My headline from last week — “Harmony: The only Java SE implementation that matters” — was obviously meant to be deliberately provocative. Perhaps it would be better to day that it’s the only Java SE implementation whose development is having an immediate impact on the day-to-day experiences of those who use it. But one anonymous commenter made an important point: “JEE *depends* on JSE. You could claim JSE-as-something-a-typical-user-cares-about is a flop, but not that JSE as an entity has been a flop.”This is true, which is all the more reason why it shouldn’t be neglected! And, to read this interview with Oracle Chief Corporate Architect Edward Screven, you wouldn’t think any neglect was possible. Here’s what he has to say about Oracle’s Java strategy:Java is really one of the most important computing technologies ever. It’s a programming environment and language technology that is extremely widely deployed both in terms of number of devices and computers — literally billions. And there are different scopes of deployment—for example, very small Java implementations that run on smart cards and then Java implementations that run on the largest SMP [symmetric multiprocessing] boxes. That ubiquity of the programming language and programming model is very powerful for customers and developers. Our strategy is to continue to push the boundaries of that. So, continue to enhance the programming model and the APIs. Continue to invest in Java as a technology at every single scope, at every single scale.“Every single scope, at every single scale”: that sounds great, but it’s not particularly substantive or revealing. Screven simply seems to be saying that Oracle has no specific priorities within the Java world, but will be going full-bore on every Java implementation from Java Card to Java EE, which is not very realistic.Admittedly, this interview appeared in the Oracle-published Oracle Magazine, so we shouldn’t expect hard-hitting investigative journalism. Outsiders have somewhat different takes. Java creator and brief Oracle employee James Gosling has, in the few months since his seemingly acrimonious departure from the company, specialized in letting slip occasional disparaging tidbits on Java’s new owner. For instance, at the recent Hadoop Summit, he said, “The core VM on enterprise hardware, that’s the core of their business. They understand that. They will execute really well on that. Outside of that, when it comes to like the desktop stuff and the cell phone stuff, they find it very confusing. [The non-server side of Java is] kind of a strange world to them.” One would think this would make it all the more necessary to hold on to Sun personnel who specialize in this area. But Oracle’s strategy has been to layoff their way to profitability, shedding engineers but planning on doubling sales staff. It’s worked in the short term — the Sun unit is now profitable, which is more than Sun had been able to say for itself for some years. But if non-enterprise Java ends up losing Oracle’s attention, then will the goals of the acquisition — to safeguard Oracle’s Java EE products from outside control — be met? Technology Industry