Sun Microsystems Inc hit back at the critics who say Java is too unwieldy for the embedded systems and consumer device market yesterday with a new approach to small footprint systems, and renamed the result Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition. Rather than trying to shrink its standard Java Virtual Machine to fit small devices, as Hewlett-Packard Co announced it is doing yesterday, Sun is taking a distributed approach, choosing to split the VM into client and server components so that only the core VM and class libraries need reside on the client. Other portions of the platform are distributed over the network as needed.
Sun helped launch Micro Edition by signing an agreement with 3Com Corp (see separate story). Under the new deal, Sun’s Java will be tightly integrated with 3Com’s Palm Computing operating system, and PalmOS will become the new reference platform for Micro Edition, rather than Sun’s own Solaris. The two are also looking into ways to integrate Sun software with 3Com’s Palm.net service, which offers wireless internet access and messaging services for the Palm VII.
At the core of Micro Edition is the K Virtual Machine, or KVM, previously known as KJava VM, and built in cooperation with Motorola Inc. Others, including 3Com, Groupe Bull, Fujitsu Ltd, Matsushita Electric Co, Mitsubishi Electric Co, NEC Corp, NTT DoCoMo and Siemens AG, also contributed. But Micro Edition took the concept of the split VM from the existing Java Card implementation for smart cards. Profiles can be added on top of KVM to support web phone, TV, factory automation or other specific application areas. KVM runs in less than 64Kb of memory, resulting in a typical memory footprint of 128Kb for complete implementations, including class libraries. Binary code is available in pre-release form immediately for the Palm III and Palm V, and Sun anticipates a wide range of wireless devices containing the JVM will become available early next year.
Current flavors of Java aimed at the low-end, such as Embedded Java and Personal Java, will be pushed into the background and eventually subsumed into the new distributed architecture schema. Meanwhile NTT DoCoMo has delivered the first prototypes of its Java-enabled i-mode wireless phone using KVM, with cellular phones built by Matsushita/Panasonic, NEC, Fujitsu and Mitsubishi for the Japanese market. Other Java-enabled devices on show in what Sun is now calling the post-PC era were Motorola’s PageWriter 2000x two-way pager and Bull’s Personal Transaction Systems.
As expected, Sun also launched its high-end Java 2 Enterprise Edition yesterday (CI No 3,682), and issued a roadmap for the further development of Java Standard Edition, now aimed at PC, workstations and desktops, but soon to include a new client-oriented version of the HotSpot optimized Java virtual machine. Sun also confirmed that Netscape Communications Corp’s Navigator V browser will contain Java 2 standard edition, and revealed that Netscape’s new parent America Online Inc will include JSE as part of the installation procedure on 100m AOL disks set to be distributed in December.
