Tech Mails

Java runtime becomes the operating system

Bill Gates to Nathan Myhrvold, September 30, 1996

Exhibit
From
Bill Gates
Sent
Monday, September 30, 1996 9:36 PM
To
Nathan Myhrvold
Cc
Aaron Contorer
Subject
Java runtime becomes the operating system
I am worry a lot about how great Java/Javabeans and all the runtime work they are doing is and how much excitement this is generating. I am literally losing sleep over this issue since together with a move to more server based applications it seems like it could make it easy for people to do competitive operating systems. The next paragraph is curious too. I am very interested to get your thoughts on this. Prior to the advanced work you are driving what kind of defenses do we have against this? I certainly havent’ come up with enough to relax about the situation and it is undermining my creativity.
BGX-000011

About this email

Gates wrote to Nathan Myhrvold about Java and the Java runtime as a possible platform for competing operating systems. Myhrvold replied on October 1, 1996 that the threat was real but not severe enough to lose sleep over.