New Java FX technology joins rich internet application frenzy.
Sun Microsystems plans to unveil a new product family that competes with Microsoft's Silverlight, Adobe's Apollo and the Ajax programming technique.
Java FX products will address the rich internet application market across mobile devices, desktop computers and TV set-top boxes.
The company is expected to unveil the new family at the JavaOne conference on 8 May.
Java FX is centred around developer tools for which Sun has yet to determine a release date.
The tools are designed to make it easier to create rich internet applications. The underlying technology is similar to today's Java desktop software, with the addition of a single library.
Java FX also includes a new operating system for mobile phones that allows Java FX applications to run, as well as a new Java FX scripting language. All components will be released under an open source licence.
Jeffrey Hammond, a senior analyst with Forrester Research, described the unveiling as a "pretty big announcement".
"The major vendors have to realise that rich internet application development is going to be a very strategic technology for companies," he said.
"Sun has put a stake in the ground and said that Java FX is what people need for rich internet application development."
Hammond expects the technology to play especially well with enterprise developers who are already used to programming with Java and have created relatively few rich internet applications.
Such applications refer to online services in which the behaviour and interactivity mimic those of desktop applications.
A static internet application behaves more like a regular web page, requiring users to click on regular links to interact with the application.
Java FX intends to allow application architects to craft online applications by dragging and dropping images, eliminating the need to manually write code.
They will be able to create animated buttons, for instance, by dragging images directly from Photoshop.
The technique is built on the same foundations for regular Java applications, allowing developers to use all the features that the platform offers.
An Ajax FX service, for instance, can access system resources such as a CD-ROM, or can function when no internet connection is present.
Security is guaranteed because Java applications execute in a so-called sandbox mode that shields the Java software from all other system resources.
Microsoft is working on a rich internet application platform with its Silverlight technology that is currently in beta.
Adobe is developing its Apollo network, which allows developers to use existing programming techniques such as Flash, HTML and JavaScript to craft rich internet applications. The technology is currently in the 'alpha' testing phase.
Ajax, meanwhile, is used by start-up web application providers and established online players such as Google and Yahoo.
Ajax suffers from programming challenges because it is difficult to create an application that works across multiple browsers. The technique can also expose users to a series of security challenges.
Sun stressed that Java FX does not target any particular programming technique, but acknowledged that there are large overlaps in functionality.
"We are not trying to compete with the Ajax folks. But we implicitly end up there because you can do similar sorts of things," said Java inventor James Gosling, a vice president at Sun, in reference to Ajax.
Instead, the company argued, it wants to provide a way to extend richer applications to smartphones.
Current Java ME technology provides basic Java capabilities to yesterday's underpowered mobile handsets.
But as chip technologies and screen sizes evolve, smartphones have become just as capable as desktop computers of running certain applications.
Java FX Mobile offers a more powerful version of the Java ME technology that powers current mobile Java applications such as games and ring-tones.
It bridges the gap between smartphones and desktop computers essentially by allowing a single application to execute on either device.
"One way to think of Java FX Mobile is as the next step in the progression of Java ME," said Gosling.
Rich Green, executive vice president for software at Sun, added: "Java FX Mobile is focused on taking all the richness of the desktop, and the giant developer community of the desktop, and bringing it down to the higher volume world of smartphones."