WRQ, the $130 million software
company that built its fortunes on connectivity
products for HP 3000 users, is turning its attention to Java software. The
company has
announced plans to bring its Reflection product onto the Java platform by
the end of this
year, taking a turn toward the centralized computing plan that was in place
when the
company began linking PCs with HP 3000s in 1981.
A lot has changed in those 15 years, and the most significant change to companies selling connectivity solutions is the rise of intranets. WRQ's Java plans won't change anything in its flagship Reflection offerings, but will provide an alternative to the Windows and Mac-based software it's sold for years.
WRQ says its Java-based Reflection will provide connectivity to the casual user, one who hasn't been linked directly to HP 3000 resources until now because of costs and complexity. Since most connectivity to 3000 hosts comes through client software that have to be administered on desktops, users who rarely need access to systems like the 3000 must to pass a cost-justification to get that kind of access on their desktops.
Java-based Reflection is designed to lower that cost. Steve Dulaney, product manager for the Reflection for HP line at WRQ, explained that Java-based Reflection will cost less and do less than the full-fledged Reflection for HP client.
"There's a set of users out there today who are becoming Web-enabled and don't have access to the 3000, and now they have an opportunity to get access," Dulaney said. "The Web is pushing demand for information to the host. We are looking at something that's going to be lower-cost, but you're going to be stretching that out to many more users -- as opposed to a finite set of users who need the specialized functionality of a client-based product. "
The trouble with intranets, and attendant technologies like Java, is that no solution supplier has perfected a profitable business model for them. It's a challenge to successful software providers like WRQ who operate in the networking and connectivity space to add Java applications. Java relies on the extra connectivity out there, but customers expect that connectivity to come at a lower price per seat. Free browsers such as Internet Explorer and Navigator set that kind of expectation as they also enable the Java-based products. Those omnipresent Web browser clients, all loaded with run-time Java, now provide the front-end and networking for many a Java application.
"Intranets are moving very quickly as a replacement for the traditional method of accessing information such as terminal emulation," Dulaney said. WRQ surveyed its customers including HP 3000 sites late last year and learned that over 60 percent either had an intranet in place or were evaluating and piloting one. "Once we saw that study, we started to believe in the hype," he said. Of sites working with intranets, 70 percent -- and 88 percent of companies bigger than 1,000 employees -- needed access to host computers as part of their plans.
WRQ's plan will deliver a terminal emulator that exists as a Java application, downloaded from servers including the HP 3000 in a package that's supposed to be under 500K in size. "This makes terminal emulation available to anyone," Dulaney said. Greater savings might be measured in a reduction of administrative overhead, Dulaney said. The current Reflection products have a set of configuration, support and training costs. "If you need that functionality, you'll spend that money," Dulaney said. "If you want to look toward a solution that makes the 3000 more available to people who don't need the heads-down access to the host, [Java-based Reflection] will help reduce the cost."
WRQ plans to have its product reduce these costs through centralized management. IS managers will be able to configure Java-based Reflection through basic parameters that are downloaded through a Web page. Users click on a page to receive the Reflection emulator applet that then connects them with the HP 3000.
The Java application can be downloaded from any server that supports the Java Virtual Machine, such as MPE/iX 5.5 systems running Java 1.1. WRQ's thin client will run on almost any Web client that has Java capability, such as PCs or Macs running either Netscape's browsers or Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
What you'll get inside that client is still to be determined, but WRQ wasn't shy about saying that it's bound to be less than is delivered in its current Windows and Mac Reflection clients. WRQ is calling it a "basic" feature set for now, one that could be expanded by the demand of users. WRQ will offer the functionality as components in its Java solution, one each for display, emulation and transport, as well as custom add-ons. In contrast, the full-feature client software WRQ ships now is delivered as unified technology.
Terminal emulation will be the fundamental capability of the new product "out of the box, with design-time wizards that create Web pages and Web page links for deployment on a Web server," Dulaney said. But WRQ also will provide an architecture that it expects will let companies add their own Java programs to interoperate with those display, emulation and transport modules, all glued together by Java Beans.
WRQ compares the model to its current Visual Basic offerings with Reflection, which let customers tie in Visual Basic applications to the WRQ software. While the Java approach won't have a scripting tool like the one in the Reflection 1 product, Java is much more open, Dulaney explained. In addition to providing client support for non Windows clients like network computers and Macintoshes (much of WRQ's development on the product is taking place on Macs), putting Reflection on Java will extend customers' ability to customize interfaces.
"Corporate developers could create a new interface that only captures three or four transactions that are now occurring in a user's terminal emulator," he said. The object is to make the terminal emulation invisible, he explained."They can use our architecture -- because we're using open Java standard APIs -- to create new interfaces on top of the existing legacy applications. They can extend the legacy applications through our client distribution model."
For example, a mobile user would download components for emulation, transport and custom display. That last component could be created using a tool like Symantec's Java Cafe or Sun's JavaStudio.
WRQ believes the future of connectivity with HP 3000s -- and all other Java capable platforms -- will include a mix of Windows clients and Java clients. "Some organizations will stick with the Windows products, because all their users need highly robust and flexible access," Dulaney said. "But some organizations have different needs, and those needs let them use a distributed model with the Java version."