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None of this is a sure thing. Java, despite the initial enthusiasm, will still be a tough sell. It runs slower than conventional languages, and the software libraries that streamline a programmer's task are still being written for Java. But Java offers would-be software moguls something no other programming environment can: a way to completely bypass the software-industry middlemen. "These wonderfully brilliant Marc Andreessens will stay up all night eating Twinkies, drinking Jolt and writing in Java," predicts Sun's McNealy. "Then they'll put something out on the Web, and boom!--word of mouth!" The trick, which Microsoft has mastered but Sun and Netscape have not, will be to find a way to get paid.
--Reported by David S. Jackson/San Francisco