iPhone Gains Another Rival! A Full Disclosure of Sun's JAVA-based jPhone

At the recent JavaOne conference, Sun Microsystems released software for a high-end mobile phone that looks very similar to Apple's iPhone. Sun Microsystems stated that phones using this software will, in the future, provide users in developing countries with their first access to the Internet. Its name is jPhone. This ambitious prototype device bears a striking resemblance to Apple's iPhone, and it may have indeed been inspired by it. It has drawn a lot of attention, but the actual product won't be available for several more months. This software places Sun in direct competition with top-tier mobile manufacturers with whom it has previously collaborated on mobile Java development.

Sun's executive director of software, Tim Cramer, said: "We will offer a complete software stack for devices like Nokia's Series 60 phones, so I suppose we have become competitors to Nokia and others." The software, called Java Mobile FX, is built upon the code acquired from Sun's recent acquisition of Savaje Technologies. Savaje's software is a full implementation based on desktop Java, including basic applications running on a real-time system.