I thought this looked interesting:
A challenger to the Java throne?
AT&T's information systems spinoff Lucent Technologies has developed an interesting network
operating system called Inferno. Inferno is available on most platforms. Inferno applications can be
developed using Limbo which is a safe, multi-threaded and byte-code interpreted language. Inferno is
being marketed as an environment for network appliances, set-top boxes and advanced telephones. You
may ask isn't this what Java is supposed to deliver ? Well, sort of. Limbo and Java are similar but
the perhaps the real contribution of Lucent Technologies is Inferno. Currently, you still have to
use your heavy legacy operating system to run your Java applications and web browsers. There is
still no standard light weight network operating system out there which can run something like Java.
Do you really want your microwave or cellular phone based on Windows ?
Check out http://inferno.bell-labs.com/inferno/