Mobile Java may have been fragmented and difficult, but it was the first real open handset software platform, supporting new services long before any phone was able to support a full operating system like Android ‘ and it remains essential to millions of low end mobile devices today. Now its owner Oracle wants to give it a similar role in the emerging internet of things (IoT) ‘ providing the unifying layer to bring together so many diverse elements.
Controlling that layer and its resulting ecosystem would give Oracle considerable power in the IoT space, going some way to compensating for the gradual decline of Java’s influence in handsets. Oracle’s desire to capitalize on Java more effectively than Sun, the technology’s inventor (which the database giant acquired), was seen in its challenge to Google’s mobile OS dominance, when it memorably filed suit, claiming that Android had ripped off Java code. The result of the case was disappointing for Oracle, and certainly did not alter the balance of power between Java and Android in the smartphone segment, but it revealed an enterprise software company that was eager to establish new power bases in higher growth areas.
The IoT would fall into that category, though there, Java will face different enemies. As Oracle rolled out the latest release of Java Micro Edition Embedded, positioning it as a platform to unify diverse real time OSs and protocols, it could see other contenders for that role. Some are coming from standards bodies, like 6LoWPAN; some from government initiatives, like the US’s Industrial Internet group, led by GE; some, like Java MEE, are being pushed by vendors which think they could have sufficient weight to establish a de facto standard (Qualcomm’s AllJoyn may well evolve into such a candidate).
To stand a chance against these other umbrella platforms, Oracle is putting more effort into embedded Java than it has at any time since the Sun acquisition. It has promised a Java-based
services delivery platform, initially supporting a new family of gateways from Freescale, and will also run Java on microcontrollers from Freescale, Qualcomm, STMicro and others. The latest release is available as a binary runtime for the ARM11-based Raspberry Pi Model B and STMicro STM32F4, and will soon come to other chipsets.
Oracle is also adding to functionality, migrating some features planned for Java Standard Edition 8 into microcontroller-based Java ME Embedded. The alignment between the high end and embedded flavors “will help create a more unified Java Embedded developer platform and ecosystem to better address the complexity of the internet of things,” said Nandini Ramani, VP of development for Java at Oracle, in a statement.
Freescale, which has been going through a similar shift of emphasis away from smartphones and towards embedded devices, will be Oracle’s key partner in seeking a critical role for Java in the machine-to-machine world. The two companies will co-develop a platform for service providers based on Java and the Freescale Kinetis, i.MX and QorIQ processors. The first elements of that platform are gateway reference designs, under the One Box label, targeting specific IoT sectors. One Box is an appliance with a Java software stack, which can communicate with sensors running Java Embedded via any of the main protocols in use in IoT. The box handles some of the real time data processing and sends other data to the cloud to be handled there. The initial versions are targeted at home energy and healthcare, two of the most promising first generation IoT applications, and run on i.MX 6 chips. Over the next few weeks, Freescale will roll out more reference designs using other processors, including some for industrial control.
Eventually, Freescale envisages a hierarchy of mix-and-match IoT home and network gateways, connected by various protocols. The pressure will be on to shrink Java down to the smallest microcontrollers, including those with less than 32Kbytes of memory ‘ a challenge Qualcomm has also taken up, claiming it has readied a version of AllJoyn for microcontrollers with real time OSs and less than 40Kbytes of ROM.
The company is clearly keen to be in pole position should Java achieve its goals in the embedded space. It has joined the Java Community Process, in order to contribute to the accelerating pace of development for the technology on low end microcontrollers, and to help shape the direction of that trend. It has also joined OpenJDK, where it says it will encourage developers to support more legacy M2M protocols in their Java APIs.Meanwhile, Freescale will optimize its MQX embedded operating system to act as a hardware abstraction layer for Java across its chips.
Of course, Oracle’s real interest in IoT lies in all the data that will be generated. As in its new carrier strategy, which sees it coming deeper into the operator’s network via acquisitions like Tekelec and Acme Packet, it is eyeing the convergence of networks and IT. Operators of mobile networks for humans, and in future for ‘things’, increasingly collect vast amounts of data from their devices and need sophisticated analytics to make sense of it and turn it into gold. So in Freescale’s new One Boxes, the data analytics engines in the cloud and on the box are from Oracle, but the database company also spreads its tentacles further through the service provider’s systems by supplying the middleware for an end-to-end service delivery platform based on Java.
The level of Freescale’s commitment to Java was seen in statements from Kaivan Karimi, executive director of global strategy and business development for the firm’s microcontroller group. He pinned the company’s colors unequivocally to the Java mast, telling EETimes: “Java is the unifying platform for the internet of things. The whole service delivery infrastructure from the core of the network through the gateway to edge nodes will use Java.’ Many other candidates will beg to differ, but if Karimi proves right, Java will once again provide a powerful, if imperfect, unifying layer for a fragmented market.