The deals were signed on Wednesday morning, Sun executives announced at the company's JavaOne trade show here. Bitter rivals Microsoft and Sun have tangled for years over Java, which reduces the importance of the Windows operating system as a foundation for other programs. Microsoft has been fighting to remove the technology from Windows XP.
"We're doing our best to make sure Java is absolutely everywhere," said Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president of Sun's software group, speaking to Java loyalists at the show. "Microsoft pulling Java from Windows caused no small amount of frustration."
HP will start incorporating Java in models in the third quarter. It expects to have the software installed across its entire desktop and laptop line within about a year, spokeswoman Tiffany Smith said Wednesday. "We wanted to make sure that we provide a seamless experience for our customers to continue having Java support so they can have the best Web experience possible. We needed to find another supplier, and Sun offered a very compelling package," Smith said.
"Dell and HP are acknowledging a simple fact: Java is everywhere on the Internet," said Illuminata analyst David Freund. "Given Microsoft's stated intent to stop providing a Java virtual machine (JVM) at the beginning of 2004, PC vendors naturally want to ensure that their customers can access Web sites and run Java-based applications without having to find some obscure widget with a three-letter acronym (in this case, JVM) somewhere first."
Negotiations for the agreement went through the night, Schwartz said. The Dell agreement was signed at about 3 a.m. Wednesday; the HP agreement at 9 a.m.
Schwartz, who predicted the partnerships last week, thanked HP employees in the JavaOne audience. "On behalf of the Java community, I want to let you know we appreciate the agreement your company and my company signed not two minutes ago to ship Java on all your PCs," he said.
Java, a programming language and supporting software, lets a program run on a variety of different systems without having to be changed for each one. Though it hasn't displaced Windows as a foundation for running desktop computers, it is popular now in two domains where Microsoft isn't as strong: in servers and, increasingly, in mobile phones.
Sun has been trying for years to get PC makers to sell machines with built-in Java. Apple Computer--no great ally of Microsoft--had previously been the highest-profile company to do so.
Microsoft licensed Java in 1996, but its Windows-only changes to the technology soon led to a legal battle with Sun. While the companies have settled that dispute, those Java changes are at the heart of an ongoing antitrust suit that Sun brought against Microsoft in 2002.
Microsoft has embraced many of the ideas in Java in its C# programming language and its .Net software.
The deals with Dell, HP and Apple are the beginning, Schwartz said in a statement. "We expect that many more PC (manufacturers) and large consumer-application providers will also begin distributing the latest Java Runtime Environment from Sun," he said.
While Microsoft shipped Java for many years, it was a 1997 version that didn't support many newer features. Dell and HP will ship computers with the latest versions of Sun's Java, Sun said.
Spreading Java widely is important, but Sun has technological challenges with Java as well. It's been notoriously slow to launch and has had a comparatively primitive interface.
Sun reduced the time that it takes for Java to launch by 30 percent from version 1.4.0 to the soon-to-be-released 1.4.2, said Curtis Sasaki, vice president of desktop solutions. The new version also will add a look and feel that better matches Windows XP or the Gnome interface for Linux.
The next major version of Java for desktop computers, 1.5, code-named "Tiger," will feature more refinements to grow closer to Windows XP and Linux, Sasaki said.
Version 1.5 will also spread Java's support for the basic set of Web services standards, Sasaki said. Those standards will first debut in the server version of Java 1.4, which will be released once the Web Services Basic standard is finalised.
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its good to see that pc vendors are getting aware of the need to move away from just keepin to Microsoft's products - good for competition too, - quality can also be checked in this manner.