Java is a programming language developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced to the world of web development in 1994. It is a powerful language that can be used to create sophisticated client/server applications on any platform. Java programs are not dependant on any specific hardware and will run on any computer with the Java Virtual Machine; an interpreter that is included in both major browsers (Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator).The Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) is a platform for building Web-based enterprise applications and includes JDBC (Java Database Connectivity), an interface for connecting programs written in Java to the data in popular databases. Such data manipulation advances contribute to the belief that Java is expected by many to become a major computing platform in the 21st century.