NEW YORK-Sun Microsystems Inc., Palo Alto, Calif., released the Java 2 platform, which it said provides significant performance improvements, a flexible security model and a complete set of applications programming interfaces.
“Java 2 is well-suited to a far broader range of industry environments and devices and will make Java run well on a variety of devices,” said Alan Baratz, president of Java Software, at a press conference.
“The new Java platform enables portals (like Yahoo!) at the front end, allowing portals to deliver applications and content to a device, whether a [personal computer], an airport kiosk, a laptop (computer), a [personal digital assistant].
“At the back end, it is a vehicle for portals to gain access to legacy systems, providing integrated access so you can write new client and server applications,” added Baratz.
Asked about the difficulty so-called thin clients-like wireless smart phones- have in easily accessing streams of Internet-derived data, Baratz said the new Java platform also has incorporated improvements in this area.
“The interesting and exciting thing about Java 2 is that, besides `applets’, it also enables the upload of `servlets’, introducing new functionality into the server environment.
“With a screen scraper on the local device (like a wireless handset), Java 2 can provide a rich base of functionality into small devices; functionality that resides in the server environment.”
Sun’s mission is to use Java to bring “Web access to a range of devices: pagers, phones, set-top boxes,” said Ed Zander, chief operating officer of Sun Microsystems.
Java 2 is the first Java platform release in which Sun focused on “reliability and functionality,” Baratz said. Its debut was delayed deliberately until Sun was satisfied that it met enterprise-level requirements for these characteristics.
Java 2 also is closer, though not 100 percent of the way, to delivering on Sun’s promise of “write once, run anywhere,” Baratz said.
In a related development, Sun also announced that the source code for Java technology will be available free going forward.
“Licensing will be as easy as point and click, a free-of-charge download. Licensees can change the source code base in far more ways than allowed before, and they can keep this as their own differentiator or sub-license it to other Sun licensees,” Baratz said.
“But they must preserve compatibility going forward, so we will require licensees to pass a Java compatibility test before they deliver code base to their customers. When final delivery of a binary product is shipped to the end user, a royalty will be owed to Sun.”
