Nothing has shaken up the computer world in a long time as much as Java has. This language was developed over many years at Sun Microsystems and released to the world in 1996. Novell's connection to Java is now stronger than almost any other organisation's because Novell was able to get its current Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt to leave Sun just over a year ago and take up his position with Novell. At Sun, Mr Schmidt was one of the main forces behind the up and down development of Java. When he joined Novell, there was much speculation about Novell's attitude to this new language. With the release of NetWare 5, there is now little doubt. Java is supported in a number of ways in NetWare 5. There is the Java virtual machine (JVM); ConsoleOne, a Java-based, graphical user interface (GUI) that will run on any computer with a JVM; Java-based utilities; and an open solutions architecture (OSA) software developer's kit (SDK). Chris Stone, Novell's senior vice president for strategic business development, has emphasised this on many occasions. 'Many developers who are writing applications in C and C++ are now moving to Java. These developers need a fast platform, and NetWare 5 is certainly going to provide that,' he said. Speed, indeed, has been a major issue with Java. Or perhaps one ought to say the lack of speed has been. Novell is confident that with NetWare 5, it will provide not only the best but the fastest platform for Java. According to Bryan Faustyn, product manager for NetWare 5 at Novell, Java and NetWare 5 were ideally suited. 'NetWare is a very thin operating system,' he said. 'Because Java is its own runtime environment, it needs only a thin operating system like NetWare.' According to preliminary test results by KeyLabs, an independent laboratory, NetWare 5 was the best platform to develop and run Java-based applications. Novell says it will gradually move all of its management utilities over to Java. Once again, this echoes Mr Schmidt's view that Java has been greatly misunderstood by many people. It is at the server end, where it can be implemented at the kernel level - as it has been with NetWare 5 - that Java will become extremely powerful. Novell seems to be the first software vendor to have grasped that. But that is hardly surprising, considering who the CEO is.