Java Standards: The Mandate for Interoperability and Compatibility

Thomas Murphy, vice president with Integration & Development Strategies, a META Group advisory service

11/24/2008
(Original Publish Date: 2/2/2005)

The promise of Java technology is encapsulated in its early catch phrase, "Write once, run anywhere". This has been a difficult promise to achieve, but META Group research finds that organizations using Java technology are seeking to benefit from platform independence and interoperability as well as avoid vendor lock-in. Having applications run unchanged on multiple platforms may be an impossible goal, yet a significant challenge is also presented by vendors "extending" published specifications to achieve competitive advantage.