Sun (Oracle) going to launch a Java App Store!
App Stores are the new trend, Apple kinda started it and others are following, e.g. Google Android. Guess who is next? Java! Like every real star Java is a little bit late to the party, but the potential is huge. Let me explain why …
Jonathan Schwarz, Sun’s CEO,writes that at JavaOne a new project, probably called Java Store (working title “Project Vector”), will be revealed. He writes about including the Google (although Google is not directly mentioned) toolbar in the Java installation process and how Sun made a bunch of money with it. Sun now wants to extend this concept and to distribute all kinds of third party applications via the Java update mechanism. Java is widely spread and installed on over a billion devices, hence, a huge potential customer base already exists. At the moment facts are rare, as far as I know Jonathan’s blog post is the only source. So I guess we have to wait for JavaOne for more concrete information.
At the beginning I wrote about Apple’s and Google’s application stores. However, these I stores are for mobile devices and Java store aims at the desktop (at least at the moment, JavaFX mobile can change the picture). So my guess is Java Store will be (in the long run) more like a package management system, like APT or Ruby Gems. This would be great. Not only is Windows missing this from the beginning, if Java Store follows the write once run everywhere concept, Java Store could be expanded to Mac, Ubuntu, and so forth. Another huge advantage could be jar sharing. There are libraries which are used over and over again (e.g. Apache), with Java store the libraries could be shared between Java applications, similar to Linux application installations. Is this why Sun made its own Project Jigsaw instead of adopting OSGI?
This would be great news for users and developers. Will it happen? Probably not. I am still sceptical about the Sun/Oracle deal and Sun still has to convince developers to jump on the train (which is not a strength of Sun). Still, if it happens it could be just great.
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Tags: Java, JavaFX, JavaOne, Oracle, Sun Microsystems