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From the News Desk
Tuesday, 20. November 2007
Sun Upset With Google Over Android
Google could be heading for a showdown with Sun over the way Android, Google's new mobile phone software platform, handles Java.
Instead of using the standards-based Java Micro Edition (JME) as an engine to run Java applications on its new mobile phone, Google wrote its own virtual machine named Dalvik for Android.
This may have been done only to prevent phone makers from having to pay licensing fees to Sun each time they want to customize Android, or share their code publicly to skip the fee, says developer Stefano Mazzocchi of Apache Labs. Phone makers that incorporate JME into their phones must license the technology from Sun if they intend to make any modifications to it, Mazzocchi said. A phone maker could freely use JME under an open source license if it shares innovations to the software with the community, but most large handset makers are reluctant to do that, he said.
The difficulty may be that if Google relied on any of Sun's intellectual property to write Dalvik, it could be sued for patent infringement. Sun already describes Android as a "Java/Linux" platform, despite the fact that Google avoids referring to it in the same terms. The Android SDK is instead positioned as a tool that lets developers build with Java.
Sun also shared statements that Rich Green, executive vice president of software at Sun, made during Oracle Open World this week about Android. "We're reaching out to Google and are anticipating they will be reaching out to us to ensure the software and APIs will be compatible--so deployment on a wide variety of platforms will be possible," he said.
Green also said that Sun wants to work with Google to prevent creating a fractured mobile development environment.
However, Google's move threatens Sun's business strategy, Mazzocchi said. He believes that Sun sees a bright future in the mobile market and hopes to earn revenue off the use of the Java virtual machine by phone makers. Google's plan diminishes that opportunity for Sun.
Instead of using the standards-based Java Micro Edition (JME) as an engine to run Java applications on its new mobile phone, Google wrote its own virtual machine named Dalvik for Android.
This may have been done only to prevent phone makers from having to pay licensing fees to Sun each time they want to customize Android, or share their code publicly to skip the fee, says developer Stefano Mazzocchi of Apache Labs. Phone makers that incorporate JME into their phones must license the technology from Sun if they intend to make any modifications to it, Mazzocchi said. A phone maker could freely use JME under an open source license if it shares innovations to the software with the community, but most large handset makers are reluctant to do that, he said.
The difficulty may be that if Google relied on any of Sun's intellectual property to write Dalvik, it could be sued for patent infringement. Sun already describes Android as a "Java/Linux" platform, despite the fact that Google avoids referring to it in the same terms. The Android SDK is instead positioned as a tool that lets developers build with Java.
Sun also shared statements that Rich Green, executive vice president of software at Sun, made during Oracle Open World this week about Android. "We're reaching out to Google and are anticipating they will be reaching out to us to ensure the software and APIs will be compatible--so deployment on a wide variety of platforms will be possible," he said.
Green also said that Sun wants to work with Google to prevent creating a fractured mobile development environment.
However, Google's move threatens Sun's business strategy, Mazzocchi said. He believes that Sun sees a bright future in the mobile market and hopes to earn revenue off the use of the Java virtual machine by phone makers. Google's plan diminishes that opportunity for Sun.
