Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Chris runs this down well: (Additional 411 to follow)

So wait, is Google's phone alliance Java-based or not?

So yesterday, there was a press release from Esmertec in my mailbox, touting their participation in the Google-led Open Handset Alliance and the company's embedded JVM. So as I hit the news pages in the morning, I assumed that Java is a big part of this "Android" platform that the OSA is launching, and e-mailed Mobile & Embedded Community Leader Roger Brinkley, telling him he could send me anything Android-related for Tuesday's front page, or just put it on his own community page, and that I'd pick it up easily enough.

And then as I started reading some of the news writes on Android, I started noticing that Java wasn't prominent in the stories. In fact, it wasn't present. There's no mention of Java in the Ars Technica story, nor in the News.com main write. In fact, the News.com story with the most uses of the term "Java" is the analysis Will Google fracture or unify mobile Linux?, which pontificates on the fragmentation of Java ME on current mobile devices, and brings up News.com's previous assertion that Sun intends to replace ME with SE on the device, something James Gosling has tried to clarify.

Granted, Jonathan Schwartz's blog makes an unambiguous declaration that Java will be part of the picture:

I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of others from Sun in offering my heartfelt congratulations to Google on the announcement of their new Java/Linux phone platform, Android. Congratulations!

I'd also like Sun to be the first platform software company to commit to a complete developer environment around the platform, as we throw Sun's NetBeans developer platform for mobile devices behind the effort. We've obviously done a ton of work to support developers on all Java based platforms, and were pleased to add Google's Android to the list.

But I didn't end up putting this on the front page, because I just couldn't source the Java angle well enough (no offense, Jonathan, but you did say ZFS would be on Leopard...). CNN.com doesn't mention Java at all, while the New York Times reports that Andy Rubin, Google's director of mobile platforms, "said the software system that Google has designed is based on the Linux operating system and Sun Microsystems' Java language." But there aren't any details beyond that: ME vs. SE, CDC vs. CLDC, included APIs, etc. Presumably, that material should be on the developers page, but right now, that's a place holder that says to come back next Monday.

So, anyways, is this the biggest ME story in a while, or not? I'm not sure we know yet. And does this bit of vaporware steal any thunder from JavaFX Mobile? Should it? Will it?

There'll be much to talk about, once there are some real details and not just big marketing pronouncements. C'mon Goog, bring the code.

I noted to Chris on AIM that the Esmertec deal was a commercial add on for Android to provide JME support. Now, on the flip side, Android came from ex-Danger guys, and The Hiptop runs JavaME++ with its own UI Toolkit. In addition to this noted Swing-ing intern Romain Guy is known to have been working on a non-Swing UI TK for Android, which would seem to imply Javaness. Josh brought up the idea that it may actually be GWT + Tamarin on Gecko, which would be interesting. This would fit in with the "custom virtual machine" mentioned in the Android web pages.

Either way, we should know something on 12 Nov 2007 when the Android SDK ships. However, I gotta back Chris up on his criticism of My Little Pony: his marketing hype gets so thing, you can't take what you read as fact on his blog as... well... fact.

Tags: android, gphone, java, javafx

Update: Cedric lays claim to Android. Update: More suspicious lack of Java name-dropping:

Sergey Brin: “As I look at it I reflect, ten years ago I was sitting at a graduate student cubicle. We were able to build incredible things,. There was a set of tools that allowed us to do that. It was all open technologies. It was based on Linux, GNU, Apache. All those pieces and many more allowed us to do great things and distribute it to the world. That is what we are doing today, to allow people to innovate on today’s mobile devices. Today’s mobile devices are more powerful than those computers I was working on just ten years ago. I cannot wait to see what today’s innovators will build.”