Sun Microsystems Corp.’s JavaOne conference kicked off this week in San Francisco. Here are just a few things seen and heard …
1) This year’s JavaOne, the 14th
since the annual conference kicked off and now rumoured to potentially
be the last once Oracle takes over, welcomed attendees from more than
85 countries (Canada ranking third) at an alumni return rate of 40 per
cent. The theme was: “Changing Y(our) World.”
2)
Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz reminisced the past 14 years of work that
father of Java James Gosling has given to the programming language,
saying, “James to me is every bit the embodiment of a leader, wardrobe
notwithstanding.”
3)
Today, there are close to one billion desktops and 2.6 billion mobile
devices running Java. “It’s beyond dispute. Java really is everywhere,”
said Schwartz.
4)
Recipients of Duke’s Choice Award this year, as voted by peers,
included Jagex, maker of Java-based video game RuneScape. Schwartz
said, “Thank you very much both for the support of the platform and for
keeping my kids and all of their school entertained. It’s been a great
anaesthetic.”
5)
For the past year, Sun has focused on bringing down the barriers to
entry for Java developers who have to contend with building for
different platforms, and trying to monetize their creations.
6)
Schwartz thinks smart phones are the most exciting device right now and
is an “extraordinary market that continues to emerge” for Java.
Research in Motion’s BlackBerry is a “full Java stack from top to
bottom,” according to Alan Brenner, RIM’s senior vice-president of
BlackBerry platforms.
7)
Sun Microsystems chairman and co-founder, Scott McNealy, joked on stage
that the company, post acquisition by Oracle, could take advantage of
the friendship between “Larry and Steve” to get Java on Apple Inc.’s
iPhone.
8)McNealy
joked that free advertising would be an advantage of the Sun-Oracle
merger if Larry Ellison’s sailboat bore the Java logo on the sail.
“None of this should have been a surprise, speaking of boats, this has
been known for years. Larry’s other boat is called Rising Sun. How
obvious was this?”
9)
Ellison told Java developers Oracle will continue to invest in Java.
McNealy said to Ellison on the topic of the Oracle acquisition: “Let’s
stay focused on Java because that will keep us mostly out of trouble
here on stage.”
10)
At CommunityOne, Dave Douglas, Sun’s senior vice-president of cloud
computing and chief sustainability officer, encouraged the audience to
be “citizen engineers” by applying their knowledge to the broader
society. “It’s no single person doing everything anymore,” said
Douglas, explaining that people collaborate in communities in a
continuous manner. “It just keeps going, that’s what is exciting about
it.”
Read coverage of JavaOne:
Sun Microsystems unveils new version of OpenSolaris
Ellison commits to Java
