May 6, 2008 8:41 AM PDT

JavaOne: Sun rolls out JavaFX

Posted by Dan Farber

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"