Cannes, nestled in the Cote d’Azur along France’s Mediterranean coast line, is famous for its international film festivals, luxurious hotels and expensive designer shopping – including many of the world’s most exclusive jewelry shops. But the most talked about jewelry in Cannes in early November wasn’t the diamonds and rubies worn by the ‘beautiful people’ who normally dominate the resort. It was the ‘Java ring’ being worn by Sun Microsystem’s chief Scott McNealy at the Gartner Group Symposium. McNealy was at the Gartner gathering, as always, to further the cause of network computing. After a predictable 10 minutes of spewing vitriolic but witty words against arch-rival Bill Gates and Microsoft, however, he wooed the audience by bringing out his Java ring – basically a smart card on a ring which can receive and transmit signals to a distance of 10 inches. The ring, which costs about $60, is made by Jostens, the company that supplies most American high school graduates with their class rings, and the embedded chip is built by Dallas Semiconductor. The ring, says McNealy, is capable of retrieving money from an automatic teller machine (ATM), or calling up a Web page. It can also, he claims, do more dramatic things such as starting a car, or opening a door. Perhaps the most important question is – can it shut down Windows?

Ominous threat

While McNealy doesn’t seem to have worked out that trick yet, he boasts that the Java ring does present an ominous threat to Microsoft. The ring, he says, symbolizes the power of Java coupled with the scalability and flexibility of the language. And, he points out, it highlights the weaknesses of the NT operating system. Running Microsoft NT on a smart card, says McNealy, is implausible, while Java, he says, could be put into every possible device. The ring is just the first in a series of Java based handheld appliances. Indeed, McNealy is reportedly talking with a range of manufacturers about producing handheld appliances such as screen-based Java phones and other consumer devices. Even if Java-based handheld appliances aren’t likely to be ubiquitous anytime soon, the ring – and the Java smart chip – do give McNealy more ammunition in his war against Microsoft. They allow him to keep Sun Microsystems in the media spotlight and to make the company seem cool.

This article, by Jana Sanchez-Klein, first appeared in Computer Business Review.