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Is Gates Still Raining On Sun?

Java inventor James Gosling, CTO of Sun's Java and developer product group Photo by Tony Kontzer

A quick reality check would tell any intelligent person that the Microsoft chief doesn't control the weather, but even with last year's truce between the two companies, Sun officials still couldn't help but wonder. "My mistake was having lunch with some people from Microsoft yesterday and inviting them to the party," Java inventor James Gosling told the few hundred souls who braved the elements to partake in beer, cake, and camaraderie. "I guess they actually came."

Not that Gates--er, the rain--stopped the Sun crowd from enjoying itself. Everywhere one looked, there were programmers letting their hair down--having photos taken with Gosling or the strange triangular Java mascot, Duke; flinging tennis balls in the hope of (further) dousing Gosling and other key Java figures in a dunk tank; or indulging in microbrews and (admittedly wet) pizza, chicken tenders, and hot dogs. Every so often, the rain would pick up, and everyone would scurry for cover, only to slink back toward the booze as soon as the drops receded to a drizzle.

	Gosling and his daughter, Katie, show off their Java's 10th Birthday T-shirts Photo by Tony Kontzer

It was a heartwarming display of team spirit, and no one seemed prouder than Gosling, the man often called the Father of Java. With a Pilsner Urquell in one hand and sporting trademark sandals and shorts, as well as a garish yellow T-shirt proclaiming "Java's 10th Birthday! Still juggling after all these years," Gosling took pleasure in the fact that his 16-year-old daughter, Katie, wasn't really sure what exactly Java does. "In some sense, that's the point," said Gosling. "If it was [obvious], it would be a failure." (Although, one has to wonder where Sun would be today if it had borrowed a page from Intel and blanketed the world with "Powered by Java" references. Certainly, Gosling wouldn't have been acknowledging Friday that the revenue impact of Java remains unclear.)

Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO of Sun Photo by Tony Kontzer

That's not to say the benefits of Java aren't plenty obvious to Sun luminaries. Swooping in like the rock star he's become within the Sun culture, president Jonathan Schwartz told the intimate crowd that his favorite application is a disturbing (to some, including yours truly) program called Virtual Girlfriend that's become quite popular in some Asian nations. It lets desperate men (and I assume some women) select an animated girlfriend that pops up on cell phone screens for the occasional interaction--including such pleasantries as complaining when her birthday goes uncelebrated. (I'm not sure if she nags about doing the dishes.) For those wondering, the business model behind the service is the selling of ads displayed on the cybergirl's T-shirt.

To his credit, Gosling chose to share an example with a bit more meat to it. Having just visited Brazil earlier in the month, he said health-care officials there were rolling out version 2 of an IT infrastructure that's based on Java, enabling remote communities to access the state-sponsored health-care system and arrange for services using cell phones (which he stressed are distributed to virtually all Brazilian citizens). "You may not think of yourselves as helping the indigenous tribes of the Amazon, but you are," Gosling told the crowd. "You're turning science fiction into science fact."

It's a nice global thought at a time when the borders between nations are consistently getting taller and thicker. Now if only Sun could figure out a way to turn that social impact into bottom-line impact for the company, it would really have something.

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