23 May 2003 Sun Microsystems wants to triple the number of Java developers from just over three million to 10 million.
The idea, says Rich Green, vice president of tools at Sun, is to create a range of tools that will appeal to less sophisticated developers. At the moment, Java tools from vendors such as Borland, Rational and Sun have appealed to the most advanced programmers.
However, Sun needs to act to prevent Microsoft from cornering the mass market with its alternative Visual Studio tool suite running on Microsoft’s proprietary .Net run-time environment. Microsoft has a reputation for building tools such as Visual Basic that appeal to the mass of developers.
Now, Sun is planning to take on Microsoft on its home ground. “There [are] millions of folks out there who are not necessarily creating J2EE-scalable applications. They’re creating lightweight applications… That’s a group of individuals that have been slower to come to the Java platform than others,” Green told InfoWorld.
At its JavaOne conference in San Francisco in June, Sun will be emphasising many of the development features that will appeal to the mass of developers, rather than the elite, said Green.
