New ground for Java on the e3000 platform opens up this summer as Minisoft prepares to roll out eFORMz, an all-Java application designed to run under MPE/iX but available immediately for a broader marketplace.

The software creates, manages and distributes electronic forms for programs that are native to the 3000, relying on desktop client tools such as Microsoft Word, PageMaker or Corel Draw for its design component. HP 3000 sites can use those PC packages to create their own form layouts. The eFORMz application then captures the form as it is printed, integrating it for use with MPE/iX applications.

Minisoft’s Doug Greenup said eFORMz was ported to run under the Java/iX compiler for the e3000, but that porting process made the software available for HP 9000, AS/400, Sun, Linux and Windows 2000 systems as well. He believes Java’s portability makes it a safer choice for HP 3000 application development.

“Our feeling is to go after the customer base that we know — but because it’s developed in Java, it’s going to be available for everything else,” Greenup said. “I can develop for the 3000, but there’s no risk with Java. If it doesn’t cut it on the 3000, I’m on the other boxes already.”

“Maybe this is what HP thinks, too,” Greenup added, “that if you’re using Java, there is no risk. The barrier to entry isn’t the 35,000 HP 3000s anymore. There’s 600,000 AS/400s too, and I’m on that [platform] now with this.”

Java has been long touted but adopted slowly by the e3000 customer, in part because the language’s links to existing software on the platform are few. eFORMz works with 3000 application software from Smith-Gardner, Summit, CA’s MANMAN and McKessonHBOC’s Amisys. It handles bar codes, checks, endorsements, multi-part forms, duplex printing, color printing and company logos, and is shipped with one form included that customers can choose from a Minisoft catalog of forms. Additional forms are $500 each, and the software sells for between $4,000 and $12,000 on HP 3000s, priced by tiers.

Minisoft is offering eFORMz to all 3000 sites using a forms product for the price of a one-year support contract. FlexForm customers under support receive the product for free.

Supporting existing 3000 software with a forms product isn’t new in the marketplace. Minisoft has sold FlexForm for the HP 3000, and ROC Software’s Formation provides integration with MPE/iX applications. But offering the functionality under Java is new to the 3000 market, a customer base that has been studying the language for some time.

Customers didn’t have Java options included with their operating system until the 6.0 release of MPE/iX. The HP 3000 division (CSY) continues to work on making the compiler faster, work that Minisoft was able to test as it prepared eFORMz for release on the platform.

Java engineer Mike Yawn of CSY said that a pre-release version of Java/iX 1.2.2 went to Minisoft’s engineers, a version Yawn described as “the current A.22.01 release with some performance improvements that will be part of the A.22.02 version.” Yawn said this release of Java/iX uses “green threads” technology, not the faster “native threads” in the forthcoming HotSpot Virtual Machine.

HP doesn’t have a schedule yet for including that A.22.02 version in a formal MPE/iX release, but Yawn said that version will be available on the CSY Jazz Web server before September’s HP World show. But even without that advanced version of Java, eFORMz was hitting performance targets, Greenup said — it will operate fine on a Series 928 or better e3000.