IBM To Release Java Ports, Common Code Base

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July 18, 2000 (4:23 PM EDT)

In a continuing effort to establish itself as a leader in embedded applications, IBM next week will release ports of optimized versions of its J9 Java Virtual Machine and associated tools to three more hardware platforms and two more operating systems.

The release will come July 24 from its Object Technology subsidiary in Raleigh, N.C.

IBM (stock: IBM) also will take the wraps off its closely guarded "common code base" strategy that will allow embedded developers to move seamlessly across multiple OSes and processors with little modification to their Java code, with no new investment in development tools and with no performance degradation.

To the current optimized versions of Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and VisualAge Java tool suite for the X86, MIPS, PowerPC, and Dragonball processors, IBM is adding versions for the SuperH, ARM, and StrongARM processor architectures. And to its QNX Neutrino optimization, it is adding the iTron industrial real-time operating system and Microsoft (stock: MSFT) Windows CE.

"Our aim is to support all of the major and some of the minor hardware and software platforms used in embedded design today, and to continue to evolve and extend our support as new architectures and architectural variants occur in the future," said Marc Erickson, product manager for embedded systems at Object Technology.

To date, developers wishing to use Java have had to make serious compromises among the five key features that are paramount in any embedded design: real-time deterministic response; memory space; performance; cost of development; and time-to-market.

"One of the things that made Java so attractive to embedded designers originally was its portability, because it meant that costs of development and time-to-market could be significantly reduced through the reuse of code and components," Erickson said. "These issues are no longer just the domain of large companies who have numerous software efforts and multiple platforms on which they are doing development. Now even the smallest developer is faced with even standard architectures with which they are familiar spinning off market- and application-specific variants."

While the write-once, run-everywhere promise of Java implies the reuse of software intellectual property across many products, projects and platforms, a designer in the embedded world must be ready to make serious compromises.

"For portability and code reuse, the cost is code size and performance compromises," Erickson said.

An obvious solution is a JVM implementation that closely matches the underlying hardware or software platform without giving up much of the language's write-once, run-everywhere platform independence.
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