Sun and IBM ditch JavaOS for Business

Sun Microsystems and IBM have halted joint development of the JavaOS for Business, just one year after the venture began.

The operating system (OS) was originally intended to offer organisations the opportunity to deploy Java-based machines running pure Java applications, thereby breaking the stranglehold Windows has on the desktop market.

However, Sun and IBM claim that the proliferation and run-time improvements of Java virtual machines has made the JavaOS redundant.

Clive Longbottom, analyst for Strategy Partners, said he was not surprised by the news. "From IBM's point of view they already have OS/390, AS/400, NT, AIX, Linux and Monterey, so why do they need another operating system? All these already have Java Virtual Machines in them. It just added an extra level of confusion to the market."

He added: "The idea of an operating system based only on Java is a badly thought out idea, and only adds another piece of bloatware that wouldn't go anywhere in the market."

Java has managed to get a "solid toe hold" in the market, Longbottom claimed, but there is presently a general move away from Sun's ideal of 100 per cent pure Java applications.

Sun and IBM emphasised their "strong and ongoing commitment to Java technology and thin client solutions".

A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a layer of software that allows Java applications to run on any platform. It was originally thought that JVMs would seriously hamper the runtime of Java applications, but Sun and IBM claim there is now little difference in the performance of native and non-native applications.