| Sun acquires Java-based mobile phone OS |
Apr. 12, 2007
 Sun Microsystems announced today that it is acquiring the assets of SavaJe Technologies and will reveal further details at its JavaOne conference next month. SavaJe's claim to fame is its Java-based embedded operating system, which was shown running in a mobile phone at JavaOne last May.
The "Jasper S20" mobile phone (pictured above), made by GSPDA (Group Sense Limited PDA) and running SavaJe's Java-based mobile phone OS, won "Device of the Show" honors at Sun's JavaOne conference in May of 2006.
SavaJe touts its Java-based mobile phone OS as being built from the kernel up for Java, but not "Java on bare metal," since a small multi-tasking, multi-threaded kernel manages the hardware resources and sits below the JVM. The deal could potentially place Sun -- whose Java technology resides in hundreds of millions of mobile phones already -- squarely in competition with the major mobile phone OS players: Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Linux.
The differences between SavaJe's Java-based OS and the typical OS approach are illustrated in the following graphic, provided by SavaJe:
"We implement in C/C++ where appropriate [or where] performance is needed," a SavaJe spokesperson told DeviceForge.com last May. "All applications are written in Java. The middleware is a mix of Java and C/C++. Most of the kernel and low level OS is in C." The kernel is several megabytes in size, and integrates a "highly optimized" JVM, the spokesperson added.
Founded in 1999, SavaJe released version 1.0 version 1.0 of its SavaJe XE operating system in November of 2001, and announced SavaJe OS Smartphone Edition in March of 2002.
Despite its prominence at JavaOne last May, however, SavaJe was close to closing its doors and was seeking additional funding from venture capitalists last fall, according to an article at eWEEK.com. Despite having raised $71 million in funding over the years, the 140-person company reportedly furloughed some of its developers other employees in early October, "asking them to use up their vacation time or go on unpaid leave while SavaJe moved to find its way out of its financial troubles," eWEEK said. Additionally, sources had indicated that "SavaJe may in fact have shut down operations entirely."
According to Sun, "the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed during the fourth quarter of Sun's 2007 fiscal year which began on April 2, 2007." Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the company says "the transaction is immaterial to [its] earnings per share."
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