It seems that Informix Corp’s plans to plug Java directly into its core database is taking a longer than planned. We heard back in March that the company’s Universal Java program called for a second quarter beta of its Dynamic Server and it would ship by the end of this year (03/19/98). The current version of Dynamic Server is 7.3 and the object-relational database is now known as the Universal Data option and is on version 9.1.4. But according to Informix Java product manager Jeff Fassett yesterday, the Java work is just getting started, and it is just coming into beta. He says the version of the Universal Data Option with Java, which will be 9.2, will be out in the second quarter of 1999. The tight integration of a JVM will enable Informix to execute Java stored procedures and will also support JDBC 2.0. Informix is using the Java virtual machine from Sun Microsystems Inc for this purpose as it says it has a policy of not writing its own virtual machines, says Fassett. Informix thought a JVM would be a differentiator against Oracle, but Oracle has already done its own JVM. However, Informix will only support Java 1.1 upon delivery, not the recently finished Java 1.2, now renamed Java 2 by Sun. That’s because customers are not demanding support for the new Java, claims Fassett.
