The information needs of a multi-lingual society either in the context
of information for masses or arising out of globalization of business
and trade practices, encompass the concepts ranging from virtual real
ity oriented information services to global IT applications for econom
ic development. Multi-lingual Multimedia Information Services Network
Operating System (MISNOS) technology as a vehicle for IT diffusion in
multi-lingual society and its preliminary analysis is discussed in thi
s paper. The paper highlights the experimental developmental work unde
rtaken and examines the potential of Java both as a programming langua
ge and a bytecode processor for embedded systems. With Java emerging a
s a programming language for the first decade of the next century, it
is likely to have an impact on the programming practices. The paper pr
ovides an insight into the developmental issues concerning the softwar
e requirements for the next century, in the context of MISNOS and disc
usses the improvements needed in Java.