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Sun Micro CEO gives report card on Java progress
SAN FRANCISCO, June 17 (Reuters) - Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Chairman Scott McNealy on Thursday gave an update to 21,000 software developers on the company's progress in spreading the popular Java programming language, which has grown to become a credible threat to archrival Microsoft Corp.
At last year's JavaOne Developer Conference, McNealy said Sun, in conjunction with hundreds of thousands of Java developers around the world, would work on boosting the performance of Java and making it more powerful. Java is a computer language that lets programmers develop applications that can run on myriad computer systems without the need for rewriting the programs.
McNealy said his Palo Alto, Calif.-based company had made progress in the past year, adding it will continue its efforts to zealously protect the integrity and brand of the Java language.
"I want to make sure we protect the Java brand very aggressively," McNealy said. Part of that is a nearly two-year-old lawsuit with its nemesis Microsoft Corp.
Sun sued Microsoft in 1997, alleging that the company had written Java programs that didn't satisfy Sun's compatibility tests that had to be met to avoid violating a Java licensing deal the companies had signed.
McNealy added in a later question-and-answer session with reporters that the issue was pretty simple. "We just want them to abide by the contract."
In the four years since Sun introduced Java, it has grown from merely animating Web pages to becoming a pervasive force in business computing.
In the past 12 months, Java is starting to crop up in more consumer electronics devices. 3Com Corp. and Sun, for example, this week unveiled Java for 3Com's popular Palm personal digital assistant.
By creating a smaller version of Java to work within a small consumer device -- such as the Palm and others like Web-browsing cell phones and the like -- Sun hopes to encourage programmers to write applications using the Palm operating system, rather than Microsoft's competing, stripped-down operating systems, Windows CE.
Some 21,000 software developers attended this year's conference, a third more than last year's 14,000. |
