“Sun Microsystems Inc and Samsung Electronics Co are jointly developing a mobile phone to challenge Apple Inc’s iPhone, a South Korean newspaper reported yesterday, quoting Sun chairman Scott McNealy,” The Associated Press reports.
“McNealy said on Tuesday in Seoul that the companies were working on a “Java phone” that would surpass Apple’s iPhone in functionality and cost less, the mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo reported,” AP reports.
“Spokespersons for Sun in South Korea and the US could not immediately be reached for comment,” AP reports. “Samsung spokeswoman Lee Soo-jeong in Seoul said ‘no decision has been made regarding co-development of the Java phone.’ She said that a meeting has taken place between the two sides “to introduce the idea” but would not elaborate on its timing or any details.”
Full article here.
Good luck with that guys — don’t forget to peruse Apple’s granted and pending iPhone-related patents while you develop your “killer.”
Look at Project Looking Glass,
Apple has never done truely ground-breaking stuff. What Apple has always done was take a good idea and refine it.
If it bleeds…we can kill it…..
@ justified
The article does say “that would surpass Apple’s iPhone”
Close enough for me.
Sun’s sole contribution will be to supply the Java Runtime Environment… whose sole contribution will be to update itself 3 times a day and make the cursor spin interminably at all other times.
They’ll call it the WaitPhone. It’ll be cool… really!!
Good Luck, Sunsung! Or is it Swansong? Never mind.
Difference between Steve and Scott is Scott shoots his mouth of and Steve keeps mum. Which has proven to be the best policy?
Java is dead.
MDN – You are as bad Dvorak, getting all the Apple fanboys fired up to increase the hits on this site.
My 7100i crackberry is java-based and it is dog slow! Scrolling around on the tiny web pages is so painful.
The stupid Nextel network gives me 56k dialup speeds downloading web pages, google maps data, whatever. I’d love to have the “slow” speeds that AT&T;’s EDGE gives the iPhone.
I can’t imagine trying to use a JAVA based phone. Why not drive around and find an old pay phone – it would be faster.
10 to 1 this phone never sees the light of day, at least not with Sun involved.
macPinche & hagar 57:
Both very funny. Thanks guys.
Steve called Java a “ball and chain”…certainly he has done the research. Is this announcement
what has tanked Apple and Blackberry stock today??…can’t seem to figure it out.
I for one hope that Sun and Samsung get is right and build a successful phone. Apple could use some real competition. Competition is what drives innovation.
Sun is a pretty cool company with an innovative history, and in my opinion, Samsung produces many high quality products. I can’t wait to see what they come up with. If it’s less than $300, I’ll buy one.
whatever happened to the javaphone that was announced last year?
“I’ll hold my AAPL stock. SUNW hasn’t done anything cool in years.”
@ totalMac
Whatever. Ever heard of ZFS? Ever heard of Looking Glass? I see a lot of more Sun servers out there than Apple servers.
You’ve got to love it….iPhone killer, iPod killer, iMac killer.. Doesn’t it feel great to be at the top?
GO Apple GO
Seriously good luck to them but if they are aiming to be better than the present iphone in one to two years time they will need all that luck and more I’m afraid as they have no idea what the target will actually be by then. To be honest the track record of java ‘anything’ hardly fills me with fear and sadly there are far more likely ‘java killers’ out there than iphone killers.
Whether this actually gets off the ground or not however the one thing it does show is Samsung’s total disolution with microsoft’s chances of developing the means to kill it.
FTA:
“McNealy said on Tuesday in Seoul that the companies were working on a “Java phone” that would surpass Apple’s iPhone in functionality and cost less, the mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo reported,” AP reports.
Gasp! Amazing, isn’t it? “Functionality,” yeah, that’s the ticket – NOT! These bozos are blind to the fact that usability and the user experience are the reason Apple is succeeding in one market after another. It is wonderful to have such stupid competitors. What is it in the making of corporate executives that makes them so blind to the obvious?
If this is real,
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/apple-touchscreen-phone-circa-1983
Apple shall prevail in any lawsuit I would imagine.
And if patents were done etc.
Whatever, very nice Apple.
Funny how it’s gonna take TWO companies to merge on an idea and development to ‘kill’ the iPhone.
http://pbzone.com/2007/05/28/iphone-touch-screen-like-nothing-youve-ever-used/
So quite possibly the gPhone is the iPhone?
gPhone was to be a Google Phone.
Samsung provides a lot to Apple. Hmmmmm is this legal?
iPhone.
So far it takes 3 companies to have Apples Phone do wonders.
Google, AT&T;, Apple.
Who else is involved with this iPhone Plan.
Once discovered things will rocket again.
KILL ALL THE FUTURE IPHONE CONSUMERS…
IT’S A LOT EASIER!!!!
Competition is good… Bring it on so we consumers can benefit.
@Jeff
Your argument is totally out of context. One could just as easily say there are a lot more Apple desktops than Sun desktops. But, its not germane to Jake’s point about cross-licensing technology.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate ZFS and Looking Glass too. However, Sun has not yet been able to leverage them for better market share.
JAVA Market Cap = $21,000,564,900
AAPL Market Cap = $141,081,859,430