JavaOne: Sun rolls out JavaFX
James Gosling, the so-called father of Java, catapults T-shirts toward the JavaOne audience.
(Credit: Dan Farber/CNET News.com)SAN FRANCISCO--Following a flurry of T-shirts catapulted by Java creator James Gosling and a hot dance troop performance, 75 hours of JavaOne got under way here this week. Sun Microsystems' software chief, Rich Green, took the stage to talk about consumers, people he sees as driving change.
"Information is crossing the moat, escaping the castle," he said. "The private information network is gone." Enterprises have to recognize that the enterprise moat barriers are coming down, he added, with consumers driving innovation.
Rich Green, Sun's software chief, emphasizes consumer innovation on the JavaOne stage.
(Credit: Dan Farber/CNET News.com)As part of Sun's effort to enable consumers to innovate, Green introduced JavaFX, a rich Internet application environment set to compete with Adobe Systems' AIR and Microsoft's Silverlight.
He showed a JavaFX application with Flickr and Twitter feeds running in Facebook within the browser, and then he dragged it out of the browser--to the desktop. The same application also was shown running on a Java-enabled phone via JavaFX Mobile.
Unfortunately, the application, using the new Java Update 10 browser plug-in, kept crashing. "It's the size of the pipes in Moscone Center," Green complained. "This is the Moscone terror moment."
Sun is hoping to tap into 2.2 billion mobile devices and the vast majority of desktop PCs that are Java-enabled. JavaFX was shown running on Google's Android mobile platform. Green noted that 85 percent of cell phones, 91 percent of desktops, and 100 percent of all Blu-ray Disc players will run JavaFX.
JavaFX applications will run across desktops, browsers, and mobile devices.
(Credit: Sun Microsystems)Sun also plans to deliver JavaFX from the cloud and to gather instrumented user action data via JavaFX that goes back to developers. It could be used for advertising or to provide information to customers, Green said.
Sun plans to deliver the first version of JavaFX Desktop and browsers in the fall. The mobile version is slated for the spring of 2009. Developers can get early access to the JavaFX runtime.
See also: Dana Gardner's post "Profits-strapped Sun continues decade-long pitch to developers on Java dominance"
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Nevertheless, good post, Mr. Super Blogger.
What, not a lot of talk about J2ME? I'll always wonder why they bothered renaming it to JavaME, since it wasn't going anywhere. And where do they get off claiming that 85% of mobile phones will run JavaFX? Maybe new phones coming out in 2010, so that means nothing.
I think it's very telling that when it came to creating the Android JVM, Google said "move!" and made one themselves instead of using anything from Sun.
One of Sun's big failings around mobile technology was letting J2ME suck so much. The other was letting handset makers release phones that couldn't be upgraded to fix all the bugs and limitations that make J2ME suck so much.
Sorry to hate on Sun so much, but J2EE is crap, overhyped, sprawling technology born in and reflecting an age of Irrational exuberance.
Mostly though I hate the way Sun held mobile technology back by 4 years -- it shouldn't have taken the iphone to start the mobile revolution, we should be years into it by now . Good thing Apple was there to pick up Sun's slack, and let's hope Google keeps Apple open.
Anyway ...I think JavaFX is going to fall flat on its face for web applictions if it requires people to download the Java RE and install on their PC. I think most people would not be willing to do this. They will just simply say "Oh ..forget that" ..and go to another page.
I am also not sold on Java as a desktop platform. Most people do not have Java RE installed on their PCs and it is a hassle for most PC users.
Server-side Java, on the other hand, is great I think.