Stopped by the JavaOne show yesterday. If the tech industry is in trouble, you’d never know it from the crowds at Moscone Center in San Francisco.
The trend for Java was crystal clear on the exhibition-hall floor, though. Once touted as the write-once, run-anywhere client of choice, Java’s real place has emerged not just on the server but also very small devices such as cell phones and smart cards. We knew about the former phenomenon, but the latter is something of a surprise.
I don’t think I saw a single booth selling anything that looked useful for an average personal computer user. The mess Sun has made of the Java Virtual Machines, which remain inconsistent and difficult across — and sometimes inside — platforms, has probably doomed client-side Java for some time to come.
But make no mistake. At the high end and the low end, Java is for real.