@ Oracle OpenWorld: Java primed for future needs of mobility

SAN FRANCISCO — To get a sense of how important the Java language is to mobility, here’s a smattering of stats presented at Oracle Corp.’s OpenWorld conference this week: Java is running on 5 billion SIM cards, 3 billion mobile handsets and countless embedded devices.
By Oracle’s definition, embedded devices are anything that is not a card or mobile or TV. “So cars, washing machines, traffic signals, aircraft radar systems, missile defense are the kinds of embedded devices I’m talking about today,” Greg Bollella, chief architect of embedded Java, said on stage.
“For every laptop out there, there are a thousand embedded processors grinding away code that some people wrote. There is a lot of code, lot of processors, and lot of opportunity,” Bollella said.
The programming language, which Oracle acquired brought under its wing through its Sun Microsystems Inc. acquisition, is also running on more than 80 million TV devices and every Blu-ray player in the market today.
Java has historically been divided into various platforms for different devices, but just as Oracle is committed to modernizing and upgrading Java it is also aiming to make for a more seamless developing environment with tighter integration between JavaScript and online services.
“We want the programming environment across the platforms to be much more seamless. There is a lot of diversity in the embedded space and getting Java onto all of these things in a seamless environment is a real challenge,” Bollella noted.
Mark Reinhold, chief architect of the Java platform group, walked the audience through the early days of Java and some of its major plans for the platform over the next few years. Beginning in 1996 with Java 1.0 and running through today with Java 6, he noted a series of “revolutionary” and “evolutionary” advancements that have been introduced along the way. And, of course, there’s more to come in Java 7, 8 and 9.
Reinhold said Oracle plans to release Java 7 in mid 2011, followed by Java 8 in late 2012. With each of those updates, Oracle is focusing on six major areas for improvement: productivity, performance, universality, modularity, integration, serviceability.
“It’s a good, focused plan that will get the platform moving again, and that’s good news.” Reinhold said. “The clear intent is to have releases on a regular cadence every 8 to 24 month, possibly 36 months at the outside. A platform like Java, to stay alive, needs to keep moving. We are going to keep it moving.”
In addition to laying out Oracle’s vision for Java’s future, Reinhold said “there are things we can do to help you get more done with less code… Java from its beginning has tended to be in its own little black box … we can do a better job there.”
And finally, with regards to Sun and Oracle’s recently combined assets on the Java front, Reinhold said Oracle plans to “take the two and merge them” into a holistic, converged Java Virtual Machine.