Google Phone

If Sun seemed vaguely anxious about Android before now - fearing its non-standard implementation of Java might fragment the language - then now they’re coming across as borderline belligerent.  Speaking at the Java Mobile & Embedded Developer Days conference last week, Sun vice-president James Gosling declined to cite his company’s position on Android, claiming Google was yet to define the platform’s business model.

“It’s impossible to have a position, right, because there is no data.  Over the last couple of years, Google’s been showing their phone at telecom conferences all over the world and with different business models, all of which really scared the carriers and handset makers. And then with Android, they put out a bag of code with no business model.  Unless the day comes when they say what they’re going to do with it, it’s just a bag of code sitting out there” James Gosling, VP, Sun

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Ironically, after preaching about anti-fragmentation agreements and partnership synergy - intended to ensure that no member of the OHA alters the Android platform to an extent where development becomes only partly compatible - it could be down to the Google-led system that Java suffers serious fractures.  Sun engineers are reportedly concerned that the specially modified form of Java that Android uses, as opposed to an off-the-shelf version that cellphones might normally adopt, could lead to a schism of developers creating software for one form of the language or another, spoiling the company’s “write once, run anywhere” selling-point.

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