Saturday, May 05, 2007

Next week is JavaOne

JavaOne has a special feeling for me. It is one of the first conferences I attended, after moving to California in 1999. It is the one where we announced Funambol to the world in 2005. This year, we are coming back. But, for once, I am not paying... Sun invited us.

They're highlighting Funambol as they view us as one of the best and most exciting open source technologies (or so I hope...). We are one of a handful of open source projects, out a gazillion that Sun looked at, to be invited in
the Application Showcase area of the exhibit floor (in the Mobility Village). We will be showing there our new open source Java ME push email software that runs on hundreds of millions of Java-enabled mass market handsets (Edo will be at the booth, so do not miss him because he is THE Java ME guy). Sun really liked our application because they told us it is a highly innovative business application that leverages many of Java ME's capabilities, such as push registration, SMS message receiving, network connection, playing sound and advanced low-level implementation of the user interface. In other words, our software pushed the envelope of Java ME's capabilities and really allowed Java ME to shine.

In a way, we are a perfect technology for Sun to highlight, as our software heavily utilizes Java for both our server and client components i.e. it consists of an open source Java EE mobile data synchronization server (i.e. 100% Java app) and our Java ME push email client that runs on commodity mobile phones.

Sun also invited Funambol to participate in their .Org zone and CommunityOne
events (the former takes place during the three main days of the conference, Tue-Thu of next week, the latter is a one day event on Monday and precedes the conference) , which focus on bringing together developers and community members from a diverse range of new and emerging open source technologies (cool idea by Sun, they seem to be now trying hard to be the dot in dot.org :-) Both are essentially casual environments where we will be demoing our software and talking to open source developers and community members from a wide range of open source projects.

I look forward to seeing you there, it should be fun.