Sun Unveils Embedded Java Platform
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01 May 1998
Sun Unveils Embedded Java Platform
Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced that it has posted a draft of the EmbeddedJava specification for public review and comment.
The EmbeddedJava technology was created specifically for the dedicated embedded device market, catering to developers and manufacturers of products with a dedicated purpose or small memory footprint, such as pagers, office peripherals, test and measurement equipment, medical devices, telephony infrastructure equipment or network routers and switches.
"The landscape in this market is radically changing manufacturers realize that proprietary systems are slowing the time-to-market advantage and they see that the dropping prices of microprocessors are opening up new opportunities for content and applications," said Alan Baratz, president of Sun Microsystems Inc's JavaSoft division. "The Java platform is providing the industry with a software standard for the first time that will forever change the way devices are made and content is delivered to end users."
The EmbeddedJava specification has been through a stringent creation process with many of Sun's partners in the embedded systems industry to ensure that it meets market needs.
Embedded systems developers require very precise, modular technologies. The EmbeddedJava application environment was created to meet those needs as well as bring the benefits of Java technology to the embedded market.
The EmbeddedJava technology is designed to be highly scaleable and configurable while requiring minimal system resources. It is targeted at devices using up to 512K of ROM.
Developers using the EmbeddedJava technology will be able to pick and choose class libraries that best suit their device architecture. Which means if space constraints are tight, classes can be dropped while maintaining the core Java virtual machine and essential Java technology benefits.
EmbeddedJava is designed to be layered on top of a real-time operating system (RTOS), enabling developers to take advantage of the functionality and performance of these highly tuned systems. Many of the leading RTOS vendors support the EmbeddedJava specification. (see addendum).
The EmbeddedJava API is now posted for public review and comment at http://java.sun.com/products/embeddedjava.
* Originally published in Novell AppNotes
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