platform. META
Group sees interactive catalog and ordering capability as a critical
component in electronic commerce enablement for both suppliers
and customers by linking suppliers to distributors/dealer to IT
customers and line of business management. Java is an important
tool in enabling this through application partitioning.
For example, information that was once reserved for internal company
use, such as inventory or product availability, can now be shared
with supply chain partners. Information developed by all supply
chain partners for inventory management, forecasting, and sales
force automation can be shared and updated through the use of
Java applications coupled with an underlying intranet infrastructure.
Information delivery points can be a kiosk, a mobile computer,
and ultimately a hand-held organizer. This platform-independent
delivery enables more widespread use of electronic information
networks than do the proprietary networks used currently to handle
electronic supply chain management communications.
Open access to information via the Internet will also change the
face of customer service. Access to customer files, order records,
inventory status, and the capability to dynamically interact with
live applications from any platform will drive a new model of
customer service. All participants in the supply chain can have
24 x 7, location independent online access to the same information.
The value proposition for the customer is faster service; the
potential value proposition for the distributor/dealer is a lower
cost model for customer service fulfillment.
The best example of Java enabling a new breed of customer service
is customer and distributor access to legacy databases, which
store 90% of all customer service-based information. Using JDBC
and gateways, Java-enabled clients can access the order information
and account status that have previously been reserved solely for
customer service agents over proprietary networks. Java enables
intelligent applications that are event-downloadable, enabling
implementation of business-logic-based application delivery via
the Internet. Java applications have the potential to strip delays
from supply chain management, imparting increased efficiencies,
and therefore greater profit potential, across supply chain and
value chain segments. Figure 4 shows the key business applications
impacted by Java and the intranet in supply chain management.
Line Of Business and IT UsersValue Proposition:
META Group, however, poses a caveat that currently, Java is still
in its infancy in terms of availability of off-the-shelf applications.
Two critical success factors need to be in place before
Java plays a major role in Internet computing: a more mature
applications framework, and greater object oriented programming
readiness. Solutions are on the horizon, however, because Java
offers benefits to all participants in the supply chain. A key to Java's success lies in its potential to improve IT and business processes by centralizing network management of application delivery and maintenance while delivering applications to the user's desktop platform of choice. Specifically for IT business process management, Java allows greater customization of department-specific applications and improves throughput and cycle times by partitioning parts of an application across multiple servers and clients. In addition, the underlying object oriented programming technology upon which Java is built encourages reuse of components which simplifies and accelerates application development. In the future, generic platform independent components may represent pieces of process specific applications that can be purchased off-the-shelf (objects). In addition, IT application maintenance will take less time and be less complex due to the homogeneity of components across multiple applications.
As business processes become software- and application-dependent,
this capability to delivery applications more rapidly will have
significant ramifications for line of business management. Software
becomes a value chain component that can bring significant competitive
advantage. A real payoff for Java comes in the improvement of
line of business process that are enabled by bringing applications
to the desktop more quickly and having these applications accessible
to all supply chain partners. The time frame in which Java achieves
this promise depends the rate at which ISVs port applications
and develop off-the-shelf solutions. Figure 5 outlines key benefits
across a line-of-business value chain for customer service and
electronic commerce applications.
Consider an example outlining Java's possible effects on customer
service delivery in an organization. Currently, customer support
functions are labor intensive because customers talk to call center
agents who access legacy data to answer questions. In many instances,
access to information is limited because customer service centers
only operate during the day, telephone lines are busy, and information
is incomplete or not up to date. Customers cannot have online
access to these systems because most required mainframe-based
access.
As another example, a Web-based product catalog with Java client
support would allow customers to automatically sort and reformat
database content for online viewing and printing. Many more options
can be reviewed online as compared to utilizing a live call center
agent for instructions or direction to information. This type
of system can be expanded to a full-blown electronic commerce
environment where customers have access to shipment status, e-mail,
corporate address books, account information, and order/payment
functions. Two of Java's key technical benefits -- openness through
platform independence and ability to serve specialized applications
that can access customized requests for information -- are the
underpinnings in developing this type of online customer service
network. Sidebar: CSX Implementation of Java
CSX is a major transportation company that wants to Web-enable
all its transportation information systems that impact their customers.
A primary goal is the offer of services to any desktop in the
company, as well as to customers and suppliers. CSX has an established
history of electronic customer communication through a proprietary
DOS-based client and network system known as Mercury. Dozens
of CSX's major customers now use this system. During the first
quarter of 1997, CSX implemented TWS Net, a Web-based and Java-developed
system for its 15 largest customers (encompassing about 175 users).
CSX evaluated Java during 4th quarter of 1995 and realized in
January 1996 that Java was a viable option. CSX identified three
business-critical applications that were all highly interactive,
requiring liveWeb capability and necessitating solutions beyond
simple HTML programming. The first two are currently in production;
the third will be added during the first quarter of 1997:
In developing this system, CSX identified a number of critical
success factors:
These design parameters allow new functions to be added as required
(at least every six weeks for CSX) and to be fully integrated
with existing EDI applications. CSX started with a common object
model based on C++, was used for applications such as tracking
railway car use and location. The first application was implemented
with team of programmers that ranged in size from 6 to 20 persons
over a period of four months. CSX's team of programmers had previous
object programming experience, and many of the existing databases
were developed in C++. The total cost approached $1 million;
60% related to programming and 40% spent on hardware and software.
Payback is estimated to be less than one year, based on deferral
of customer service calls and simplified management of online
customer systems. A notable example of benefit provided to IT
management involved providing customers with a URL and password,
instead of needing new hardware and software revisions, as under
the old Mercury system.
CSX wants to have 3000 users by end of 1997 and entirely replace
the existing DOS-based system. Indeed, CSX views online freight
tracking as the 'price of admission' for transportation-based
companies. CSX may productize this system as a commercial offering
for other railway and transportation companies, and is currently
working with Deutsche Bahn, the German railroad for technology
transfer towards this end. The next big step for CSX is the implementation of network computers; 1997 use will account for 10% of their IT infrastructure, growing to 40% in two years. Key application areas include scheduling, modeling, and field administration. All of these developments demonstrate that, for customer service and electronic commerce applications, the accelerated development and rapid investment payback resultant from Java implementation is important in the business decision to deploy intranet infrastructures.
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