Microsoft

Tuesday, Jun 3, 1997 7:00 PM UTC

Media Circus – Microsoft bites the Big Apple

Redmond's new Sidewalk New York is off to a decent start. But do New Yorkers really need Bill Gates to tell them where to get Chinese food?

By Sean Elder

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less than a week after the launch of New York Sidewalk, the Internet was rife with rumors (later confirmed) that Microsoft had shut down its Montreal Sidewalk offices — and sent its editorial team packing — before the Montreal site was even up. The dissemination of unflattering rumors about anything Microsoft is, of course, a cottage industry unto itself, and feelings about the company’s Web ventures have always been less than generous. The general reaction to Microsoft’s feud with Ticketmaster, for example, could best be summed up by evoking Henry Kissinger’s response to the Iran-Iraq war: “It is a pity both sides cannot lose.”

And though the reaction to the launch of the Seattle iteration of Sidewalk has been somewhat muted even there (truth to tell, the reaction to just about everything in Seattle seems somewhat muted), critics have had their knives out in New York. After all, Bill Gates and his plan to dominate the world through city-based entertainment sites poses a direct challenge to print media and their ad revenue. Presumably, Sidewalk’s New York launch rattled few nerves at the New York Times, since Sidewalk has no ambition to cover the news. But Time Out and the once venerable Village Voice are directly threatened: Sidewalk clearly means to eat their lunch, and quaff their lattes, too.

For the countless Web site producers in Silicon Alley, fear of Sidewalk is quite palpable — and not entirely unreasonable. Many have been approached by Microsoft and offered a spot on the Dark Side’s bench; most did not find the terms of the partnerships to their liking, and declined. There is also the matter of city pride: Though Sidewalk has already recruited good N.Y. people from print (Eric Etheridge, late of George and the New York Observer, as executive producer) and new media (Jamie Pallot, formerly of Murdoch’s iGuide and TVGuide Online, as senior producer), there is a sense that the Redmond, Wash., corporation was coming in to tell us about New York, that they had made a beanie and one size was going to fit all whether we liked it or not (there are Sidewalks in the works for a number of other cities, including San Francisco, Boston — even Sydney, Australia).

Keen was the disappointment in some quarters, then, when people got their first gander at New York Sidewalk and found it … pretty good. It has the same sparse, functional design as its Seattle sister (though less of the avocado and sienna tones that make Seattle’s site look so mental ward-y), a good interface, a quick and reliable search function, personalization features that highlight items of interest to readers and allow Sidewalk to e-mail you when, say, a new Chinese restaurant opens in your neighborhood or Fugazi’s coming to town, and a remarkable database of listings: restaurants, theaters, galleries, cafes, bars, etc., all interconnected.

Say you want to see “The Lost World” (I don’t care, you have to: It’s the law). Simply click on the ubiquitous picture of the screaming Julianne Moore for a capsule review (by L.A.’s Sheila Benson, for Cinemania — though why in a film town like New York, Sidewalk couldn’t have come up with its own critic beats me) and a list of theaters and show times. Click on one of the theaters (the American Quad) and you get a map of its location (good, since it’s in the Bronx) as well as a list of local restaurants — everything from Burger King (reviewed) to Burt Young’s Il Boschetto (not). Sidewalk wants to plan your evening for you, and if “The Lost World” and Burger King are not what you had in mind, try “Chasing Amy” and Col Legno: Sidey don’t mind. It’s got maps and show times for those options, too.

“We’ve designed Sidewalk to make your life easier when it comes to choosing among the thousands of entertainment options New York has to offer,” Etheridge said in the site’s initial press release. “It’s like having a team of entertainment advisors on the streets every day, matching your tastes and interests with the best the city has to offer,” is how general manager Cella Irvine put it.

The question is: Do we need it? It is not an academic one for me. I’ve been working for Digital City, an AOL company, which has similar dreams of city-based Web sites, as do CitySearch, Yahoo! and a host of up-and-comers. You could say that this is just the latest fad to hit the Web, and a search of any city’s sites reveals the graves of fads past: menus online, weather, sports …

Every six months someone claims to have discovered the Web’s true calling, and such city sites may prove to be another dead end. It is my personal belief that those of us toiling in the production (and criticism) of Web sites are like creatures scuttling at the bottom of the ocean; the future, i.e. the ultimate use of the Internet, is literally beyond our imagining and, for the time being, your guess about what is going to work is as good as anybody’s. Including Bill Gates’.

But New York may be a special case. No one here likes to be told what to do (which is not to say that free advice is not offered, often loudly and accompanied with rough language and explicit hand gestures), and they especially don’t like outsiders telling them. Though Sidewalk has hired some good local critics (Bryan Miller, formerly of the Times, is reviewing restaurants, and Steve Futterman is writing about jazz) and partnered with the exhaustive Manhattan Users Guide, there is still a sense that some bunch from Redmond is here to tell you about your borough. Clicking on an image of the Cyclone, I learned that when visiting Coney Island I should try the dogs at Nathan’s. For this I need Sidewalk?

Then there is the insider’s syndrome. The ultimate New York moment on film may be the scene in “Annie Hall” when Woody Allen, to settle an argument he’s having about Marshall McLuhan with a stranger in line at the movies, pulls the real McLuhan in from out of nowhere. “I heard what you were saying,” McLuhan tells the stranger. “You know nothing of my work.” People here don’t want authority: They’ve got their own authorities, the guy behind the guy, the cousin who can get it for you wholesale.

Sidewalk claims that half of the people they polled pre-launch say they missed some crucial entertainment event because they didn’t hear about it in time, conjuring an image of hapless couples sitting around eating takeout and watching “ER,” like the rest of America, because they couldn’t get their act together. The truth is that most New Yorkers sitting around eating takeout and watching “ER” are doing so because they’re overwhelmed by their hectic schedules — not to mention the wealth of information and entertainment news already out there — and are happy for a moment’s respite.

Also, maybe they figure hanging at home with some good shu mai beats watching “The Lost World” in the Bronx.

Sean Elder is a frequent contributor to Salon. More Sean Elder.

Friday, May 30, 1997 7:00 PM UTC

Let them eat popcorn — but not at the company picnic

How Microsoft is turning its employees into second-class (and third-class) citizens.

By Paul Rogat Loeb

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SEATTLE — The computer industry’s long been fond of outsourcing. Software coders in Calcutta. Tech support in Tucson. Order fulfillment from Columbus, Ohio.

But Microsoft, as usual, is breaking new ground.

First, the world’s largest software company contracted out corporate security, janitorial services and landscaping to outside companies. Then the physical manufacture of software disks and CD-ROMs and several technical support centers, followed by the mail rooms, copy center and the shuttle that runs employees between different buildings on the Redmond campus. Workers who draw their paychecks through outside temp agencies constitute most of the company’s Interactive Media Group — which includes multimedia projects like the Encarta encyclopedia and the online “shows” of Microsoft Network (MSN) — even though some of these workers have worked at Microsoft for as long as a decade. All told, 6,000 employees — a third of the Microsoft work force — are outside vendors or contract workers.

Now, the company’s just laid off all its receptionists. They can reapply for their jobs through an outside contractor, called Tascor, but will no longer get benefits as Microsoft employees.

This last action has proved especially troubling, even for regular employees. “I realize it’s legal, but is it moral?” wrote a 10-year Microsoft veteran in the company newsletter, MicroNews. “We hire people and agree that if they do a good job they will have a job with Microsoft. Then someone says you can work for another company doing your current job or quit, your choice … How can a group of people really work in the best interest of Microsoft when treated this way? … What about the human costs? What message is the ‘corporation’ giving to the rest of us?”

Answering phones, taking messages and greeting people is not a “core competency” of the company, responded director of real estate and facilities Nick MacPhee in the newsletter. “The foundation of Microsoft’s success has always been to focus on what we do best.” MacPhee was unavailable for direct comment. “He has limited bandwidth available,” explained Microsoft public relations spokesman John Pinette. But Pinette stressed that outside vendors like Tascor are specialists in a way that Microsoft can’t be. “They understand the management of people like receptionists.”

While Microsoft’s industry reputation is hardly warm and fuzzy, its own employees have been treated to generous portions of the company’s wealth. You may only be a secretary or clerk, but because you helped build the company in those first critical years, your work was spectacularly rewarded. Workers who opened the mail or ran the copy machines didn’t do as well as programmers and managers with special options, but still, Microsoft has produced several thousand millionaires — with many more to come in the next few years as the stock options of new waves of employees become vested. At Microsoft, the rising tide really did lift most boats.

Now, like the rest of America, Microsoft — which insiders now call “Macrohard” — is becoming divided between the blessed who ride high at the yacht club and those who are barely surviving. For the newly demoted vendors and contract workers, it means no stock options, no participation in the company’s lucrative retirement plans (though some do have access to the retirement plans of outside vendors like Xerox), minimal medical benefits and no paid vacation, sick days or holidays. And on some satellite campuses, no parking in the company lot. Of course, they can forget about the off-campus health club, discount software or books at the company store, the annual picnic and Microsoft Night at the Seattle Mariners baseball game. One upside: If you’re a gal, you’ll probably be invited to Microsoft’s singles events, reportedly because “all the geeky programming guys want to go after the single contractor women.”

Microsoft’s “temps” are also branded by different color badges and distinct e-mail prefixes. They have been told to stay off the company soccer fields and basketball courts and refrain from discussing their pay with other employees. They can be fired at will with neither notice nor severance pay — as were several hundred MSN contract workers in February when their online “shows” were canceled. “The role of labor in media is accordion in nature,” explained MSN executive producer Bob Bejan at the time.

Microsoft hasn’t yet established separate but equal drinking fountains or required employees to show proof of permanent status before snacking from the free popcorn and soft drinks on campus. But earlier this year, contract workers received specific notices not to use Microsoft e-mail for personal purposes — especially not to look for permanent Microsoft jobs. The company also said that any raises above 5 percent require administrative approval.

Adding insult to injury, all temps have been banished from Microsoft’s extracurricular electronic bulletin boards for any but strictly business purposes. This means they can’t join Aquarium/Fish Talk, Romanians at Microsoft, Single Parents, Christian Singles, Gays and Lesbians, Libertarians, MS Liberals, Blacks at Microsoft, Shakespeare at Noon or the amateur theater group. Forget about Bagpipe Players, Cat Lovers or Urdu Literature. Don’t even think about Star Trek Subspace, Furniture Repair and Refinishing, Personal Growth Club, Promise Keepers, Espresso Discussion or Tupperware Discussion.

“I don’t even think I want to join the Microsoft bicycle club,” said one contractor. “But if I do, I’m told I can’t. You want to feel you’re all part of something, but this separates us out. It’s insulting.”

Meanwhile, even permanent Microsoft workers wonder who’ll get the ax next. Microsoft’s official welcome to new “real” employees warns that even they can be fired any time at will. “Hey, I might be gone next week,” a computer programmer joked to a friend. “Everyone knows programming isn’t a core competency at Microsoft. Marketing is the only core competency here. By next year, the marketers just might have this whole place to themselves.”

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Paul Loeb is the author of "Generation at the Crossroads: Apathy and Action on the American Campus" (Rutgers University Press) and the forthcoming "Soul of a Citizen"(St. Martin's Press). More Paul Rogat Loeb.

Tuesday, Jan 28, 1997 3:23 PM UTC

Microsoft Philanthropy

When it comes to charity, Microsoft gets as good as it gives.

By Tom Mcnichol

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WHICH is the most philanthropic corporation in America?

According to the newsletter Corporate Giving Watch, it’s none other than Microsoft Corp. The software colossus, which devotes much of its energy trying to pauperize its competitors, seems to have a soft spot for those already poor, handing out a total of $73.2 million to charities in fiscal 1995. (The 1996 figures, in characteristic Microsoft fashion, are shipping late.) That ranks Microsoft as the top U.S. corporation in giving gifts to charity, nosing out such upstanding corporate alms-givers as Johnson & Johnson ($72.8 million), IBM ($72.2 million), Eli Lilly & Co. ($71.9 million) and Hewlett-Packard Co. ($71.2 million).

News outlets reporting the figures portrayed Microsoft as the model Corporate Citizen, a company doing well by doing good. “Microsoft shares wealth,” headlined the San Francisco Examiner, in a typical treatment. Microsoft has accepted the accolades with blushing modesty. “It’s been a long-standing tradition at Microsoft to be involved in philanthropy,” says Microsoft spokesperson John Pinette. “That goes back to before the company was founded, when Bill [Gates'] mother was on the board of the United Way.”

Some are even starting to place Bill Gates in the pantheon of the great philanthropists of all time. When Microsoft donated $10.5 million in computers and software for rural and inner-city libraries last October, the head of the Brooklyn Public Library was moved to proclaim from the podium, “In the same way that [Andrew] Carnegie built the buildings, Gates is providing the second wave that will continue the opportunities.” Computer users may well start experiencing a warm fuzzy feeling every time they boot up Windows, knowing it’s the product of a company that Really Cares.

But like many things in the computer world, there’s more to the story than what fits on a single screen. A quick scroll through Microsoft’s charitable donations soon makes it clear that Bill Gates is not so much a philanthropist as he is a Virtual Philanthropist. Of the $73.2 million that Microsoft donated to charity in 1995, $62.1 million, or about 85 percent, was in the form of free software.

Now, free software is a grand thing. I wouldn’t mind having some free Microsoft software myself, maybe that cool new version of Word with the fully customizable Toolbar. But free software even $62.1 million of it ain’t philanthropy, not if the word is to have any meaning (derived from the Greek philanthropos, meaning humane, benevolent, loving people).

First of all, the software donations cost Microsoft considerably less than the $62.1 million figure suggests. That total isn’t what it cost Microsoft to produce the software they gave away; it’s what’s known as the “fair-market value” of the software, or what it might have commanded if sold on the retail market with no discounting. The higher the value of the donation, the bigger the tax write-off, and Microsoft is hardly the only company to stretch the equation to their advantage.

“I’m not going to fault Microsoft on the way it reports their numbers because we do the same thing,” says Fred Silverman, senior manager, Worldwide Community Affairs for Apple Computers, which last year gave away computer equipment the company valued at $5 to $6 million. “But anyone who looks at Microsoft’s numbers is welcome to make his or her own analysis of the true value of the donations based on their knowledge of mark-up in the industry.”

Since software retailing for $300 often costs less than $20 to manufacture, the value of Microsoft’s donated software is probably inflated by a factor of 15 or more. But more telling than the funny math is the self-interest involved in Microsoft and other high-tech companies giving away product in the first place. Far from being a selfless act of charity, there are strategic benefits to Microsoft in donating software. Giving away software increases market share among people who probably couldn’t afford to buy the product in the first place. It squeezes out marginal competitors by preventing them from grabbing a foothold in the market, creates a pool of future customers, and widens Windows’ lead as the dominant operating system.

Giving away software is a sound marketing strategy, but it’s not philanthropy, any more than it would be if the Ford Foundation gave away millions of dollars’ worth of free transmission parts that only fit Ford cars.
But then, maybe it’s a sign that the old analog concepts of philanthropy are giving way to a new digital paradigm, a more efficient delivery system in which the benefits of corporate giving flow smoothly back to the corporation.

Philanthropy has come a long way since the time of Andrew Carnegie, the man to whom Bill Gates has been compared. Considered by many to be the father of American philanthropy, Carnegie spent much of his adult life amassing a huge fortune by creating the Carnegie Steel Company. At age 65, he sold the company to J. P. Morgan for $400 million and devoted the rest of his life to giving nearly all of his money away.

Others before him had made substantial charitable contributions, but Carnegie was the first to state publicly the audacious notion that the rich have a moral obligation to give away their fortunes, a philosophy which became known as the Gospel of Wealth. One of Carnegie’s lifelong interests became the establishment of free public libraries as a way of making education available to everyone. There were only a few public libraries in the world when Carnegie began promising a library to almost any town that would provide a site and promise to maintain the building. He donated more than $56 million to build 2,509 libraries throughout the English-speaking world, many of which are still serving their communities. By the time Carnegie died in 1919, he had given away more than $350 million, practically his entire net worth.

To this day, Carnegie remains the altruistic standard against which all philanthropists are compared. Of course, Carnegie did get one tangible benefit in return for his generosity — seeing the family name plastered on impressive buildings and foundations. That’s the same benefit being reaped by Bill Gates’ personal philanthropy, which is separate from Microsoft’s corporate giving. As an individual, Gates was particularly generous last year, donating $15 million to Harvard (where he dropped out in his sophomore year) to fund a new electrical engineering, computing and communications facility in his name. Gates and his wife, Melinda French Gates, have pledged $12 million to help pay for a proposed $52 million building for the University of Washington Law School, to be named after his father. In addition, Gates gave the University of Washington $12 million in 1991 to establish a department of molecular biotechnology and $10 million in 1995 to fund an endowment for undergraduate students, named after his mother.

As turn-of-the-century industrialists discovered before Gates, philanthropy has its rewards, serving to associate the family name with noble civic projects rather than bank vaults bulging with money. Otherwise, Gates’ personal giving has displayed an admirably low level of self-interest.
The same cannot be said, however, of the generosity brandished by Gates’ company. Microsoft — along with many other corporate givers — has turned Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth into a strategic marketing tool. Over the last decade in particular, corporate giving has become intimately associated with marketing and corporate image, seeking as much to enhance the company as help the community.

“There’s much more pressure now to prove that charitable donations are producing a return to the company,” says Myra Alperson, senior research associate for The Conference Board, which tracks corporate giving. “In many companies, corporate giving is no longer a small department floating out on its own. There’s much more involvement by the public relations, advertising and marketing departments. Sometimes they’re run entirely out of the marketing department.”

High-tech companies, and Microsoft in particular, were slow to institute corporate giving programs. The young nerds who built the computer industry were social outcasts, unburdened by the notion of “giving back to the community” that more established industries had developed over the years. But of late, high-tech companies have discovered how to make their corporate giving, like their hardware and software, faster and more efficient. By making donations to targeted groups in key market areas, corporate giving can be turned into a strategic advantage. Charity not only begins at home; it ends there, too.

In the case of computer companies, giving away free product is a way to increase market share, influence future purchases, create good will at relatively low cost, and get a tax write-off for your efforts. Hewlett-Packard gave away $56.3 million in equipment in 1995, about 79 percent of its reported total corporate giving, second only to Microsoft. IBM donated $56.3 million in non-monetary support, about 79 percent of its total corporate giving.

Donations of free product in the computer/office equipment industry make up about 47 percent of total contributions, compared to an average of just 17 percent among all industries. The only other business sector that comes close to giving away as much free stuff is the pharmaceutical industry, in which one-third of its charitable contributions were donated product. There may be no such thing as a free lunch in America, but there’s plenty of free software and drugs.

To hear most high-tech companies tell it, they donate product for the same reason Andrew Carnegie gave away his money — pure altruism. Any benefits that flow back to the company are merely an unintended by-product of Doing the Right Thing.

“I suppose you can make the argument that if you’re giving software away, that in the end you’re increasing public acceptance of your product,” says Microsoft’s John Pinette. “But most of the people getting these products are very, very happy to get them. And the places we’re giving away software are pretty small markets. So I think we can stand up and say that the motivation behind our giving is altruistic. We believe in our products and we want to give them to people who have a need for them. We’re trying to help in any way we can.”

But behind the scenes, Microsoft works hard to maximize the strategic impact of all of that love for their fellow man. Two years ago, the company hired an outside consultant, Craig Smith, to devise a strategic plan to direct Microsoft’s corporate giving in ways that guarantee the greatest return to the company.

“There are a lot of profits to be made by computer companies in the schools,” says Smith, president of Corporate Citizen, another non-profit organization that tracks philanthropy, and author of the book “Giving By Industry.” “There’s brand loyalty you’re after with the kids. The schools are one of the last areas where there’s a huge loyalty factor to Apple. Microsoft has a big education group to try to change that. The schools are also a way of reaching parents and getting into edutainment. The main reason parents buy home computers is to augment their children’s education.”

In 1995, Microsoft’s contributions to “education,” mostly in the form of free software to schools, amounted to $44.9 million, or about 61 percent of its total donations. Microsoft committed $1 million in software, hardware and online access to the national headquarters of the PTA to enable it to link with its state offices and to provide technological training to its members.

“Getting involved with the PTA can assist the marketing agenda of getting computers in the schools and helping to reach parents,” says Smith.

Microsoft is also seizing a beachhead in the public libraries, Andrew Carnegie’s old love. Microsoft is spending about $10.5 million on computers and software for rural and inner city
libraries, and also funds the Libraries Online! program, which has provided technology to 68 branches from nine different public library systems. Unlike Carnegie, who didn’t profit a dime from his support of libraries, Microsoft is expecting its investment to pay dividends in the
future.

“Right now there’s no company that ‘owns’ the libraries, so to speak,” says Smith. “It’s an uncluttered market. At this time, there isn’t any direct marketing advantage to being in the libraries, but it’s a great place to demonstrate some possibilities with computers.”

Other Microsoft donations have a political purpose, rather than a marketing bent, such as its support of a variety of job training programs.
“Supporting job training sends a message to Washington that the computer is a job creator, not just a job killer,” says Smith. “Basically, it can help retain the deregulated status of the computing industry, keep the regulators at bay, and gain a marketing advantage.”

Of course, it’s Microsoft’s money and software to give away, so it’s hard to complain too much about the company’s steely-eyed philanthropy.

“It’s not philanthropy, it’s marketing,” corrects Smith. “It’s all coming out of their marketing budget.”

But you wouldn’t think that if you read Microsoft’s Annual Report of Giving, a heartwarming celebration of the company’s own generosity. Laden with the sort of soft-focus photographs of jes’ plain folks that HMOs feature in their brochures during open season enrollment, the report makes Microsoft sound more like a social service agency rather than the world’s largest software company. “Everyone at Microsoft celebrates our connections with the people and organizations who make the world a better place,” the report declares. Bill Gates, the man who would be Carnegie, closes the brochure with a stirring end note: “As a young growing company, Microsoft and its employees are not often recognized as having any traditions. But we do have one that reaches back well over a decade. We give.”

Microsoft gives, but increasingly with an eye fixed on what it will get in return. Andrew Carnegie supported libraries, too, but unlike Microsoft, he didn’t fill the shelves with Carnegie-compatible books designed to create a pool of future Carnegie customers, nor did he view philanthropy as a strategic tool in accumulating more wealth. Microsoft may have learned the value of giving, but not what it means to be truly generous.

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Tom McNichol is a San Francisco writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, and on public radio's "Marketplace" and "All Things Considered." He is a contributing editor for Wired magazine. More Tom Mcnichol.

Monday, May 20, 1996 5:19 PM UTC

Java's a year old. Can it walk and talk yet?

By Scott Rosenberg

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By the time the Javavaders applet has loaded into my browser, I’ve had time to count every one of the alien attackers arrayed against me in this low-resolution “Space Invaders” clone. The game’s finally about to begin — but where am I? As the aliens begin to advance, I panic and hit the keyboard. My spaceship (or gun or whatever it is) appears on screen; now I can play. But the delay between keystroke and response is maddening, and you can’t really aim at all. Fifteen seconds later, my screen freezes. That’s Java — time to reboot.

the hype for Java — “it’s cool and hot!” — is omnipresent. A year ago, at a San Francisco trade show awash in dry-ice smoke and overamplified “Star Wars” music, Sun Microsystems launched the Java juggernaut — promising that its new cross-platform programming language would change the face of the Web, bring “true interactivity” to Web sites and generally usher in the millennium.

Since then, every major computer company has promised to incorporate Java into their products and systems (although Microsoft’s enthusiasm remains notably half-hearted). Fortunes have been won and lost, alliances made and broken. Thousands of Java books have been sold — and a few have even been read. Career prospects for the Java-savvy have soared.

Still, wander the Web today with your Java-capable browser and it’s hard to see what’s changed. A quick tour of the state of the Java art reveals a paucity of imagination and innovation. There’s little to show from Year One of the Java revolution beyond a few snazzy navigation aids and a little bit of animation. Your reaction may well be a peevish, “My browser went all the way to Java-land and all I got was this stupid scrolling line of type!”

The NYU Stern School’s Edgar Ticker uses Java to create a moving banner on your page providing up-to-the-minute reports on new stock offerings. It moves awfully slowly, though, and its little “Stop” button doesn’t seem to work. You’re supposed to be able to click on any offering’s name to get further info, but that feature doesn’t seem to be “enabled” yet. At least the ticker doesn’t crash my browser.

It’s easy to get lost discussing Java’s technical genesis. All you really need to know is that Java’s a full-fledged programming language that’s at home on the Web. As such, it should be able to do just about anything. Right now most of the applets — the small programs that make stuff happen inside your browser window — are games, animations or Java programming helpers. But you could someday work with a Java word processor or spreadsheet, use a Java program for your email, or keep a calendar in Java. Sun’s HotJava is a Web browser that’s written in Java itself.

Java programs are designed to be relatively small, so they don’t take forever to get to you over the Net. And Java’s architecture means that programmers don’t have to write different versions of their code for Windows, Mac and Unix computers; one program fits all. This is cool. And hot.

In the Java visionary’s scenario, it will cease to matter whose computer you use. Your browser will take over many of the operating system’s functions (like the Windows Program Manager or the Mac Finder), and you’ll do most of your work with little Java applets you can download and upgrade as needed. The applets could even upgrade themselves.

Still, if you think Windows or System 7.5 crash too often, wait till Java and Netscape start dancing their little system-freeze tango on your desktop.

I have now tried out 50 of the Java applets listed on the “What’s New” and “What’s Cool” pages of Gamelan, EarthWeb’s Java directory. 34 applets have crashed my Mac. Okay, many of these programs are just the homework exercises of computer-science students. (See the Shoot Mike Game: “The object of the game is to repeatedly shoot Mike in the face.”) And, to be sure, Netscape’s Java-capable Mac browser is a pre-release “beta” version. Then again, the “final release” version of the Netscape 2.0 browser crashes nearly as often, so you can’t blame all the bugs on beta.

So what is it exactly that Java is going to change? Skeptics argue that, like so many previous technologies, Java is a solution in search of a problem — that the reason there aren’t any really valuable Java applications yet is that there’s no true need for the capabilities Java offers. That’s almost certainly a short-sighted view. Since Java is “object-oriented” — meaning that chunks of code become reusable modules — programmers can build on one another’s work, and there’s a natural evolution underway from simple building blocks to more elaborate projects.

But right now, Java is all hyped up with no place to go and little to do. For one thing, it’s still not really fast enough; if you’re connected to the Net by modem, you’ll wait for most applets.
When you point a Java-smart browser to a Web page that contains an applet, you’ll probably see a message telling you that the applet’s loading, and a gray square on the page will gradually fill in as the data arrives. This creates a bit of a problem for sites that are using Java as a navigation tool: the information you want to receive first, about what’s on the site and where you are in relation to it, actually arrives on your screen last.

Animation is a function that’s closely associated with Java in the public mind. Early this year, animations began to appear all over the Web — mostly in the form of rotating logos and flashing ads — and a lot of people thought they were seeing Java in action. In fact, most of these manifestations of Web-page mobility used a much simpler process known as GIF animation, which you can create, flip-book style, without needing to know how to program (it’s what we used for Keith Knight’s crashing coffee-cup above). If Java were only good for animation, there wouldn’t be much point to it, since there are so many other ways to animate a Web page (like Macromedia’s Shockwave).

Planetary Exterminator, a Java rewrite of the classic Lunar Lander game, sounds like it might be fun. But once it loads, its graphical elements — a bouncing eight-ball, some little robotic insects and what look like forests of toilets — have a mind of their own and barely seem to respond to the controls. So I try Star Wars With the Gipper instead. At last, a game that works! But it’s just a little photo of Reagan surrounded by dancing hammer-and-sickle signs. Click your mouse on one and red beams from Ronnie’s eyes will zap it to kingdom come. The game gets dull fast, but I spend a while trying to figure out whether it’s meant as a tribute to, or a satire of, our forgetful ex-President.

Today, Java delivers on its promise of interactivity chiefly with mediocre games and buggy chat applications. (HotWired is rumored to be unveiling one soon, and EarthWeb is beta-testing one now, but good luck getting through.) Down the road, lots of businesses and banks are hoping to use Java for electronic commerce. Trouble is, Java’s security remains a matter of heated debate.
It’s possible, it seems, to make Java pretty safe — to protect yourself from Java-borne viruses and “hostile applets.” As the Net community keeps hammering away at Java to find its every flaw, expect it to become fairly secure. But even once most of the loopholes are fixed, there will always be a tradeoff between Java’s safety and its power: the more stuff you want it to do, the more security you’ll have to sacrifice. That makes it no different from most other technologies — but somewhat less of a safe bet than originally promised by Sun.
One reason for the scarcity of impressive Java applets is that, right now, the only way to work with Java is down at the level of the code itself. Non-programmers need not apply. It’s as if graphic designers, instead of working with an easy-to-learn tool like Photoshop, had to write lines of code before they could touch up a photo.
As Java tools for non-programmers proliferate — and they will — expect to see the creativity of a much larger (and more diverse) group of people unleashed on Java. Such tools should also allay the justified fear that Java, by requiring demanding programming skills, hastens the end of the anyone-can-publish free-for-all that makes today’s Web so vital. At the other end of the spectrum, serious code-slingers will work on combining Java with VRML, the new standard for three-dimensional world-building on the Web, to create networked cyberspaces inhabited by avatars that can do more than just say “hi.”

I have fond memories of learning Basic — the Java of its day, about 20 years ago — by writing program routines for “The Game of Life.” “Life” is really just a set of mathematical rules for random little organisms to grow and die on a graph-paper grid over a span of time. So I wasn’t surprised to see more than a few “Life” programs turn up in Gamelan’s Java directory. Alas, the one I tried out drew a grid on my screen and then stopped. No signs of life.

Talk to analysts today and they’ll tell you that Java’s biggest impact won’t be in making Web sites cooler or more animated or more interactive. It will be in the booming “intranet” market, where big companies are setting up closed in-house networks based on Internet technology, that Java really comes into its own, allowing programmers to write all sorts of custom routines for corporate communications, project management and the like. It also could transform the jobs of “MIS” people, the computer-network managers who could use Java to simplify maintaining and upgrading the software everyone at their companies uses.
There’s nothing wrong with that — and if it gives Microsoft some competition in the business world, more power to it. But it’s strangely at odds with Java’s carefully promoted aura of hipness. How did a programming language that’s going to be used for mundane work like inventory and software management come to be considered so cool?
It can only be the name. If Sun had called it Omnix or WebC or Bytecode Pro, we might never have heard of it. But Java? Java means you can use a cool coffee-cup logo and give products names like Roaster and Kona and Joe. Java means you can make references to Indonesia. Java means you can pretend you’re doing something more romantic than writing code.