WBT is pleased to showcase some farseeing comments on the emerging new wireless Java world from our International Advisory Board member Simon Phipps, who filed the following article - wirelessly of course - from the MS Volendam (pictured here while berthed at Willemstad, Curacao), while happily sailing aboard as a keynote speaker on a so-called "Geek Cruise."

We are fast moving to a world where the software platform is being supplanted by the service-driven network, where the desktop is being superseded by a "swarm" of software, devices, and networks, and where the number of concurrent users is changing from thousands or millions... to billions.

One of the factors that makes it possible for devices to "swarm" electronically is wireless communication. In a computing future where devices can swarm using wireless technology, not every device will need a user interface. We can start envisaging devices that are more like credit cards or beads on a necklace, where all the device brings is the encapsulation of an algorithm (probably using Java technology), the standardization of an interface (probably using XML), and the ability to communicate wirelessly with other devices.

So it may well be that in the future when you go out to buy a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit, all you'll buy is a GPS "bead" that you'll add to your key ring. This bead might use the screen of your existing PDA, and perhaps the electronics of your existing cell phone, to provide you with the GPS function. What we'd see as a result of this would be a completely new way of thinking about devices. If you think about a current PDA, it's doing all sorts of stuff. It's doing wireless, it's doing data processing, it's doing authentication, it's doing display, it's doing user-response gathering. But in the future, I don't think every device will need to have all of those functions because they'll be able to swarm together and begin to share functions as part of a swarm.

In the Future, Interfaces Will Be Open
This in turn would mean that you'd no longer have to concentrate so much computing power in a single place. You might well want these beads or cards that you carry in your pocket to have their own specialized CPUs, with their own power sources. They may also have within them proprietary algorithms to achieve a given result. Just because all of the interfaces will be open in the future doesn't mean there won't be money-earning algorithms. And it may well be that the way I want to distribute my algorithm is by selling a card that offers this new function in conjunction with existing swarmable devices rather than having to invent a whole device myself, or having to go through the inconvenience of entering into a commercial relationship with some other company to license it from me.

As for standards, a core of base standards has already emerged to define the way data is represented, manipulated, transmitted, and maintained. The core technologies are respectively XML, Java, TCP/IP, and HTTP, but this core will evolve further as wireless networking becomes a reality. The powerful combination of Java technology and XML, connected by TCP/IP over wireless (and wired) networks, will mean function will be increasingly decomposed and distributed.

In the future we will see smart Web services that can federate spontaneously to perform contextually appropriate functions.

Over the past few years, we have moved from remote data (terminal access) to replicated data on personal devices, but open interfaces, open data formats, and always-on networks will move us further to requested data. Instead of multipurpose devices, we'll select specialized devices for user interface (voice response or electronic paper) connected by short-range wireless to specialized devices for network access (net connection in cell phone, network port in office), and gain authentication for various purposes from tags, perhaps on a key ring in a pocket or purse, again accessed wirelessly.

Exploiting Synergy Is the Key
Having considered the value of standards and how the swarm concept exposes the value they enable, how can we build today with a view to deriving value tomorrow? The keyword is synergy. Today's innovator will build with an eye to creating and exploiting synergy between components, companies, and communities. Working within these three areas, standards will provide code that works today and components that will endure.

Developers must ensure that new developments result in Java technology bytecodes that will endure, rather than native formats that need constant rework. Developers must participate in and contribute to peer communities, consider new development models such as open source, embrace XML, and work in the communities defining vocabularies for vertical industries. They must be ready for the spontaneous world epitomized by Jini rather than the world of static preparation that has preceded it. To move forward, companies will increasingly need to provide APIs to themselves to ensure their seamless inclusion in personal and business swarms.

For many companies, the business is the software, and for a nimble business, you need software with few dependencies. Standards-based systems answer this need. Businesses will need more than just Web sites - they'll also need APIs so partners and other business symbionts can integrate seamlessly.

The world that we're building as developers is one of constant change. By working today to increase synergy of components, companies, and communities, facilitated by standards, we'll move toward the world of the Internet swarm.

The next step is to give your enterprise the interfaces that will ensure inclusion in the swarm of smart Web services. This is the aim of Sun's newly announced Sun ONE - Open Net Environment - check out www.sun.com/sunONE for more details.

The Web Revolution
Several years ago, I asserted that one of the reasons for the Web revolution was the final agreement on simple, reliable and open standards for the four things needed for a connectivity platform. These are: network protocols to hold systems together and provide access, a delivery protocol that brings the solution to its users, a programming model with which the solutions are created, and a data representation scheme for the information the solutions consume. The standards are:
Network protocol - TCP/IP
Delivery protocol - HTTP
Programming model - The Java platform
Data representation - XML

Of course, other things are needed for a real system - security, systems management, storage, directory, and so on - but with these four in place, there were no further proprietary barriers to the network becoming the computer.