Using Web technology itself encourages re-use because it improves communication between developers in cities all round the world. Our customers are keen to talk about Java and what they want from us, so it helps the teams and customer relationships. Weller's teams spend a lot of time improving the user interfaces and general useability of their Java applets. An example of Java use is an application that operates in conjunction with a Web server-based publishing system. It notifies a small group of targeted users of the arrival of new content on the Reuters Web in which they are interested by displaying a scrolling list of alerts on their screen.
Users can double click on an alert to retrieve an HTML page.
This covers both structured and unstructured data. A third party developers toolkit has already been supplied by Reuters, containing Application Programming Interfaces and class libraries to access financial data. The same facilities are being developed in Java, allowing third parties to embed Reuters real-time news feeds or stock prices into Web sites, including graphs and time series charts. A multi-lingual language Reuters' market is global and users want services and products in their own national languages. Reuters cannot compete without it in Eastern Europe and Asia.