As a competitive weapon, though, Java has had some significant rusty spots. While Java has attracted a large developer community, the programming tools Sun provides need to be better, Sun acknowledges. Java developers "have been pushing us to drive a level of ease of use and productivity that, to be blunt, Microsoft set the bar with Visual Studio," Schwartz said. "We're really ramping up our focus and investment around delivering a much stronger competitor to Visual Studio." IBM, Red Hat and others have been pushing Java development tools in the open-source Eclipse project, but Schwartz disparages that effort for undermining Java's independence from particular computers. "Eclipse is really the wrong direction. It's about binding your applications to an operating system," he said. In another effort to boost Java's fortunes, Sun will announce more liberal licensing terms under which researchers will be able to tinker with the Java technology, Schwartz said. "We're going to really try to go after relaxing the licensing terms in the community of researchers and folks who want to do fundamental research and development in computer languages. We are going to announce a fundamental shift in the licensing around Java to enable really open-source development for research activities," Schwartz said. A key area where Sun will tout Java is on mobile phones, Schwartz said. The company and its partners will unveil improvements that make it easier to link Java programs running on mobile phones with Java programs running on servers in the network. Java phones today are popular in some areas for playing games, but Sun believes the new technology will make them useful in meeting the long-promised goals of making Java phones useful to businesses, too. "Increasingly, customers will use devices to check mail, check their calendar, check order status, purchase orders, expense reports, which will require applications to interact from a Java 2 Micro Edition-enabled cell phone with a Java 2 Enterprise Edition infrastructure," Schwartz said. Many mobile phones contain a subscriber identity module (SIM) card that can run a bare-bones version of Java. Phone service carriers such as Vodafone use the card to identify the phone user, but Schwartz believes those companies could extend their domain to computers as well. "You may see some carriers start creating relationships with PC manufacturers so PC manufacturers are shipping their PCs with a SIM in them. The SIMs will be branded by the carriers," Schwartz said. "You will be able to take a SIM out of a phone, or a smart card out of your wallet, put it into your PC and by using the Javacard standard, authenticate yourself for network transactions."
What standards will drive the next wave of Web-based services, and how will they interact? Check out the latest developments on .Net, Java, Liberty Alliance, Passport and other technologies at ZDNet UK's Web Services News Section, including analysis, case studies and management issues.
Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.
