JavaOne: Oracle to bring Java SE and ME closer together

Oracle has revealed plans for the next generation of its Java platform for PCs, including an eventual merger of Java SE and Java ME for mobile and embedded systems.

The company took to the stage on Tuesday at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco to outline a number of proposed changes to the platform.

Adam Messinger, Oracle vice president of development for Fusion Middleware, said that, while Java ME will continue to target mobile devices and Java SE to target embedded systems, the company will bring the two products closer together.

"We think it is time to bring them together and bridge the divide between them," he said.

Oracle demonstrated several products for Java, including an iOS application based on an HTML 5 shell that enables the use of Java platforms.

The PC version of Java was also a hot topic during the Tuesday keynote. Oracle has made the first preview versions of JDK 7 for Mac OS available, and mentioned a new release date for the Java 8 JDK build.

Messinger explained that Oracle will push back the release of the JDK by six months to mid-2013, owing to the need to balance the demands of developers and the larger Java community who have concerns about the pace of development.

"As we have talked with the community, we have heard that the pace is too rapid. It enables us to get the work done by late 2012 but, having an extra six months, were not just sitting on our hands. We have plenty to do," he said.

Among the planned improvements are better integration of the Jigsaw platform and Lambda instructions for multi-threading, and the project Nashorn high-performance JavaScript engine.