Oracle Looks To Internet of Things With Java ME Embedded

Oracle has announced new releases in its Java Embedded family of products, which it says is aimed at helping Java power machine-to-machine (M2M) environments and the Internet of Things.

At the JavaOne Shanghai 2013 conference, Oracle announced the release of Oracle Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) Embedded 3.3 and Oracle Java ME Software Development Kit (SDK) 3.3, a complete client Java runtime and toolkit optimised for micro-controllers and other resource-constrained devices.

New Opportunities

In an interview with eWEEK, Peter Utzschneider, vice president of product management at Oracle, said the new versions of Java Embedded technologies will help simplify application development and open new market opportunities for the M2M and Internet of Things sector.

The Internet of Things refers to a vision of the future where everyday things – such as devices, homes, cities, cars and other items – are infused with intelligence and ubiquitously connected to the Internet.

Oracle officials said the rapid growth of the Internet of Things is driving demand for open and cross-industry platforms that can help customers decrease time to market, manage costs and deliver new capabilities for embedded devices.

Oracle continues to address these challenges with the latest release of Java ME Embedded, which provides strong support for leading embedded chip architectures and new binaries for ARM architecture-based developer boards, including the Raspberry Pi and the Keil STM32 F200 Evaluation Board for ARM Cortex-M processor-based devices.

“For the last two years we’ve been recasting all the embedded Java technology we got from Sun,” Utzschneider said. “Sun was taking Java in a vertical direction in the embedded space, looking mostly at phones and set-top boxes; we’re taking it horizontal.”

Indeed, Oracle is changing the costs and dynamics of product market entry and life cycle for OEMs, application developers and service providers by providing the Oracle Java ME SDK and related tools at no cost for internal developing and testing purposes.

Java embedded technologies are a key component of Oracle’s complete, “device to data centre” platform, simplifying the implementation of Internet of Things and M2M solutions. Leveraging Java’s cross-platform benefits, Oracle Java ME Embedded implementations enable application portability, increased flexibility of hardware and platform choice, and extended product life cycles.

Portable Code

“Our goal is to make it easy for people to write code and have code portability for very small devices all the way up to very big ones,” Utzschneider told eWEEK.

“Oracle is dramatically changing the costs and dynamics of product market entry and life cycle for OEMs, applications developers and services providers,” said Nandini Ramani, vice president of Java development at Oracle, in a statement. “With the latest updates to our Java embedded product family, Oracle is continuing to deliver against customer requirements and key values to help drive increased growth and capabilities for connected M2M devices. We are committed to delivering a single, modern Java development platform for our customers that extends from device to data centre.”

Oracle is also introducing the Oracle Java Platform Integrator program to provide partners with the ability to customise Oracle Java ME Embedded products to reach different device types and market segments. Coupled with the massive Java ecosystem of over 9 million Java developers worldwide, this new program will help enable greater development and deployment flexibility for the Internet of Things, Oracle said.

“As you go smaller and smaller in devices, the fragmentation [for developers] is significant – we feel Java can eliminate some of that fragmentation,” Utzschneider said.

The Oracle Java Platform Integrator program provides opportunities for companies developing embedded products on devices to leverage a consistent platform across their choice of hardware and operating systems, allowing customers to reduce the engineering effort required to enable their application and services across multiple platforms.

It also increases their opportunity for added product value and differentiation, and to more rapidly deploy and monetise standard Oracle Java ME Embedded implementations to help them explore new business opportunities. And it reduces time to market and ongoing costs through a preintegrated and optimized Java Embedded stack.