Sun Microsystems Inc. made several announcements at last week’s JavaOne show in San Francisco, including a new version of the Java platform and two carrier partnerships.
“Java powers 1.7 billion devices worldwide and it’s rapidly accelerating into the cable TV, gaming, ring-tone and automotive industries,” said Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO at Sun Microsystems.
“Five years ago, few predicted the impact Java would have on the mobile device industry; today there are 350 million mobile Java phones,” he added. “Java technology is becoming the de facto standard for the worldwide network, increasing the speed and simplicity with which services are delivered to mobile, consumer and enterprise markets.” According to Schwartz, the Java market is worth $120 billion.
Among Sun’s announcements:
c Orange launched its Orange Partner program to accelerate the development of applications for its customer base. The program includes the Orange Partner portal, a free Web-based virtual developer center and physical access to Orange Developer Centers, located in the United Kingdom, France and Boston. The Boston center opened last week and a total of nine centers are scheduled to open around the world by the end of this year.
c Vodafone Group plc said it will use J2ME in the third-generation version of its Live! mobile-content service. The carrier said it is working with Sun to build a Java-based developer platform called VFX to help developers launch billable applications.
c Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications said it will use Tira Wireless’ Tira Jump platform to enable the porting of J2ME applications to Sony Ericsson handsets.
“By working closely with Tira Wireless, Sony Ericsson can efficiently and quickly help developers deliver popular mobile Java games to a broad market, thereby providing consumers with more choices and an improved gaming experience,” said David Bent, vice president of marketing for Sony Ericsson.
c Sun announced the availability of Java 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0, which it called “the most significant enhancement to the Java platform in the technology’s nine-year history.” J2SE 5.0, which is available to developers via the Java Developer Kit and due for release this fall, features code enhancements to speed development, simplify debugging and improve programmer productivity.
c The Sun Developer Network, aimed at simplifying Java development, was announced, and the company said new members to the group will receive a three-year Java Studio Enterprise software subscription for $1,500 per year and a free Sun AMD Opteron processor-based workstation.
c Sun also announced Project Looking Glass, a 3D desktop environment and Java 3D technology for the open source community.
c The Sun Java Studio Creator, a visual development tool for generating Java code, is commercially available. The tool is free with the purchase of a Sun Developer Network Standard subscription, which costs $99 per developer per year.
c Sun released the NetBeans 4.0 platform for preview. The solution features a new Java technology performance profiler.
c Forum Nokia, Nokia’s global developer organization, said it now has 14 Nokia CDMA Series 40 developer platform-compliant devices. Through Forum Nokia, developers can port applications developed for GSM handsets to CDMA devices, making more applications available to more operators and more end users.
