Sun educates Philippines

According to Inquirer.net, Sun Microsystems introduced high-level computer science training in the Philippines in local universities through the Java Education and Development Initiative (JEDI).

Matt Thompson, director of the Sun Developer Network and Open Source Programs Office of Sun Microsystems, said the JEDI programme was initially geared towards teaching Java. But through the years, the programme has evolved to include other courses, including mobile applications and security.

Sun says 273 schools out of 1 600 universities and tertiary schools have joined the programme.

Scripting languages and new application development frameworks are doing work Java once shouldered in its prime, says InfoWorld.

Nearly 13 years old, the Java language and platform created at Sun Microsystems now shares the software development limelight with scripting languages such as PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) and Ruby, as well as with Microsoft's .Net technologies.

Microsoft, meanwhile, has made its .Net platform a serious player in the enterprise space. A November 2007 report by Info-Tech Research Group stated the case for .Net becoming more popular than the Java platform in enterprises.

The Open Group is working with a consortium of European real-time technology developers, industrial manufacturers and research organisations to develop a new framework for Java-based real-time applications on modern parallel processor systems, says EETimes.com.

Supported by the European Commission, the Java Environment for Parallel Real-time Development project is investing over EUR3.3 million in an advanced framework for real-time Java running on multicore and parallel systems.

This platform-independent framework will maintain the robust reliability essential for safety and mission-critical applications, while using the additional processing power available from the latest parallel platforms.