Oracle’s Larry Ellison says Oracle will keep java perking even after his company completes its acquisition of Sun later this year, according to a published report on News.com today here.
But Ellison is unlikely to restrict java to his particular software coffee maker and recently said he wants to see it extended to “cell phones and netbooks” according to the report.
Oracle’s chairman has made no secret of his interest in developing and marketing so-called network appliances in years past. Since the late 1980’s Ellison has had two false starts attempting to design and launch computers designed to hang on networks as inexpensive replacements for the common PC.
The acquisition of Sun Microsystems, best known for Java (but which had its earlier roots as a hardware maker that developed and used its own SPARC processors for servers and technical workstations), could become the force that drives Oracle, or selected partners, into the hardware market.
News.com quotes Mr. Ellison as saying ”I think you’ll see us (Sun and Oracle) get very aggressive in developing Java apps for things like telephones and netbooks.”
Speaking at a software developer’s conference intimated that Oracle/Sun could design, produce and market devices that would compete directly with hardware that runs Google’s Java-based Android operating system.
So will Oracle’s acquisition of Sun finally yield a network appliance or netbook? I think it’s hard not to think that Mr. Ellison could at last be on the right track.—Jim Forbes 06/04/2009.
