What is Java for Business?


You've probably already heard that Java is ideal for networks and the Internet. But how will Java become a reality for your business? How can this technology help reduce the costs of reaching new and existing markets, and make your business more competitive?

At IBM, we understand that your business has an investment in technology already. You have equipment, existing databases and skilled employees. Here's the good news: we're not asking you to throw it all away and start over. You can start incorporating Java gradually, as an evolutionary extension.

Explore the possibilities, and discover how IBM makes Java real for business.


Table of Contents (for this page)


Java's Value
An introduction to Java and its impact on business. Also, read the white paper: "Value Proposition/Business Case for Java."

Benefits
Do more, while saving time and money -- an ideal equation for any enterprise.

Network Computing
Find out how Java unifies business networks, allowing the access and cross-platform adaptability your users need.

Applications
Java can let you control the information that is crucial to your business -- while you reach out to your customers and colleagues in new ways.




Java's Value


Meet Java.

Java is a cross-platform, network-aware computing environment that is compact and robust. Information services managers know that, typically, a business operates on many platforms, and they cobble together solutions using various protocols and expensive customized solutions to bridge mixed systems. Java solves that problem.

Java can change business for the better
What your business is and what it does won't change -but the infrastructure will evolve. That's why "changing the way you do business" is a promise you see and hear all the time.

Java has the power to effect major changes. The personal computers on desks throughout your business are expensive to buy and even more costly to maintain. Java offers ways to leverage your existing investments in computers and software while minimizing the costs of implementing new systems and software.

Your software can be written once in Java, and it will run on any Java-enabled computer. The end user can access your applications from any Java-enabled client, whether that's a PC with a browser or a network computer. While power users in your company will still rely on the local processing power of PCs, customer service representatives, administrators, researchers and other people who just need a computer's core business functions will find that a network computer such as IBM's Network Station is an ideal solution. It can run a browser like Netscape Navigator and retrieve, manipulate and distribute data and information from the corporate intranet or the World Wide Web.

And as the development community creates more Java applications and applets, Java-enabled networks will give everybody on your network the tools they need to get the job done.

A universal platform -- with custom solutions
How you choose to implement Java depends on the nature of your enterprise. It's not hard to realize effective, innovative Java scenarios in retail, manufacturing, health care, sales and other industries that use information to further business goals.

Introducing Java-based systems for businesses is by nature an evolutionary process. Java lets you keep working with your existing systems -- your PCs, servers and hosts -- because it is platform independent. So Java lowers the cost of computing, both in terms of developing and maintaining software and applications and in extending access to every computer user on your network.

Share information through the network
Business computing is much more than just accessing information. You need to work with data in increasingly innovative ways. With its inherent platform independence, Java provides a perfect solution. Java-enabled middleware - which is the software on servers that helps client systems talk to host systems - sends applets on demand from network servers to the Java-enabled client Network computer or PC client enabled with Java. The client can get to the host transactional systems, such as IBM CICS, with no changes to the host code.

Want to find out more?
Read the META Group Consulting white paper "Value Proposition/Business Case for Java"




Java's Benefits


Benefits throughout the business cycle
Java benefits everybody from the product supplier to the consumer. It improves time to market, enhances customer service and enables the extension of electronic commerce across an entire supply chain for consumers, customers and suppliers. It also increases the scope of application software access across an entire supply chain, which lowers the cost of developing applications and, ultimately, the products and services that are built on those applications.

Java allows for more flexible business processes. Response time to market conditions - both good and bad - is streamlined, which enhances productivity. And Java enables customer self-service since access to information and the applets necessary for fulfillment of requests and orders can be distributed on the Internet's open protocols.

Reduces costs
Java promises to reduce costs in the development and deployment of business applications and in the support of business processes. Most businesses today have to support a diversity of computing platforms. Java offers true platform independence - which means it runs on desktop PCs, middleware servers and full-fledged host systems.

Simpler delivery
In day-to-day usage, Java promises to lower the costs of delivering applications to users on networked systems. In a Java-enabled network, applications are distributed on a request basis from the server to the client workstation, PC or network computer. As a result, system resources are distributed according to network load where and when they're needed.

Persistent information
Since it's client and operating-system-independent, Java protects platform investments, including legacy host and server systems. And Java improves the use of Web-based technologies -- open protocol systems like corporate intranets and the Internet -- as a means for delivering information. The flexible application partitioning of Java supports user-friendly benefits like embedded functions in office software suites so that people can collaborate on the same set of documents without duplicating efforts and overwriting each other's files.

Central management, storage and security
Java applications are centrally managed and locally executed. So system resources are managed from a single point, while the end user is ensured availability and reliability. And Java offers mobility in that every resource can be accessed via any local desktop with network access. Meanwhile, software and system updates can be deployed from the server, thereby saving valuable human and network resources. Central storage at the server makes security less of an issue, too, because a company's data is not scattered across desktops throughout the enterprise.

The arrival of network computing
Network computing brings many benefits for businesses that respond to the changing conditions of an increasingly complex marketplace. By adopting the open standards and platform independence of Java technology, your business gets a growth path into future technologies without giving up your existing investment.



Java and Network Computing


In the past year, programmers, developers and systems managers have taken Java in ambitious new directions.

So now it's possible to create full-featured applications using Java. And we're not just talking about word processors and spreadsheets. A new generation of Java applications will handle sales, customer service, accounting, databases, and human resources. In short, the key components of business computing.

Java ties together the three tiers of network computing -- the host system, the server gateway and the desktop system -- without requiring the different computers at each tier to conform to a single platform. Java fulfills the fundamental tenet of network computing: it puts the power in the network where every user who wants it can use it.

How Java fits in business computing
Java-enabled networks will let businesses extend the reach of existing applications and server systems to every desktop and network computer on their networks. And Java opens the way for host system information to reach across the network to people throughout the company -- at the home office and every remote branch via the Internet.

Java helps keep your network and its data safe because it's inherently virus-proof; Java applets can't alter data in computer files or on hard drives. So your company gets lower costs while everybody in it gets the ability to collaborate. And innovate. Java simplifies the creation and deployment of applications and lets your company keep using its existing systems -- with a clear migration path for the future.


Applications of Java


Java supercharges the business network
A Java-enabled system broadens the scope of available resources by giving you access to databases and libraries on various servers and hosts -- all through the simple mechanism of downloadable Java applets.

For businesses that continue to rely on data terminals with "green screen" applications, a Java-enabled network computer offers enhanced features like an intuitive graphical interface and Internet access. Because Java lets you work with the latest information from the network, your changes can be immediately updated for everybody else on your network.

Act locally, compute globally
Java components reside on the network, and the data from any connected host or server is retrievable by summoning a Java applet to your desktop browser. That means you can find, retrieve, change and post information using tools that look and feel familiar to you.

And everybody else on the network can be immediately updated with real-time data replication. So if you download a spreadsheet, update its numbers, run a graphing applet to view a dozen possible scenarios, then post your results on the server, that information is dynamically available elsewhere on the network.

Central management and low-cost maintenance
For network administrators, Java means only having to install applications once on the server, as opposed to having to install hundreds, if not thousands, of copies on both the server and the client workstations in traditional client/server networks. And application development costs are held in check using the Java platform. So your business can respond to its needs for customized applications with shorter development cycles and faster turnaround time for implementation.

Java solutions make your network a center of collaboration, with applets that are shareable by design. And Java lets you support key line-of-business applications that work within your existing software and systems investments. IBM is dedicated to helping you grow your business systems with Java software strategies and ideas.

Document creation and distribution can be fulfilled with a full complement of applications -- Lotus Notes or other groupware, word processors, spreadsheets, calculators, visual aides, presentation graphics, software for dynamic exchange of information and data, gateways to databases, even electronic commerce and Web publishing. Java ties disparate systems together, which allows the people in a business to accomplish more by accessing more information and tools.

Where Java applets come from
To provide applications for businesses, independent software vendors (ISVs) and application developers are critical. With their expertise in industries such as finance, health, distribution, manufacturing and retail, ISVs make the applications used by businesses every day. In order to support their success in developing for Java, IBM offers Java tools, technologies and support to individuals and companies who are helping to make Java real for business.



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