The excitement about Java centers on its ability to work on anything that has a computer chip in it. That could be a PC, a Macintosh, a Cray supercomputer, a Ford car or a Krups coffee pot. Write a piece of software once and use it almost anywhere. Developers like to compare Java to gasoline. It makes a car go whether the car is a Mercedes-Benz, a Ford or a Honda.
Corporations love it.
They often have many different kinds of computers and struggle to make them work together. Half of major corporations surveyed by Forrester Research are funding Java projects and nearly all expect Java to be a major part of their computing operations within two years. Schools, which have trouble affording new PCs, could run the latest Java programs even on old computers. In contrast, much of the newest software today is written for PCs that run Microsoft's Windows 95 operating system. And to run Windows 95, schools need the newest Pentium-class PCs.