Tech Shout!

Sun Microsystems is slated to launch ‘JavaFX Mobile,’ its latest Java software that caters to developers of mobile devices such as smart phones. The JavaFX programs will be demonstrated by Sun at its annual Java developer’s conference in San Francisco today.

The software gets its name from JavaFX Mobile, which is a programming language developed by Sun way back in 1995, which boasted “write once, run anywhere” enabling programmers to create applications to run on many different PCs.

Sun claimed that with the latest JavaFX Mobile software, carriers and device manufacturers will be able to develop even better applications, with more integration of the Internet and other PC functions for mobile phones.

“A few years ago, these were a very small percent of devices,” said Rich Green, Sun’s executive vice president for software, referring to phones like the BlackBerry Pearl and the Samsung BlackJack, which let consumers surf the Web, exchange e-mails, read documents, take digital photos, and play music and video. “Now this is extremely commonplace. … It’s really getting the entire network in your hand.”

Sun said the new software will be a combination of the existing mobile handset version of Java, and technology from SavaJe Technologies, a Massachusetts-based software developer that Sun acquired only this year.

The software will be offered under an open-source license, allowing developers use and modify it for free, Sun said.

Furthermore, ideas are in the works to develop future versions of the software for makers of television set-top boxes, navigation devices, and automobile dashboards.

Sun said many of the new capabilities in JavaFX Mobile will come from its recent purchase of SavaJe, a start-up in Chelmsford, Mass., developing Java-based mobile phone software.