WebTV drops plans to support Java

Microsoft Corporation has quietly dropped plans to support Java applets inits line of WebTV set-top boxes that allows users to access the Internetvia their TV sets. While some people may see this as a problem, itsdebatable whether Java support is important on the Web anymore. Javaapplets are slow and buggy across different browser versions.

"It's not that we don't think it's useful, it's just that we have limitedresources in terms of development and computing power," said Steve Perlman,the cofounder and president of WebTV.

Java support would require a lot more memory than WebTV boxes currently useand that would raise the price of the units, which cater to budget-conscious consumers. Perlman says the decision has nothing to dowith the much-publicized fight between Java's creator Sun Microsystems andWeb TV's parent company, Microsoft. In fact, Perlman blames Sun for notbeing able to create a version of Java small enough to run on WebTV. Thesmallest version of Java, called Personal Java, requires twice as much RAMas WebTV has