December 3, 1996 6:15 PM ET

JDK 1.1 release date, Java E-commerce toolkit announced
By Michael Moeller

  Fall Internet World As a lead-in to next week's InternetWorld, JavaSoft today formally announced the contents and due dates for the Java Development Kit Version 1.1.

In addition, the Mountain View, Calif., company tomorrow will introduce a new Java-based electronic commerce toolkit designed to enable Java developers to create cross-platform electronic client and server applications.

JDK 1.1 is due to be posted on the Web in beta form on Dec. 9 and will be commercially available in the first quarter of next year.

Among the advances in JDK 1.1 is a complete rewrite of the Abstract Windowing Toolkit, with the biggest improvement coming on the Win32 platform. JavaSoft also will include its object container technology, called JavaBeans, as well as support for the Unicode character set that enables Java applets and applications to be created in foreign languages.

On the E-commerce side, JavaSoft next month will post an early developer version of an Electronic Commerce Toolkit that is based on the Java Commerce APIs.

The new toolkit-developed in conjunction with a number of third parties, including Netscape Communications Corp., Microsoft Corp., CyberCash Inc. and IBM-comprises both a Java Wallet and a set of cassette or Java modules for enabling transactions over the Internet.

The new cassettes will support a number of payment methods and will link users of the Java Wallet to server-side applications that support payment-processing technologies. The SET (Secure Electronic Transactions) standard will be available initially, with later support for micropayments and the Mondex debit card standard, JavaSoft officials said.

The officials, attempting to lay to rest speculation about their relationship with Microsoft, said Microsoft has done a good job with Java to date and will conform with Java compatibility requirements going forward.

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