Sun pushes for 'all things Java'

SAN FRANCISCO: Sun Microsystems Inc., aiming to push its Java computer language beyond the confines of software programmers, plans to spend tens of millions of dollars to build Java into a full-fledged consumer brand.

Sun, the network-computer, will at its JavaOne conference this week unveil plans for an advertising campaign and new Web sites, featuring singer Christina Aguilera toting a Java-enabled cell phone that plays games, Sun executives said.

"We are just sitting on this incredible asset," said Ingrid Van Den Hoogen, a senior director of Java marketing for Santa Clara, California-based Sun. "I felt like we had a consumer brand in our midst and we just hadn't realized that."

In addition to the millions of dollars on advertising -- roughly half its budget for its entire fiscal year -- the new Websites and programming are aimed at "creating demand for all things Java," Van Den Hoogen said.

Java is a programming language, introduced by Sun in 1995, that can be used to run software programs on many different computers and operating systems.

Yet for all its popularity, Sun's strategy with Java may seem perplexing at first, analysts said, because Sun, which has been harder hit than rivals in the technology recession, is known as a computer-hardware company and does not sell consumer products.

Sun began as a maker of high-end computer workstations. But it was with servers -- using its proprietary Sparc chips and Solaris version of the Unix operating system -- where Sun logged its greatest growth, pedaling servers to dot-coms, the telecommunications and financial services industries during the boom years.

"They're a Unix server company at a time when Unix servers seem to be on the decline," said Rod Enderle, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Java does has an awful lot of potential in consumer devices but they have to focus."

Java, which was first used to animate Web pages and now boasts three million software developers, is widely used in corporate computing, and increasingly in so-called "smart" consumer devices. More than 100 million cell phones with Java technology already have been sold, and this year Sun expects the number of Java-equipped cell phones to surpass PC shipments.

"Java really is everywhere," Van Den Hoogen said. "It's in chip architecture, on printers, obviously cell phones, it's on the desktop in a major way, and on the server, even places where you wouldn't expect it, like medical devices."

The new logo will appear on printers, cell phones, servers, desktop PCs, Java cards and the like, along the lines of chipmaker Intel's "Intel Inside" campaign and the Dolby labels affixed to stereos using the sound-enhancing technology.

Java has yet to be a big money maker for Sun, which is still a vertically integrated hardware company that sells server computers, data-storage equipment and workstations.

Sun has said that while it earns some revenue by licensing Java, it has principally sought to turn Java into a money maker by selling more back-end software and servers as Java proliferates across markets and its among its customers.

"They're kind of struggling with where Java should be," Enderle said. "They've been using it as a weapon against Microsoft instead of really using it to get into new markets and grow revenue."

Microsoft, the world's largest software company and the dominant provider of computer operating systems for personal computers, has long been an archrival of Sun, which has its own ongoing antitrust lawsuit again the Redmond, Washington, firm.

© Reuters