Embedded sytems everywhere

What is the advantage of using Java in the embedded space?

The embedded space today is very fragmented. You have to piece together the entire stack—the runtime, the OS , the tools, the languages, the protocols, and the connectivity. We strongly believe that until we have a standards-based horizontal platform, the M2M [machine-to-machine] market won’t take off, because too much time is spent reinventing the wheel and struggling with fragmentation rather than building solutions.

Java is a platform and a technology that, by design, abstracts from the underlying hardware and OS, and provides a rich application environment, from very small devices to enterpriseclass servers. Java is uniquely positioned to address many of these challenges because, essentially, we solved these problems 10 or 15 years ago. We solved transitions from 8- to 16- to 32-bit that the embedded space is facing today. We have a proven and secure runtime environment. We have infield updatability of application components. And Java already has a technology ecosystem with 9 million developers. They might not currently be embedded developers, but they’re very familiar with the programming language and the toolset. So Java not only facilitates development in the embedded space but also acts as a catalyst toward embedded industry growth. An Oracle technology partner recently drew a parallel between the current embedded space and the early cell phone space. The whole ecosystem was held back by the fact that there was no standard platform that people could build upon. But as soon as fairly predictable phone platforms became accessible, you had this explosion of applications, accessories, hardware, and services that built upon the platforms. We see Java in the embedded space playing a very similar role, but with even more focus on creating an open, standardized technology infrastructure.

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