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Continued ...

From Sun's point of view, a unified Java across all clients would increase the benefits Java already promises in terms of cross platform harmony - a large developer community, economies of scale for Java supporters, the ability to write once and run on a wide variety of devices. This will be important to operators too, as many look to provide internet services, such as music stores, that will work seamlessly across all a subscriber's platforms, including home PCs and media centres and a variety of handhelds. Again, this shows Sun reflecting how the open model of PC software is starting to filter into the mobile world, where traditionally each application has had to be rewritten not only for PCs and handsets, but for each handset model and each operator. With open access and the breakdown of the tethering of the device to the network and contract, the carriers are reluctantly having to adopt a new model, and unifying PC and mobile systems will be a key aspect of that - and one that plays to Java's strengths, provided Java is as harmonized as it always claims to be.

In reality, mobile Java has become highly fragmented because it has so many higher level extensions (called JSRs or Java specification requests) layered on top of its basic platform. This allowed the core abilities to be kept compact, but reduced the potential to write once, run anywhere, since each cellphone was exploiting a different combination of JSRs. J2SE has a far richer set of basic abilities and so requires fewer extensions, aiding portability. This will enable Java to line up better against other software technologies that are seeking to steal its thunder in creating rich web applications. Ajax, Adobe Apollo, Microsoft Silverlight and Google Gears are all trying to muscle in on this territory on PCs and, increasingly, in the mobile world too. Sun claims Java FX can beat these once it can be used across all devices seamlessly and draw on the power of J2SE - in particular, it claims a richer user interface, faster performance, a robust and well trusted language and better abilities when a computer is offline. And the evolution of powerful mobile internet devices is starting to remove the technical barriers to using fully blown Java on a handset.

All this is leading to the creation of the so-called 'Middle Web', which bridges the gulf between the mobile and PC internet, and should enable companies to develop applications and web sites for both platforms without significant variation. "Essentially, the belief is that we will be seeing many more iPhone-like devices that are capable of browsing the full web in all of its glory (minus flash glory for now) with things like Javascript, DHTML, and full Ajax support," wrote Omar Hamoui, CEO of AdMob, in a recent post on the company blog. "In general, as this trend continues, the richness and depth of mobile services will expand dramatically by making it possible for companies and individuals to build and extend their services with the tools and technologies they already know."

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