December 8, 1999 Web posted at: 10:25 a.m. EST (1525 GMT) by John Cox

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(IDG) -- The millennium is here early, according to Sun.

Sun and others this week will set off a variety of product fireworks in an effort to spark enthusiasm for the latest incarnation of Java: the Java 2 Enterprise Edition.

J2EE is a specification that defines programming interfaces, a component model, sample code, and services for creating server-based, distributed, Java applications. Sun wants to generate more interest in the technology, as the firm is about to release the final J2EE spec.

The key to Java's success in the enterprise hinges on gaining support from other software developers and vendors. Of these, perhaps the most important are vendors of application servers, which are programs for hosting, controlling and managing the J2EE components and applications.

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Among this week's announcements:

• Secant Technologies will roll out Secant Extreme Server 3.5 for Enterprise Java Beans (EJB). The product will support the main parts of J2EE, except for a few such as the Java Message Service, which lets applications exchange data via a system of message queues. These interfaces will be added later as options.

  The new release also will include an object request broker (ORB) written entirely in Java. The ORB lets EJB components find each other and work together over the 'Net.

  Secant also created a program called the Bean Assembler, which lets Extreme-based applications use EJBs written by other vendors.

• Sybase will release Version 3.5 of Sybase Enterprise Application Server (EAS). This product adds support for several of the new J2EE interfaces. Sybase also will add an availability feature that lets the application server shift workloads or failover from a broken or unavailable Java component to a duplicate.

  Another new feature will let the Enterprise Java Beans on EAS work with SAP's R/3 applications: to the EJBs, the R/3 features seem to be additional beans. EAS 3.5 is available, with a starting price of $2,995.

• The Sun-Netscape Alliance will unveil Version 6.0 of the iPlanet Application Server. The new version is critical to carry forward users of Sun's earlier NetDynamics application server and Netscape's Netscape Application Server. Alliance executives say Version 6.0 creates migration path for applications that support the primary J2EE interfaces.

  Sun's Forte brand of application development tools are intended to be the main tool set for IAS 6.0, but programmers can use Symantec Visual Café or Inprise Jbuilder.

  The 6.0 release is scheduled to be ready in January. The final, deployment version will be ready in March 2000. Pricing is expected to be $35,000 per server CPU.