Back to the future with the Sun Microsystems

Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Singapore/Jakarta

Sun Microsystems held a symposium earlier this month in Singapore for South Asian media and analysts, themed "A new tech order -- Innovations, breakthroughs and winning strategies".

Interestingly, among the line-up of top speakers was Sun's Chief Technology Evangelist, Simon Phipps, who showed the audience the future of the Net and how one could benefit from it.

As an evangelist, he said later, it was his job to convince people of things he believed in -- although most of these apparently do not yet exist.

He said we lived in a "massively connected era" today, but in the future people would demand high mobility with security as their main priority.

Soon, people will be able to access their personalized desktops from anywhere in the world, without the risk of losing their data or even their settings.

"It would be similar to signing onto a free e-mail account," he said. Nowadays, people could open their accounts anywhere in the world if they verified their identity via a connectivity device, a cellular phone or a laptop.

However, if one lost their cellular phone or laptop, they would need to buy a new unit, reset it, upload contact numbers and so on, Phipps said.

In the future, this would become obsolete because people will be able to access their personal settings and data stored in their workstation as easily as accessing e-mail accounts, regardless of the device used, he said.

"There would be some kind of third party managing the data center and the network," Phipps said, which could be a private company, or even a government.

He admitted though, that a government serving as a data center manager raised the risk of its citizens' privacy being violated. A strong control exercised by the people was a precondition to ensuring that such violations did not occur.

What exactly is Sun's role in this vision? The Santa Clara- based company would provide the data center technology, the network and ensure the establishment of "mobility with security" -- all based on their platforms.

How would Sun realize this dream?

In line with Sun's core strategy as revealed at the symposium, the first trial would be the development of Sun Ray product lines that will enable users to open their personalized work station on any computer in their office, verifying their identities with a Smart card.

Additionally, Sun, which was founded in 1982 and has 35,700 employees worldwide, in regarding and treating networks as a computer system, eventually developed N1 to simplify them by facilitating network management.

Sun's solution to simplifying networks was to interact closely with the open source community, which will consequently lead to the deliverance of more innovative products at lower costs.

One of its products, the Java platform, is based on the power of networks and the idea that the same software should run on many different kinds of computers, consumer gadgets and other devices.

Any Java application can be delivered easily over the Internet, or any computer network, without operating system or hardware platform compatibility issues.

With Java technology, the Internet and private networks became possible. For example, users can access their personal information and applications in complete security from outside the office through any computer with an Internet connection. Sun believes that soon, users will be able to access tailored applications from a cellular phone based on the Java platform, or even by using Smart cards as a pass key to everything -- from cash machines to ski lifts.

The Java platform is being built into next-generation telephones, TV sets, wallet-sized Smart cards and many other consumer and business devices.

Phipps recommended that for the time being, Java developers should focus on developing the application for Smart phones, "especially in developing on-line games".

A recent survey by Electronic Arts, the biggest games developer, showed that 17.6 million visitors spent 70 minutes every day playing on-line games, he said.

The fact that so many people spent at least an hour a day to connect to the Net made on-line games extremely appealing to telecommunication providers, he said.

"People love to play their own character in a role-playing game, while building a character would certainly need a lot of time, and as long as they are connected to the Net, the cash would keep flowing."

In Jakarta, Bhra Eka Gunapriya, President Director of PT Sun Microsystems Indonesia, said Sun would also increase the number of Java developers in the country, with a two-year target of one million new Java developers.

Sun Indonesia is to establish the first Java Competency Center next year to produce certified Java developers.

Bhra said Sun Indonesia had approached a number of reputable universities in the country, and a cooperation with the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) was close to being realized.

In addition to the center, Sun is also to establish the Java Business Resources Center to serve as a business incubator, through which developers could meet the needs of business clients with support from the government.

Bhra looks forward to seeing more Indonesian Java developers coming up with new applications, which he said would benefit society, the business community, the government and of course, Sun itself.

The question now is whether the government will be responsive and relevant legislation supportive enough to back the initiative, so Indonesia will not become disconnected from the "massively connected era".