Sun Microsystems, creator of the Java technology, has vowed to establish Java as an industry standard for delivering open and secure services.

"We are actively promoting Java in China as well as the rest of Asia-Pacific," said Scott McNealy, chairman and chief executive of Sun, in an interview with China Daily.

"We are working with the (Chinese) government and other key players to establish Java as the industry standard for delivering open and secure services."

Java is a programming language that enables the same software or application to run on many different systems, consumer gadgets and other devices.

Java technology is being used globally in more than 2.5 billion devices, including 1 billion smart cards, more than 708 million mobile phones, more than 700 million PCs, and in data centres of the world's largest companies and organizations.

Java technology has consequently helped generate revenues of US$100 billion annually, according to McNealy.

Java is witnessing a sharp up-take in China, largely due to the "fascinating" growth of the Java community in the country.

McNealy said there are now 800,000 Java developers in China, making it one of the fastest-growing developer communities in the world. Globally the Java community has 4.5 million developers.

"We can thank the upsurge of the mobile gaming market (in China) growing at a rate of 150 percent from 2003 for much of that growth," he said.

"We expect the Java community to continue to grow with the mobile device market in China and don't expect it to slow down any time soon."

Sun is teaming-up with Canadian communications giant Nortel Networks to build a Java Centre of Excellence in China.

"We are also working with TCL, Ningbo Bird, Huawei and other key cellphone manufacturers to standardize mobile content provisioning."

Sun Microsystems is to open the Java Developer Conference in Beijing today, the largest event of its kind ever to be held in China.

The two-day event is aimed at celebrating the 10th anniversary of Java and figuring out the future trends of the technology.

"I think the last 10 years are only a warm-up for where Java will go as we enter an age with near universal connectivity in some regions of the world," said McNealy.

"I'm sure the next decade will be just as exciting as it continues to grow in reach and capabilities," he added.

(China Daily September 13, 2005)