San Francisco - Sun Microsystems Inc. will go to the courts only if necessary to protect the integrity of Java's "write once, run anywhere" promise, Scott McNealy, Sun's chairman and CEO, said at the JavaOne developers conference here today.
"If we don't go to the courts, you don't have the compatibility, you don't have 100 percent Java. And that's why we're doing it," McNealy said, referring to a lawsuit Sun filed against Microsoft Corp. last year.
The suit alleges that Microsoft breached its Java licensing contract with Sun by implementing a version of Java in two of its products that does not meet with the specifications laid down in Sun's licensing contract. Sun won what it called a significant victory in that battle yesterday when the judge overseeing the case said Microsoft must remove the "Java-compatible" logo from the two products while the suit is underway. [See "Judge Orders Microsoft to Remove Java Compatible Logo," March 24 ]
If companies like Microsoft create "subsets" of the Java platform and still call them "Java", application developers will not be able to write a Java program with the knowledge that it will run on any networked device with a Java Virtual Machine, McNealy said during a question and answer session with the press after his keynote.
Sun has created different implementations of Java -- such as EmbeddedJava and PersonalJava -- that cater to the system characteristics of particular market segments, such as PCs, smart phones, smart cards, pagers, and in-car computers, McNealy said.
"But we only need one version of Java for each segment, so that when application developers write programs for one segment, they know it will run accrooss the board, on all the devices in that segment," he said.
McNealy said the Microsoft suit, as well as the hubub surrounding the release of a competing Java virtual machine for embedded devices by Hewlett Packard Co. last week, should be seen as mere distractions from Java's steady advance. He does not forsee Sun filing a lawsuit against HP for building the Java VM, because Sun has no reason to believe HP infringed on Sun patents that underlie Java, McNealy said.
Asked what he considers to be the biggest obstacle to the further acceptance of Java, McNealy quipped: "Zero population growth."
True to form, McNealy found time in his keynote to badmouth Microsoft. In particular he criticised the software maker for stifling competition and innovation by not releasing specifications for its new products.
In addition, he said Microsoft has developed only a few more developer APIs in its entire history than Sun has released for Java in the past three years. "
McNealy listed a slew of Java-related partnerships and licensing agreements Sun has announced recently, including deals with BEA Systems Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Toshiba Corp., Motorola Inc., Tele-Communications Inc. Most of the announcements have come in the past three months he said.
"If people are saying [Java] momentum is slowing, then hurt me with that slowdown," he joked.
In his keynote earlier today, McNealy demonstrated a prototype of a "personal server" Sun has developed. Called Persona the hardware device is about the size of an electric toaster which allows users to access voice, email and fax messages remotely from either a telephone or any networked device with a Web browser.
Persona is aimed at home and small office markets. Users enter a password to dial into the device, and can hear messages read aloud by a synthesized voice or view them on a screen. The computer screen interface allows users to forward email in the form of a fax or email by dragging and dropping the email message over the appropriate icon at the bottom of the screen.
Sun is unlikely to enter the market for consumer hardware products, but Sun is considering supplying the device to corporations for use in branch offices as part of a "total enterprise solution," said Ed Zander, Sun's chief operating officer.
Sun is working on plans to support XML (Extensible Markup Language) in future versions of Java, said Alan Baratz, president of Sun's JavaSoft division. "We've been working on JavaBean frameworks for creating graphics and textual component. The format we're using to store and manipulate that content with is XML," Baratz said.
1999 is going to be the "big breakout year" for the network computer, Zander said. Sun announced yesterday it has begun commercial shipping of its NC, the Java Station.
